Deval in Roxbury
Deval Patrick is running for a second term in a very conservative state where there are pockets of blacks and minorities. As always, Deval returned to Roxbury to rally support around a second term.
In general, it can be most difficult for a minority candidate to show visible support for a minority community with an allocation of resources. It’s been 4 years. However, Roxbury has nothing to show for it.
Numerous African-American students have passed through the halls and corridors of learning institutions along Massachusetts Avenue between Cambridge and Boston. All seem to depart Boston for other parts of the world in search of more opportunity. However, some of the most productive learning resources lie in Boston and are inaccessible to residents of the Roxbury community. It becomes even more evident during a recession.
In such a conservative environment, it would seem that a minority community wouldn’t raise very many eye brows in pooling their resources and rallying the troops to move forward as a group. However, Plymouth Rock remains rooted in it’s clam chowder despite people like Malcolm and Martin passing through the city of Boston.
Notable projects such as “The Jamestown Project” at Harvard continue to face major hurdles in helping move the local communities forward. It’s great for well paid “Black Law Professors” to sit around theorizing and casting stones, but how about a concerted effort to stabilize local communities, such as “Roxbury?”
It’s great to have a figure-head, but without any action we will have wasted almost a decade on what some consider decent black leadership. Such a political environment forces the very well-educated and open-minded “graying” black to revert back to his own community in hopes of finding opportunity through the transfer of knowledge and information. It can often feel like you’re spinning your wheels.
Many folks consider Martin and Malcolm to be very conservative, even during our time period when race doesn’t matter.
Roxbury has a few advantages that leaders of the past did not have. We have the internet and an opportunity to access capital in the private sectors (i.e. – venture capital).
