Today is as good as any to conclude my South Boston series because if you are from Boston you cannot think of St. Patrick’s Day without thinking of the South Boston parade which I went to in my early years as a child and teenager. It used to be celebrated on March 17 and not a neighboring Sunday. It used to be a parade of bands, politicians, beer trucks and fun (and a fight or two). I said what I did in the parenthesis because while writing this I recall I was very young at my grandmother’s house up on East Fourth Street and a brawl broke out in front of me in which some relatives had a jolly good time.
Now to think of the parade one thinks of the issue surrounding the GLBT group marching in it. Fortunately and happily that has been resolved once and for all so the parade can again go back to its roots of welcoming everyone brave enough to march.
Its roots also include my memory of the 1957 parade when its marshal Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin, Robert Briscoe “A religious, Jewish, Irish mayor was an unexpected presence who represented much of what Cold War Americans hoped was possible in their own country: courageous patriotism from members of all parties of the Judeo-Christian tradition” marched with the gold chain emblem of his office around his neck. I’ve read the parade was delayed for two days to accommodate his appearance.
The Southie I know and remember is not the Southie that is portrayed in the media. I’ve shown how prominent people from South Boston and Boston (mainly Irish Catholics) have been in the forefront of the fight against racism, anti-Semitism and bigotry, much more so than the Johnny-come-lately WASPs who sought to keep America free from the strangers coming in from Europe, especially the Russian Jews and Italians.
I’ve told how the headline read “bad old Southie.” Other Globe writers chimed in in the past week. Adrian Walker commented: how the exclusion of LGBT is “reinforcing a reputation for intolerance and insularity that much of South Boston desperately wants to shed;” Yvonne Abraham commented: “The tired, tribal Boston of “The Departed” has largely departed. But here are these guys, dragging us all into the old ugly.” She added excluding gays was a: “reinforcing the stereotype of South Boston as a bastion of intolerance, . . . “
Did you ever stop to think of where this reputation for “intolerance and insularity” or “bastion of intolerance” comes from? It has been the Globe’s false mantra toward Southie for years and is picked up year-after-year by its writers. In that newspaper, as Abraham repeated with her mentioning of the movie Departed (that was almost an exact copy of a Hong Kong movie “Infernal Affairs”) we are to think of “tired tribal” Southie and criminal Whitey Bulger.
The gang Whitey led was supposed to be an Irish gang even though most of the leadership was Italian; it was called the Southie gang even though most of its leaders were from Roxbury and it was stationed in Somerville and then the North End. When the true facts are ignored and a minor one emphasized then you can see the animus.
Southie was mostly white. So were most of the suburbs surrounding Boston. Did you ever hear of Newton or Brookline mostly white communities, where many people moved to when their parts of Boston were becoming occupied by African-Americans, being called tribal, insular or intolerant? What about other parts of Boston or the tony suburbs that will take in black kids from Boston (METCO program) but won’t bus their kids into Boston? Have any other parts of Boston with their gangsters such as the North End or Dorchester been labeled by the worst among them as Southie has?
One may think its reputation comes from the days of busing. I’ve told how I told a fellow lawyer who lived in Brookine that the Boston School Committed (I represented them) planned to include Brookline in it busing plan and he almost died from fright thinking his kids would be bused into the city. Southie did rebel against busing. It and a handful of other poor Boston neighborhoods were the only places in Massachusetts where their kids could not go to neighborhood schools. The people protested. Unfortunately some few acted violently but the whole neighborhood was unfairly tarred as intolerant because its people wanted what almost every other family in the state had.
The plan was to bus Southie kids to schools to inferior schools other areas of the city. Those not affected like the Globe staff, the residents of Wellesley (where the judge lived), and other suburbs cheered this shuffling of poor kids to achieve an objective that was not achievable. The hypocrisy was astounding. To cover it up, the speck of intolerance sawdust in Southie’s eye was highlighted, and is still to this day, while the log of intolerance in the eye of those condemning Southie is ignored.
Perhaps it is time for the Globe and other media to treat Southie like it treats every other section of the city and state. I would think by now it desperately wants to shed its old animus and no longer be looked as reinforcing the stereotype of [the Globe and other Boston media] as a bastion of intolerance” when it comes to Southie.
