I grew up in a suburb of Boston and my school/town was all but segregated, we had one black student up through middle school and only three blacks in my graduating class in the early nineties. It is true that despite its east coast educated liberal reputation, Boston is a very racist city. Even with the huge growth in biotech along the 128 belt, it seems to me that people are generally more accepting of asians (at least educated technology workers) than blacks.
One theory that I have heard advanced suggests that Boston, by way of being relatively small, distant, having a very strong history of neighborhood segregation, and lacking significant industry by WWII did not see the influx of poor and uneducated southern blacks that other northern cities, such as Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia did by circa WWII. The story goes that this was the last of the large scale migrations of southern black workers moving north. Boston had its early ghettoes in Roxbury, Mattapan, and Dorchester, and eventually blacks did settle there, but the city did not have nearly the footprint of the aforementioned “rust belt” cities, and these factors contributed to the racial attitudes in Boston that persist to this day.
Even today, I hear people who should know better–they’re educated people!–state that they think it was incredibly wrong of the Supreme Court to strike down the laws prohibiting mixed race marriages. Feel free to read my thread about the robin and the bluejay.
As for the photographer: isn’t there a huge discussion constantly going on about if, when, and how they should get involved in an incident? Regardless of that, how do you know he could have done anything to stop it? How do you know if he didn’t immediately call the police or other emergency personnel after snapping the picture? I don’t know either.
In the mid-70s two black families moved into the previously all-white suburban neighborhood of Tara Hills, near the city of Pinole in the San Francisco Bay Area. The problems started when their kids were harassed at Pinole Valley High School. Then people started harassing the families at their homes: someone started a fire in the front yard of one of the families, and people would drive by the homes at all hours and scream obscenities.
The neighborhood was in an unincorporated area, so there was no police force other than the county sheriff’s department, who seemed unable or unwilling to give the families the level of protection they needed. Members of local civil rights groups repaired the arson damage and posted watches outside the families’ homes. I spent a few hours one night on watch, as did my dad. Eventually the two families moved away from Tara Hills.
Tara Hills and Pinole are completely different now. The communities are integrated, and I’m sure most of the newer residents would be shocked to learn what happened there only a few decades ago.
If I were subjected to a tremendous injustice, I’d love for a photojournalist to be around, making a record of it. Sure, I’d probably love not being subjected to injustice even more, but I wouldn’t necessarily blame the photographer.
I’m somewhat amused that you think one guy taking on three or four furious assholes, at least one armed with a big stick, is feasible.
But I’ll bet this would make an interesting classroom discussion.
In the early 1970’s, I was going to public high school in Denver, and believe me, there was some violence when desegregation began. Nothing like American flags being used as spears, the bad vibes were much, much more subtle, but there was also the occasional clashing between kids, and one major lunchroom ruckus.
Plenty of white flight, as well. Years later, DPS still has issues; one quarter of Denver children did not attend DPS last year.