Voter participation key to minority role

9 February 2001

A blunt, somewhat impolitic question: If Boston's population is half minority, why are 85 percent of its elected officials white?

It's a question that rightly concerns some on Boston's City Council. The answer, they believe, lies with council districts themselves. If only they were configured differently, they think, the number of black, Asian and Hispanic politicians would rise.

They're wrong.

The myth of Boston is that it is a white city dominated by Irish- and Italian-Americans. It is conceived of as a place of discrete, insular neighborhoods: Mattapan is a black enclave; East Boston is Italian-American; Dorchester is working-class Irish. One can step through each of Boston's neighborhoods, putting them into neat little boxes that define them by race, ethnicity and economic class.

The truth is far messier.

Ten years ago, when the last census was conducted, nearly 60 percent of Boston's population was white. Today, it's almost evenly divided. More importantly, the city's neighborhoods are nowhere near as homogeneous as myth would have it.

Even in 1990, most of Boston's neighborhoods were racially diverse. Fully 65 percent of Boston's residents lived in communities that could legitimately be regarded as integrated. The remainder resided in six homogeneous neighborhoods: South Boston, Charlestown, West Roxbury and Back Bay/Beacon Hill were white; Mattapan and Roxbury were black.

And since then? Census data from the year 2000 won't be available for a couple of months, but anecdotes and data from sources such as Boston's school department suggest that the city has become even more integrated. The diverse neighborhoods of 1990 are now even more so. Hyde Park has become a magnet for new Haitian immigrants. Allston/ Brighton is a popular settling place for Asians. East Boston has seen an influx of Hispanic and Asian residents.

And the six once-homogeneous neighborhoods are changing too. South Boston is less white, aided in large part by the desegregation of its public housing projects. Parts of Roxbury, especially those near the South End, have more white residents. And along with Charlestown they have changed economically, attracting younger, professional singles and couples.

So what does this mean when it comes to redistricting?

The idea behind minority districts is itself somewhat controversial. It assumes - regrettably, correctly - that voters base their vote on a candidate's ethnicity. It also assumes that there are homogeneous neighborhoods that can be stitched together to create a safe seat for a minority candidate.

But Boston's increasing heterogeneity makes it harder, if not impossible, to do that. Right now there are only two such districts - one centered on Mattapan, the other on Roxbury. Here's betting that after new district lines are drawn, the number stays at two.

Still, even if minority districts are hard to create, shouldn't increasing minority population yield more non-white officeholders?

No. The problem is that minorities are, to a striking degree, largely disengaged from the political process. One sees that in the paucity of minorities who CHOOSEto run for office and in voter turnout.

Of the seven district council seats now held by whites, just one - encompassing West Roxbury and Jamaica Plain - looks as if it will have a minority candidate running this year. And the citywide tally is just as bad. So far, nine candidates have floated their names for the four available at-large seats. Only one - Felix Arroyo - is nonwhite.

Of course, one of the reasons few minorities run for office is that they rarely win. That sad fact has to do with voter turnout. Whites - particularly working-class whites - are vastly more likely to vote than non-whites. In fact, a review of Boston's voting records from 1993 through 1999 suggests that whites are 2.5 times more likely to vote than minorities.

That's an amazing statistic. And from it follows a perverse and ironic outcome: As neighborhoods become more diverse, minorities will have less - not more - of an impact on the political process.

The reason is simple. Take, for example, a hypothetical neighborhood that is half white, half minority. If past elections are any guide, voter turnout will be, not 50/50, but more than 70 percent white and less than 30 percent nonwhite. In an all-minority neighborhood, low turnout such as this wouldn't be an issue. In integrated neighborhoods, however, white turnout overwhelms minority votes.

The solution is obvious: Increase minority participation in politics. For years activists have been trying to do just that with registration drives and efforts to bring minorities to the polls. So far all of their efforts and exhortations have accomplished little.

Thus the new century finds Boston in a curious position. The city and its neighborhoods are becoming more and more diverse - a phenomenon that almost everyone would agree is for the better. Yet its governance remains largely white. It's not healthy - not for Boston, not for its citizens.