Boston Citizens vs. Harvard Faculty

[Badger]

In the course of our nation's history the people of Boston have rallied bravely whenever the rights of man have been threatened...

yes like their god-given right to not go to school with negroes

Because yes a few bad apples dictates what the whole city of Boston was like during the 1960s. Those people failed at the ballot box (except for maybe a fluke victory by Louise Day Hicks), and for good reason.  Bostonites were very divided over the issue but they more often than not in those days fell on the right side of history.  Your strawmanning is absurd.

If you want to pull out examples from history, however, I can think of a few times in history where the Harvard Faculty would be on the way wrong side of history.  Needless to say, an academic institution that had Jew quotas as late as the 1920s has been on the wrong side of history more than a few times, probably a good deal more so than the Citizens of Boston.  You can criticize the people of Boston for not being quick and zealous in support of equal rights for non-whites, but where the hell was Harvard when the Know Nothings came into power?  Where the hell was Harvard when the state's election laws favored only the wealthy landowning elites?  Where the hell was Harvard when the Robber Barons were running the state's politics?  Where the hell was Harvard when the state police were putting down unions with impunity?

They were on the wrong side of history, of course.  And sure, a lot of this was decades ago (but so was your atrocious strawman), but I know my history enough not to trust a bunch of rich eggheads with the future of society (again, would you have preferred America where only the rich vote?  Because that is what your heroes supported in times past).

Mech, my friend, I agree with just about everything you said here. but the fact remains Boston, was more than "a few bad apples" when it came to race relations in the 60's and 70's. I'm not saying anyone opposed to busing was racist (there were practical reasons to oppose it as a misguided social experiment), but the busing crisis fanned racism among a majority of white Bostonians. The best example was the 1976 Democratic Primary. Who won Boston? Carter? Udall? Jackson?

No. George freakin' Wallace.

[Badger]

In the course of our nation's history the people of Boston have rallied bravely whenever the rights of man have been threatened...

yes like their god-given right to not go to school with negroes

Because yes a few bad apples dictates what the whole city of Boston was like during the 1960s. Those people failed at the ballot box (except for maybe a fluke victory by Louise Day Hicks), and for good reason.  Bostonites were very divided over the issue but they more often than not in those days fell on the right side of history.  Your strawmanning is absurd.

If you want to pull out examples from history, however, I can think of a few times in history where the Harvard Faculty would be on the way wrong side of history.  Needless to say, an academic institution that had Jew quotas as late as the 1920s has been on the wrong side of history more than a few times, probably a good deal more so than the Citizens of Boston.  You can criticize the people of Boston for not being quick and zealous in support of equal rights for non-whites, but where the hell was Harvard when the Know Nothings came into power?  Where the hell was Harvard when the state's election laws favored only the wealthy landowning elites?  Where the hell was Harvard when the Robber Barons were running the state's politics?  Where the hell was Harvard when the state police were putting down unions with impunity?

They were on the wrong side of history, of course.  And sure, a lot of this was decades ago (but so was your atrocious strawman), but I know my history enough not to trust a bunch of rich eggheads with the future of society (again, would you have preferred America where only the rich vote?  Because that is what your heroes supported in times past).

Mech, my friend, I agree with just about everything you said here. but the fact remains Boston, was more than "a few bad apples" when it came to race relations in the 60's and 70's. I'm not saying anyone opposed to busing was racist (there were practical reasons to oppose it as a misguided social experiment), but the busing crisis fanned racism among a majority of white Bostonians. The best example was the 1976 Democratic Primary. Who won Boston? Carter? Udall? Jackson?

No. George freakin' Wallace.

I am not completely denying the existence of racism in Boston.  As one of the forums Irish on the board I consider it pretty shameful and unlike the Brahmin loving revisionists in this thread I prefer a historical analysis based in objective truth over feel good elitist bullsheyit.  However, fact of the matter is that the good people in Boston did win out (remind me again who was it that lost a Boston based CD to Joe Moakley in 1972 again?).  And even with the awful racist reaction against busing, let us not act like it was an extraordinarily reaction of its time, given that something like 76% of Americans did not even approve of interracial marriages at the time.

And this is usually where I put in the obligatory mention that white working class hostility towards blacks was largely the indirect result of a society that largely came to be as the result of the elitism of the Harvard Class and other upper crust institutions that couldn't be bothered to help the immigrant "rabble".  But hey, let's completely ignore the historical roots of bigotry against "St. Patrick's Vermin" because it is inconvenient for more than a few peoples' narrative.

True Dat.