Does Brookline Have a Problem with Black People? It all depends on who you ask.

[MADem]

....For Brookline, the episode was deeply off-brand. It is a regular competitor in magazine listicles of the best places to live in the nation, if you can afford the high real estate costs and cope with the community’s proud busybody nature. (It’s also been named at least once among the “snobbiest” towns in the country.) Democratic voters outnumbered Republicans by upward of five to one in the March presidential primary, and Brookline has consistently led the charge on progressive causes. Over the past 15 years, the town has banned plastic bags, Styrofoam, and trans fats; eschewed police stun guns; floated a tax on sport utility vehicles; debated the merits of the Pledge of Allegiance in schools; and even committed the sacrilege of dissing Dunkin’ Donuts when the chain wanted to set up shop along its suburban streets. Brookline, says town counsel Joslin Murphy, is a “beautiful oasis” in the Boston-area rat race, “a very educated town comprised of citizens who are deeply interested in social justice.”

An outspoken group of public servants and residents, however, say that such lofty ideals have little to do with actual town practices, and claim that racism within the police department is perennial and not simply isolated to one or two embarrassing and hateful incidents. As a result, Pilot and seven other police officers and firefighters have filed lawsuits in state and federal court alleging a “longstanding and well-established policy” of racial discrimination in the town. Many residents have spoken publicly or made court claims detailing their experiences with racial profiling and discrimination, and an April survey found that members of the town’s mostly white officer corps considered the department rife with nepotism. In January, the town’s own Commission for Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Relations declared that the board of selectmen was at fault for allowing “a culture of institutional racism” through its personnel decisions.

And yet Brookline administrators have been dismissive of the notion that the town has a racism problem that they have failed to address. Murphy, a former Brookline police officer, declares that the “town truly cares about these employees and very much hopes that they can return to work in a way that they are satisfied with.” But in nearly the same breath, she criticizes the attention that the employees’ discrimination claims have received, saying that their lawsuits are “weak” and that “when that’s the case, plaintiffs tend to lean toward public pressure.”

Pilot, who now chops trees in the Berkshires to make ends meet, is far less sanguine. “You can quote me on this,” he says. “I’m calling Brookline a fake-ass liberal town.”....allegations of police profiling and harassment persist. Dwaign Tyndal, a member of the town’s diversity commission, relocated to Brookline 12 years ago for its excellent public schools and idyllic setting—that perfect little village nestled a short drive from downtown Boston. Yet, he says, conversations with other black Brookline residents inevitably circle back to how certain areas—such as Coolidge Corner—are notorious for traffic stops that reek of racial profiling. “Those are the areas,” Tyndal says, “where it gets communicated to you in different ways that you aren’t invited here.”

Arthur Conquest, a black man who has lived in Brookline for 34 years, agrees that if you’re black or Latino you should expect to be stopped by police when walking along the town’s streets. “All this business about the town being liberal, the town being progressive, and them being committed to diversity, it’s absolutely nonsense,” he says.

Proving racial bias in traffic stops is notoriously thorny, but statistics collected by the police department do show that black people make up a significant portion of those stopped in Brookline. In 2015, for example, Brookline officers performed 76 “field interrogations” of people who were stopped for what they deemed to be suspicious activity. In a town where roughly 3 percent of residents are black, 23 of those stops—or 30 percent—were of black people.

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2016/10/16/brookline-racism/

I agree with the characterization of Brookline--it's not a fun place if you're unknown and melanin-enriched, in any form. It is troubling to have this cognitive dissonance when you find yourself in that community, where you're surrounded by "liberals" who tick off all the right boxes on climate change, choice, equality, etc., but then, you realize they're .... racists. It CAN happen. And it does in Brookline. smdh! I hope they fix it--and soon.

[SusanCalvin]

1. I appreciate those police officers who blew the whistle. nt

[MADem]

4. I wish the hierarchy were more supportive of diversity in public officials there, though.

I haven't been to Brookline in years, but even back in the day it was like this.

[SusanCalvin]

5. Oh, absolutely.

I'm fortunate enough to live in a *really* diverse area - I'm used to that, and I think all-white anything would freak me out.

