Word: flynn
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Race relations at the neighborhood level and in the job market are two different issues, and Flynn, Dukakis, et al, should approach them as such...
THIS IS NOT TO IMPUGN the good motives of men like Flynn and Dukakis. Dukakis has always been a positive force in the region on race relations, and Flynn has attacked the problem with a fervor that belongs only to the converted. As one who was a public hindrance to the cause of justice when he opposed forced busing in South Boston 10 years ago, Flynn's recent efforts have the local impact of Richard M. Nixon's voyage to China...
...Flynn's approach as mayor has essentially been public relations--something while couldn't even claim--and it serves to obscure the problem rather than solve it. He draws kudos from The New York Times and The Globe, who are happy to have some good news to report and are rightly trying to encourage the new mayor. But Flynn is attacking the wrong problem, and his approach suggests that he is not confident enough of success to embark on a more comprehensive, long-term plan to improve the city's racial climate...
...When Flynn attacks neighborhood racism, for example, he is chasing a ghost, because the tensions at the grass roots level are more often a product of neighborhoods instinctively retreating inward to prevent change than they are of conscious racism per se. The real problem, as The Globe series bluntly showed, is downtown and at places like Harvard, where Blacks have been shunted off toward lower level, lower paying work...
...years following, busing made Boston national news. Non-violent opponents to Garrity's order, men like Ray Flynn, and goons belonging to such organizations as the still-active South Boston Information Center turned the educational system upside down, and made it dangerous to be a Black living in Boston. Roxbury residents trying to reach the public Carson Beach in Southie were assaulted, and when Black activist Melvin H. King led a peaceful procession through the heart of Southie, locals threw rocks and bottles...