Dear Governor Baker

Dear Governor Baker,

I called your office at around 10:06 am on Wednesday, November 18 to leave a message for you. When I asked the young woman to read my first sentence back to me, I was cut off. This leaves me with no choice but to publicly make my statement in the hopes that it somehow gets to you.

My statement:

Your position to refuse Syrian refugees is nothing but shameful pandering to small minded people. It reinforces the stereotype that the Republican party is racist at its core. I ask that you reconsider your position and publicly "evolve" on this issue in a manner consistent with basic human decency.

Thank you.

Dr. Neenah Estrella-Luna
East Boston Homeowner

&

Assistant Teaching Professor
Law and Policy
Northeastern University

The process is what matters

We find ourselves, yet again, with a special election. I thought I would simply stay out of it this time. No helping with debates. No meeting with candidates. It didn't help that the candidates were largely a similar cast of characters from previous elections. The fact that there are no female candidates for the Democratic party nomination, and only one Latino candidate, is disheartening.

Nevertheless, I am not going to totally ignore my civic duty. After attending two forums and reading the answers to the East Boston Progressive Network candidate questionnaire, there were two candidates who stood out.

Who made the cut?

Joe Ruggiero believes in many of the things that I believe in. He answers many questions about policy issues in the way I’d hope a first time candidate would. He’s running for office for reasons that I can identify with. The takeaway from my conversation with him is that he has a deep well of empathy, something I don’t get in some of the other candidates.

Adrian Madaro also believes in many of the things that I believe in. His understanding of public policy as a tool for addressing social problems is indisputable. His vision for East Boston is very clearly articulated and one I can support. He seemed more comfortable with different groups of people than some of the other candidates.

Before attending the third forum, I admit to having been a bit torn. Each candidate had strengths. Each candidate exhibited different types of naiveté, or at least rookie mistakes in communicating with the electorate.

Why process matters

There are many ways to choose a candidate. I will not choose a candidate based on their family history. You could be related to Adolf Hitler or Mother Teresa and that does not make you an inherently good or bad candidate. We cannot control who we are related to. We can only control what we choose to believe in and act upon. Candidates cannot always control who supports them either. I have previously supported candidates despite the fact that a well-known bigot supports that candidate too. While I pay attention to financial contributors, I’m less interested in who supports a candidate than the candidate’s perspective on the role of government in solving social challenges.

The process by which we come to our choices matter as much as the choice itself. In this election cycle, there seemed to be fewer debates and more forums. The forums that I attended were structured in a way that appeared to have prevented most of the antagonistic behavior that turns people off. The small group discussions, the crowd control, and the provision of translation (however awkward) at most of the forums are an incredible improvement compared to years past.

Equally important, and what really helped me make my decision, was that there were better questions asked in this election. The questions focused on policy issues that a state representative would have to deal with. The forums I attended asked direct questions about what a candidate would do and why. This helped with distinguishing candidates on the issues that mattered to me.

How I made my choice

In the end, the primary basis upon which I chose between these two good men was what they (said they) believe is the role of government versus the role of the “market” in solving social problems. I do not believe that government “has all of the answers.” But I also strongly believe that unregulated markets are dangerous to a free and equitable society. I believe that public institutions should play a central role in addressing social and economic problems. So I have a real problem with the blanket statements that “taxes are too high” or “governments shouldn’t tell landlords how much to charge in their rents.”

I simultaneously believe that we should be judicious in the use of different policy tools. What I want for my neighborhood is an elected official who understands that addressing most public problems and social challenges is really complex. And, as a result of that complexity, there is never any tool that should ever be off the table.

My suspicion is that the negative reaction to things like taxes or rent control is based more on the idea of taxes and rent control, not on an actual assessment of specific tax policies or rent control mechanisms. When given the choice, I’m going to have to go with someone who can demonstrate the understanding that there are policy tools, like rent control, and there is the actual policy itself, like regulation on rent increases by properties owned by investment funds. This is the difference between understanding that a wrench is a tool, but you can select between adjustable wrenches, pipe wrenches, and box wrenches depending on the object you need to turn. You might be able to use a plier, but that might not work as well as a wrench.

In the end

So, in this election, I will be supporting Adrian because he seems to understand this.

