By Joe Concha
Segregation in any form, separating people based solely on the color of their skin, is wrong. No ambiguity; no context needed.
But this kind of repugnant racial divide is still being carried out in 2023 by some of our elected officials. Exhibit A just occurred in Boston, where Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu decided it was a great idea to host an “Elected of Color Holiday Party” that excluded the seven white members of Boston’s 13-member city council. The only reason the public knows about this party is because the white members were accidentally invited, per a follow-up email sent 15 minutes after the original went out.
“I wanted to apologize for my previous email regarding a Holiday Party for tomorrow,” Wu spokesperson Denise DosSantos wrote in that follow-up email, obtained by NBC-10 Boston. “I did send that to everyone by accident, and I apologize if my email may have offended or came across as so. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused.”
The story rightly went viral, in the media and online, prompting ample blowback and a response from Wu that was almost equally as offensive. “We celebrate all kinds of connection and identity and culture and heritage in the city,” she told reporters. “We want to be a city where everyone’s identity is embraced.”
Apparently not everyone’s identity is being embraced here, now is it? And in what can only be rich irony, Wu’s own husband would not be allowed to attend this particular holiday party. Why? Because Wu’s husband is a white guy named Conor Pewarski.
Could you imagine, even for one moment, a white mayor of a major city holding a holiday party and excluding everyone who wasn’t white? There would be calls from every corner of the media demanding that he or she resign — and they wouldn’t be wrong in making such a demand. But the media reaction in this case, with a few exceptions, has been largely muted. Most outlets haven’t touched the controversy at all, despite it being a top-trending topic on social media.
Full op-ed over at The Messenger:
My Sunday column for The Messenger: Comments welcome *only* by those taking the time to read it and not by those reflexively reacting to just a headline. Click below: A Mayor’s Race-Based Holiday Party Brings Unapologetic Segregation to Beantown https://t.co/HwBufldfi4
— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) December 17, 2023
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