[MrScorpio]

2. I think that we've been around long enough...

To confirm that liberal spaces can have white supremacy problems. It's not necessarily only a political issue, but a social one as well. This entire country was founded on the basis of white supremacy. It shouldn't be surprising wherever we see it, especially in predominantly white spaces. It needs to be addressed and and not swept under the carpet.

[MADem]

3. "It needs to be addressed and and not swept under the carpet."

I agree wholeheartedly. It's not enough to recycle, champion universal health care, attend that cousin's "gay wedding," and vote to legalize weed -- and then claim to proudly be a lefty. There is more to the portfolio than that.


There are some people who just don't "get" the issue of privilege and, sadly, some of 'em live in Brookline and hassle people in Coolidge Corner.

[heaven05]

6. I lived in Boston

in the 70's and the same things were being discussed by people in Roxbury and Dorchester. I lived in Dorchester while attending Boston U. Not as open and obvious as 'Southie" but more covert, but obvious to the "melanin enriched".

[MADem]

7. I remember back then, it was the same in Brookline. But you wouldn't recognize Southie anymore.

It was a blizzard in the days of Louise Day Hicks; it's real swirly nowadays. And Roxbury is getting all upscale and pale; it was only a matter of time. The young families want to live in/near the cities, and the old paradigms are out the window. East-a Boss, which used to be so Italian (North End overflow), is the place to go to get good Central/South American food. The overwhelming majority of the population there is of Spanish language heritage.

[heaven05]

8. wow it has changed

I see 'gentrification' has made its mark there also. I wonder how many original Roxbury original locals were displaced with rotten deals. I must say gentrification is one insidious side effect of white privilege and their money.

[MADem]

9. A lot of people in Roxbury moved over to Mattapan, which used to be

a largely white enclave and is now much more colorful. We're also seeing some small amounts of diversity sliding out to the burbs, to historically pale cities and towns where there's decent access to the city.

Small cities like Lawrence and Lowell are demographically very different nowadays, too--Lawrence (which was, a half century ago, mostly Irish and Italian children of mill workers) is on their 2nd Hispanic mayor, and Lowell boasts one of the largest Cambodian populations in the entire USA.

NH now has a PERCEPTIBLE black population--it's not much (one percent!!), but it's more than the .001% of days gone by~! And the hispanic population in NH is a whopping TWO percent!

For the life of me, I don't understand why that state gets to be "first in the nation" -- they're so ... UNREPRESENTATIVE!

That said, in comparison to other states, MA is losing population (notwithstanding that Boston is growing by leaps and bounds and is completely different and way more "high-rise-y" than it was back in the 70s). I've got friends and relations whose kids have moved to places like Georgia and North Carolina, which back in the day I would have perceived as rather unfriendly places unless you were going to see family and turn around and get the hell out or something--but they're making their way there for jobs and weather. And the living is good, apparently.

Brookline, though, is still weird. It's like they're stuck in a time warp or something. And they KNOW it--and LIKE it. That's rather a sorry situation IMO. I hope they get correct.

Gentrification is hitting all the neighborhoods in Boston--I think East Boston will be next. Northeastern University has built up around Dudley Station and "upscaled" that whole area and they wiped out a lot of affordable (but, to be completely transparent, woefully substandard) housing that was a mix of neighborhood people and student apartments and the average schmuck can't afford to buy in Southie, either. In the city, proper, fuggedaboutit---the shitbox apartment I lived in, in days gone by, condo-ized and is valued close to a half million. I paid a hundred and some odd a month for it! You couldn't rent the doorknob for that price, nowadays!

I think the people who get screwed with gentrification are the renters--the owners make sure they get their cut--of course, they are told every year when they pay their taxes how much their properties are worth, and they know before the tenants when the best time to sell is.

[heaven05]

10. I also lived in Brighton

during my college days. Glad to hear that progress is happening in the overall demographics of different cultures. Yep sounds very much like diversity might have a chance in NH in the next century . Oh well thanks for the info. Go Hillary tonight!