I hope that East Boston continues this trend of respectful, civic engagement. It feels like this election was done in a way that allows neighbors to make well-supported choices and make different choices and still be neighbors. We did it pretty well this time around. Let’s keep getting better at it.

Hope despite evidence to the contrary

The decision to not indict Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson for the killing of Michael Brown left many of us who work to create social justice numb with despair and anger.

I am angry at the lack of indictment because it happened the night before the Massachusetts governor signed a historic executive order on environmental justice. Instead of being able to celebrate a five year long effort to get this executive order signed, our spirits were dampened by the reminder that as far as we have come, we have so much farther to go. It robbed us of the much needed pause to rejoice in our victories by throwing in our face that the struggle is not over.

I am angry at the lack of indictment because it demonstrates yet again that institutional racism is alive and well. It shows the lengths that people of privilege will go to maintain their privilege.

I am angry at the lack of indictment because it so obviously displays the vigorous resistance to the idea that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect AND that everyone must be held accountable for their actions.

Source: Khalaf, L. (2014). Police Actions Illustrated. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/linakhalaf4/status/502337829218033664

I am angry at the lack of indictment because I detest the manipulation of the law and that our legal institutions are structured in a way that allows the law to be manipulated in order to privilege powerful groups and continue to marginalize others.

I am angry because the lack of indictment is just the most recent in a long line of decisions that continue the oppression and domination of vulnerable groups of people. These include:

• Supreme Court decisions that gut the Voting Rights Act and allow the disenfranchisement of millions of people. 

• Laws that sentence black and brown men to longer jail terms for possessing different forms of the same illegal substance. 

• Policies that allow higher income women to take time off after birth or adoption but require impoverished women to work in order to receive increasingly less valuable social welfare support.

• Policies that allow undocumented women seeking protection from domestic violence to be deported.

And I despair because the decision to not indict Darren Wilson is completely unsurprising. Few police officers are ever indicted, much less convicted, for abuse of power.

One must have hope if we are to continue the struggle. What have we accomplished despite the rage against progress so clearly illustrated by the lack of indictment?

• Several municipalities and states have passed laws that allow all workers to have access to paid sick time off. That’s good for all of us.

• Many municipalities and states around the nation are increasing their minimum wage laws to better support the families of low income workers. That’s especially good for people of color, the elderly, and immigrants.

• At least two federal courts have found that law enforcement agencies can be held liable for unlawful detention if they comply with ICE detainers. These “requests” have been the primary way in which undocumented workers have been “caught” and sent for deportation. Some courts have also held that these detainer requests may be unconstitutional. 

• Increasing numbers of municipalities are requiring body cameras on police officers. These small steps appear to change the behavior of police officers.

• And here in MA, our governor signed an Executive Order requiring that all executive agencies take seriously the issue of environmental justice, something ACE has been working on for over five years. This opens the door to more vigorous enforcement of environmental laws and a more equitable distribution of environmental benefits.

Those of us who work to bend that arc of history did this. Those who voted for these laws did this. Those who voted for those policymakers did this. Those of us who spent years working days, nights, and weekends did this. Those who spent precious time and money on food, busses, babysitting, and printing posters, buttons, and t-shirts did this. We did this.

We did this.

Yes, it does not look good out there. In fact, it looks bad. But we’ve been here before. And we are not in the same place we were yesterday.

Governor Deval Patrick Signing Environmental Justice Executive Order

And so, let’s go. We still have work to do.

Open Discussion on Facebook

There is a Facebook page in my community that is labeled as an open discussion page. It was created in response to what was viewed as suppression of speech on the official pages of the different neighborhood associations. The moderators of the neighborhood associations' pages refused to allow certain conversations because certain topics inevitably degraded into ad hominem attacks, racist or otherwise bigoted rants, and generally reduced participation by many members of the community. In some cases, they even blocked participation from individuals who refused to comply with the rules. Some members of our neighborhood saw this as "censorship" and created the open discussion page.

A quick review of the open discussion page finds a lot of complaints about litter, dog poop, double parking, and other standard complaints of urban living. There are your basic questions from newer residents asking for reviews of local merchants or recommendations for local car repair shops. Unsurprisingly, the majority of content is pretty banal.

