Op-Ed; Hub's trump card need not be racial

THOMAS M. KEANE JR.
865 words
9 October 2002
Boston Herald
All Editions
029
English
(Copyright 2002)

Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Boston's newest minority city councilors: Maureen Feeney and Robert Consalvo.

OK, OK. So Irish-American Feeney and Italian-American Consalvo may not fit your definition of "minority." Still, their seats are, through the magic of redistricting, now officially two of Boston's four "majority-minority" districts.

All of which suggests that the council's very public agonizing over the racial composition of its districts may not mean that much at all.

Some background. According to the 2000 census, Boston's nine council districts range in size from 59,000 to 72,000. That's a problem because each voter is supposed to have an equal voice. The council's challenge this year was to move some precincts around to make the districts roughly equal in size.

If only it were that easy. Population isn't the only issue when it comes to drawing district lines. Courts have concluded that districts should be contiguous. They also should as much as possible be drawn to keep neighborhoods together. And, of course, this being Boston, race strongly enters into the equation.

And for good reason. Whites have traditionally dominated the city's politics. The mayor has always been white. Even today, when whites are less than half the city's population, just two of the council's 13 seats are held by minorities. (One seat is vacant due to Brian Honan's death this summer.)

Some hoped redistricting would solve all that, ushering us into a new world where Boston's leaders would mirror the racial mix of the city. But Feeney and Consalvo aren't worried they'll be losing their jobs any time soon.

Why is that? Because the two new "majority-minority" districts (an oxymoron, admittedly) are that way in word only. One of those, centered on Feeney's home base of Dorchester, has 55 percent non- white adults. The second, Consalvo's Hyde Park and West Roxbury district, is just 50.5 percent non-white.

But the slight majorities are pretty much an illusion. For it's not population but the number of voters that matters. And the sad truth is that minorities don't vote. White Bostonians have politics in their blood; it's part of the culture of Irish- and Italian- Americans.

That's not so for most non-whites. Minority precincts in Dorchester and Mattapan, for example, had a 17 percent turnout rate in the 2001 city election; white precincts in South Boston were 47 percent. Such dramatic differences mean that when it comes to city elections, "majority-minority" districts are really "majority- majority."

If, that is, white voters simply vote based on skin color.

Part of the problem with the redistricting debate has been the assumption that voters are inherently racist. Black voters, we believe, vote for black candidates; white voters vote for white, and so on.

There's much evidence to support that belief. Boston has a history of clannishness and segregation that divides people by skin color, religion and national origin. That history gave rise to its insular neighborhoods - the Italian North End, black Roxbury and Irish Charlestown. It also gave rise to the struggles in the 1970s and 1980s over busing.

Yet the assumption that underlies the council's yearlong effort to create "majority-minority" districts may no longer be true. The 2000 census found virtually all of the city's neighborhoods were more racially diverse than in 1990. And as people get more comfortable with each other, their voting patterns are changing as well.

Examples? This January, Felix Arroyo will join the City Council as its first Latino member. Arroyo gets his seat because he placed fifth in 2001's at-large elections. Incumbent Mickey Roache, unopposed to become register of deeds, is leaving and Arroyo will take his slot.

Arroyo couldn't have gotten to his position by catering simply to Latino voters, however. So too with Jeffrey Sanchez, also Latino, who in September won the Democratic nomination to succeed state Rep. Kevin Fitzgerald. In a crowded field with another Hispanic candidate, the thought was that bloc voting by different ethnic groups would prevent either one from winning. Sanchez's successful formula? He got votes from all across the district - from whites in Moss Hill as well as Latinos in Mission Hill.

The converse is also true for white politicians. Thomas Finneran, House speaker and Caucasian, represents a predominately minority district. And Feeney owes her likely continued success not to her race, but to her popularity - in minority neighborhoods as well as white. It's the principal reason why she has consistently won re- election by lopsided percentages of 70 percent to 80 percent.

So, is all right with Boston? Hardly. These are signs for the better, to be sure, but it still is the case that race matters to many, whether it's in one's choice of housing or in one's voting. But people like Arroyo and Sanchez - and Finneran and Feeney - suggest that, even in Boston, race doesn't trump all.

Tom Keane can be reached at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.

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