The more things change, the more they insist upon staying the same.
The Boston Globe Magazine’s July 19 profile of the candidates of color—almost all of whom are Democrats—running for the Boston City Council failed to inspire much hope in readers looking for real change on the esteemed board. While the Council—long perceived to be the bastion of Irish- and Italian-American politicians—will likely have more physical diversity in 2010-2011, it will remain deficient when it comes to philosophical diversity.
The article focused heavily on candidate Ayanna Pressley, a longtime aide to Senator John Kerry who is considered a lock to secure a seat on the Council this fall. While Pressley is regarded as having the ability to transcend racial barriers, it’s not clear that she has the ability to transcend business-as-usual liberalism: having spent years working for both Kerry and former Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy II, it’s reasonable to assume that she will not deviate from the doctrinaire liberalism both men embody.
The article notes that “…many of the city’s young black candidates have prepped for campaigns by being government professionals, specifically, aides to [Democratic] legislators. Pressley and [Ego] Ezedi, who was a staffer to US Representative Michael Capuano, have worked for members of Congress…Carlos Henriquez, who is challenging [controversial Councilor Chuck] Turner for a second time, worked for [Michael] Flaherty on the City Council…The resumes of some young candidates do reflect grass-roots connections. Henriquez was a council aide but has also been a community activist with the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative… Pressley describes her mother, Sandra Pressley, at one point an Urban League advocate for low-income families in Chicago, as a community organizer who believes in the power of government. ‘My mother informed me that the way to be a change agent to create change, the first line of defense, or however you want to phrase that, is politics and government,’ Pressley says.
Not to engage in Palinesque mocking of “community organizing,” but is it irrational to suggest that it’s difficult to the point of impossibility to go from “community organizing” to outside-the-box thinking? If “community organizing” cannot solve the problems that affect Boston, the election of down-the-line progressives to the City Council won’t solve those problems either.
Why can’t we have candidates willing to challenge the status quo—willing to call out the Boston School Committee and the educational entities that are standing in the way of true school reform, and to declare that the problems affecting Boston’s public schools are an intolerable shame? We can’t we have candidates who will work to make Boston a more hospitable area for small businesses? Why can’t we have candidates who are willing to actually empower communities, not just “organize” them?
Certainly, Democratic candidates like Pressley talk a good game. The Globe story notes that Pressley “…didn’t want to engage in a contest to stand out in a racial-ethnic soup. ‘I have some concerns about a race that is seemingly driven by identity politics,’ said Pressley, a first-time homeowner who has moved from a Back Bay apartment into a condo on Dorchester’s Ashmont Hill. ‘I’m not naive. All politics is about identity, right? Neighborhood politics, cultural politics, issue politics. It’s not as though I don’t get that. It’s just it has to be, I think, tempered in a way that is for our overall advancement, and not to our detriment or obliteration. When I say ‘our,’ I don’t mean just communities of color. I mean period.’”
It’s admirable that Pressley “…appears determined to position herself as a broad-based candidate, infrequently speaking of herself in terms of race or gender during a series of interviews…” All nice and good—but not enough. Boston needs candidates for the City Council who are just as skilled, just as smart, just as hard-working as Pressley—but with a willingness to actually confront the entrenched, reflexively liberal interests that prevent true change from reaching Boston, as opposed to merely enabling such interests.
The candidates running for the Boston City Council may be trailblazers. However, with one or two exceptions, they won’t be reformers.