But mixed in with these are rants from people who can't stand that the immigrant community they just moved into (or in some cases, lived in their entire lives) is full of immigrants. Or there are tirades from people who are just shocked that the only neighborhood they could find a house or condo they could afford actually has low and moderate income people living right next door. Or diatribes from people who wonder why this neighborhood didn't magically turn into a professional, upper-middle income enclave after they moved in. Sometimes these individuals use veiled or coded language. Sometimes they do not.

I believe that the people who use social media to air their views about "those people" are a minority in my community. I believe that they resort to Facebook because the feeling of social distance appears to protect them from the consequences of their words. At the same time, I also believe that these "open discussion" Facebook pages magnifies their views and makes it look like there are more people in this community who are racist, classist bigots than there really are.

I choose not to participate on this page. Occasionally, I see a thread because a friend will comment or like something and it shows up in my feed. I generally ignore it because I don't really need to proof that there are people who don't know how to engage in civil discourse. I don't need further confirmation that some people believe that racism is only about black versus white. I certainly don't need any more evidence that we still have some work to do to foster an inclusive sense of community in my neighborhood.

Those of use who are frequently the targets of intolerance become sensitive to the coded language of prejudice. Those of us who are not often (or ever) discriminated against, but who empathize and are allies in cause of social justice, are similarly alert to the many covert ways biased views are expressed. You are never sure whether a comment or post is intending to be racist, sexist, or classist. It's like when you are a person of color, you are never sure that when you are seated at the back of the restaurant whether it is because that is where the next available table was or whether that's where they always seat the people like you. The constant uncertainty about the intentions of other people can be overwhelming. If you've never lived like this, it may be hard to understand how your words could come to mean anything other than what you believe you intended to say. And the misunderstandings grow to a point that it makes community building difficult or impossible. Once we've all thoroughly offended each other, it is that much harder to trust each other.

I understand the desire for an unmoderated space where neighbors can talk about whatever they want to talk about. However, in diverse communities, there is both diverse communication styles and a lack of common experience. Without a sincere commitment to understanding each other, and without the tools necessary to do so, open discussion pages only appear to amplify retrograde views by the very few bigots in my neighborhood or contribute to the distrust between neighbors.

Gentrification, environmental justice, and climate change

This was a talk that I gave during a panel discussion as part of the Emancipated Century readings of August Wilson's Plays.  The panel was titled: Gentrification and the Urban Plight Chinatown, the

South End, Roxbury, and East Boston.

--

When I talk about gentrification, I am specifically talking about the systematic displacement of low income people, who are – in the modern era – mostly people of color or immigrants. When I talk about gentrification, I am specifically talking about the displacement of people who are vulnerable because they are politically, socially, or economically insecure and marginalized.

I want to start off by stating that not all revitalization or redevelopment results in displacement. For years, there was a lot of debate in the scholarly community about whether the negative impacts of gentrification do in fact happen. And there was conflicting evidence because displacement seemed to be found in one place but not another. However, recent research suggests not all gentrification is alike. Most importantly, the kind of gentrification that I am most concerned about – the kind that involves displacement – happens most often where there is the kind of large scale developments that we see in Chinatown, Dudley, and also in East Boston. By the way, that’s not to say that the displacement that has happened in South End isn’t real but that there are clearly different mechanisms at work there. Just like you can break your leg by falling off a ladder or by getting into a car accident, there are different ways that displacement can occur.

Now, it just so happens that the same people who are at risk of displacement through “revitalization” or “redevelopment” are also the people who live with and fight against environmental injustice.

Historically, the focus on environmental injustice involved the siting of noxious or polluting facilities – hazardous waste sites, trash transfer stations, power plants, large scale hog farms in rural areas. In this conception of environmental injustice, the injustice occurs through disproportionate environmental exposures of some kind. This way of thinking about environmental injustice allows us to easily see how activities that create pollution and other safety hazards become environmental justice issues.

 It is why, for example, residents and business owners in Dudley Square are legitimately concerned about the redevelopment of Ferdinand Building and nearby abandoned properties. Not only does "successful" redevelopment raise the specter of increased car traffic and its attendant pollution and safety risks, but it also raises the risk of gentrification and displacement. Dudley Square residents and small businesses have every reason to be skeptical. These large scale redevelopments, all of which are subsidized by our tax dollars, have rarely resulted in an improvement in the quality of life or opportunity for low income communities or communities of color where these developments are targeted.