1. Why is there a Brookline at all? Look at a map. It sticks out like Freddie Langone’s Funeral parlor. No politics there.
2. Why try to rationalize the Globe at all? To them there are only two neighborhoods: Southie and Roxbury.
3. Mayor Briscoe extolled the values of his Catholic brethren but also was grateful to be a Jew on a cold Sunday morning in Dublin.
Happy Saint Patricks Day to the whole Connolly clan (each one of which seems to paired with a Hutchie). Keep up the good work Matt and all your contributors.
Borrowing from a previous Southie post–
To reach Kevin Cullen or Shelly Murphy, do you have to dial 1-781?
And is either Globie allowed in the *real* neighborhoods of Southie (as opposed to Fort Point and the so-called Seaport District)?
Matt:
We’ll continue to disagree.
Anyway, have a happy St. Patrick’s Day weekend! And the same to all who read and post on this site!
The Catholic Church opposes gay marriage and the Catechism of the Catholic Church says homosexual conduct is “inherently disordered” and “can never be approved.” (A view shared by many conservative religions) Should the Catholic Church suffer “opprobrium” as you contend? Are the Catholic Church’s positions “slights against us all”? And by “all”, what “all” are you referring to? You mean all who march in sync with the leftist zeitgeist?
Veteran’s deserve opprobrium for having traditional views? Those who don’t want to celebrate “gay-pride” deserve “opprobrium”?
The Catechism does also say that no “unjust discrimination” should be shown homosexuals. There’s nothing unjust about not wanting to celebrate “gay-pride.”
As you agree: forced speech is anathema; and today, liberals point accusatory fingers at defenders of traditional values who refuse to recant, just like the people of Salem who burned folks at the stake who refused to recant.
How easy it is to cast stones!!!
If I were a gay vet I would much rather march as a veteran in the Gay Pride parade.
Agree.
Happy St . Patrick Day to one and all. I agree, Matt. The Globe is living in the past. Time to move on.
The principle that the South Boston Allied War Veterans fought for in the early 1990s transcended the Parade itself. It was a simple principle: In America, a speaker controls his own speech. As applied to private parades, parade organizers decide what messages, what symbols, what signs, what banners are displayed in their parade: no one else: not judges, not the mayor, not the Boston Globe. Simple, huh?
A unanimous Supreme Court thought it so simple that it declared that Massachusetts Judges had “acted without lawful authority” in forcing an unwanted message upon parade organizers.
It’s simple, it’s freedom of speech, freedom of conscience.
The latest squabble: the Veterans initially asked an invited gay group not to display a gay-pride banner (with Rainbow symbol) and flag. The Veterans had every right to do that. If the Veterans caved to political pressure or if they acted under duress that is not a good thing.
Forced busing is bad; forced speech is bad.
Bill:
True a person or entity controls the speech of the event but it is difficult to get around the idea that the parade organizers are anti-gay They have a right to be that in this country but the must accept the opprobrium that come with holding such a position. Yes the veterans have a right to tell the gay veterans not to display a gay-pride banner (with Rainbow symbol) and flag (which they retreated on) but pretending that was offensive to anyone other than people who are bothered by gays is absurd. Fortunately the gays are now as much a part of our society as straights and slights against them are slights against all of us. Best of all the issue has been put to bed for all times.
Matt:
1. Must all expressive events include gay-pride motifs, or only some St. Pat’s Day Parades? Must everyone celebrate “gay-pride”, constantly, once a month or only once a year?
2. I note a lack of gay-pride signs and symbols in your daily posts. Why is that!
3. Please post the rainbow flag outside your house next Christmas so as not to “slight” anyone.
I remember your speaking about representing the Boston School Committee and saying, with a smile, “Do you know what it is like to go two years without even winning a motion?” At least you were able to keep up with your newspaper reading! Thank you for the many years you kept me and my family safer through the good works you did. Happy saint Patrick’s Day, Matt.
Bill:
You are very kind and I have enjoyed your Irish wit and wisdom over the years. Happy St. Patrick’s Day.