However, in the face of climate change, the disproportionate exposure to environmental hazards operate a little differently. When we talk about who is vulnerable to the negative impacts to climate change, some people would like to argue that it is everyone. OK, that is technically correct, in the same way that it is technically correct that I am also vulnerable to dying from the flu. Except that the real risk of my dying from the flu is pretty small. And that is because I have really good health insurance, I am wealthy enough to be able to eat a healthy diet, and I am privileged enough to have the time to exercise – which full disclosure since my husband may be in the audience, I really don’t do to the extent I probably should. But I still have great health insurance, which is one form of resilience.

So, when we talk about who is really vulnerable to the storm surge, flooding, and heat waves that we can expect here in Boston as our climate continues to change over the next few decades – it is the people who are least resilient who are really the most vulnerable. It is those who are politically, socially, and economically marginalized and insecure. The people who do not have good health insurance. The people who have to work several jobs to feed and clothe their families. The people who do not have access to fresh food, and even if they did, do not have adequate time to prepare a healthy meal.

How are these things – climate change, environmental justice, and gentrification – connected?

In East Boston, we have a weird thing going. We have a lot of abandoned waterfront land. And our entrepreneurial city government is eyeing that land as the next big redevelopment. Now, to be clear, I have yet to meet anyone in East Boston who doesn’t want something to happen on all of that abandoned land. It is ugly. It is dangerous. And it prevents us from having access to the water. So, of course we want that land developed. But we also want it developed responsibly, we want it developed in a way that does not increase the hazards that residents are already exposed to, and we want it developed in a way that does not displace current residents or make it difficult for the kind of diversity we have now to be maintained in the future.

But, what we see happening is that, the large scale developments, over 900 units of new housing, that are expected to fetch $3000 per month for 2 bedrooms are already impacting the rents. And not a single one of these developments has even been built yet. But, between February 2012 through February 2013, rents have increased 31% in East Boston, faster than any other neighborhood (although North Dorchester comes in close at 29%). And I can tell you stories of people that I know personally – young, college educated people – who have had to move out of the neighborhood to find an affordable place to live.

Now, the fact that the rents increased in this way even before these large scale developments have even rented their first apartment is not the weird part. The weird part is that all of these proposed developments that are pushing up rents are all located in the riskiest location: right on the waterfront. These developments are premised on the economic value of the waterfront; on the waterfront as an environmental amenity. And at the same, we are putting market and luxury rate housing right where sea level rise is happening. Or to put it another way, we are building housing, that is marketed for people who have the greatest ability to leave, in the place of highest risk to storm surge and flooding.

What makes this weird is that we can predict what is likely to occur. Wealthier folks, most probably young people – because this is not family housing being built – will move in. A superstorm Sandy type event or bigger happens. Their car, conveniently located in the basement level parking garage, is flooded out. They will have to survive on the island that East Boston will turn back into in the next big storm event for who knows how long.

Will you be surprised when these folks, who have the resources to leave their rented apartment, actually do? I won’t. And what will then happen? Will rents go down? Will maintenance fall off? Will it become abandoned? And what happens to the rest of my community? This is what we don’t know. We could know if we put the time and effort to find out, but we don’t.

My concern is that if these large scale developments are not built so that they are both resilient to climate change AND so that they build on the strong sense of community that exists in East Boston, we will have ironically created the potential for the kind of gentrification that may result in displacement in the short term, but in the long term leads to abandonment.

An experiment in game theory: Part I

So, last night I performed an experiment.  I wanted to test out whether Robert Axelrod's use of game theory in explaining the evolution of cooperation worked in the modern world of social media.

Axelrod has successfully shown that how we structure interactions with each other determine how effectively cooperation develops.  Cooperation is viewed pretty expansively.  I particularly like the description of the "Live and Let Live" phenomenon that existed in trench warfare during WWI.

The standard situation in game theory is the Prisoner's Dilemma.* The upshot of the game is that both parties benefit from mutual cooperation (e.g. live and let live) but one party could do better by exploiting or abusing the other.  Repeated experiments have shown that all parties do better in the long run by cooperating, but each individual has the short term incentive to exploit the other. Axelrod provides four "suggestions" for promoting and sustaining cooperation, or non-exploitative, behavior.

Don't be envious. Axelrod argues that you shouldn't compare how well you are doing to how well someone else is doing.  Instead, you should compare how well someone else could be doing in your shoes. The main lesson here is that you do not have to do better than others to do well for yourself.  

Be nice.  Here, Axelrod asserts that your default behavior should be to cooperate, especially if you are going to interact with that other person again. What's most important about this is that always starting off in the adversarial position creates an environment in which cooperation becomes a losing strategy.  If you start off fighting, you'll be fighting all of the time.

Reward good behavior and punish bad behavior.  The strategy that works best in the Prisoner's Dilemma is called Tit for Tat.  Basically, it means that when other people are nice, be nice right back at them.  But when they exploit or abuse you, you punish them.  When they start cooperating again, you forgive.  How much forgiveness you give depends on the environment. The willingness to forgive is itself exploitable unless you use a one to one reward/punishment strategy.

Don't try to outsmart other people.  People respond to your behavior. If good behavior is rewarded and bad behavior punished, as Axelrod says, "...your own behavior is likely to be echoed back to you."

I have become curious about whether the structure of social media promotes cooperation or exploitation. People have written that at the same time that social media allows people to connect across space (think about friends or family across the world that you regularly interact with on Facebook), it also engenders a form of social distance that allows people to say things in social media that they would not say in a face to face situation.

In the next posting, I will describe the experiment and my lessons learned.

*In this game, two burglars are caught at the scene of the crime and interrogated separately. If both burglars cooperate with each other and keep their mouths shut, they would each spend only 1 year in jail. However, if one decides not to cooperate and implicates the other, he will not go to jail at all. 

Learning, Doing, Teaching, Being

Some time ago, Snap Judgment, one of my favorite NPR programs, had a show about Daryl Davis who befriended a few KKK Grand Wizards.  Through simply trying to understand how they could hate him before they knew him as an individual, he managed to convince at least three to give up their robes.

I admire this.

Recently, I saw a TEDx talk by Ash Beckham whose message was that your hard isn't any harder than anyone else's hard. Your hard may be disclosing that you are gay, or being an undocumented immigrant, or fearing hordes undocumented gay immigrants moving into your neighborhood.  But, as she says, there is no harder.  There is just hard.

I admire this.

And even today, I happened upon an RSA video of Brene Brown brilliantly explaining the difference between sympathy and empathy.  Sympathy acknowledges, but also disconnects one from others. Empathy requires connecting with the feelings of the other.

I admire this as well.

I also read an article about Mandela written upon the event of his death.  The author recounted the story of Mandela looking after and keeping clean a fellow prisoner suffering from a stomach illness. The message in the article is that it is insufficient to remember. What is demanded of all of us is to act to facilitate social justice and honor the dignity of other human beings.  And, of course, to forgive.

This I admire and want to emulate.

And as someone who teaches and works at the intersection of social relations, community development, law and policy, and public health, I encourage engaging in respectful discourse that allows empathy to develop.   I read about it, especially in relation to race/ ethnicity, gender, and class. I write about it.  I participate in lots of activities that demand facilitating this exact thing.  I do research that requires that I put myself in a non-judgmental position (and I am pretty good at this). And, as a college professor, I teach it at every level and every opportunity.

And yet, openness, empathy, and forgiveness are difficult to practice outside of my "work."  I can listen to a participant in one of my studies talk about how a specific group that I belong to are "the problem" in society. I can analyze this and relate it to a variety of theories that situate such reactions in ethnocentrism, political manipulation, mass media hysteria or some combination therein. And I can even encourage everyone I work with to remember that "those people" are human beings and not caricatures of false consciousness.  But I cannot handle intolerance outside of this.

So, there is this woman in my neighborhood.  And she just says the most gawd-awful things, mostly about Latino immigrants.  It doesn't take a whole lot of training in the subtle code language of xenophobia or regular reading in social theories of othering to see her behavior, especially online, as too closely aligned with folks who have landed in the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence files. 

And I know from my own training, ongoing engagement with development in social theory, and field research that her behavior is likely the result of fear and loss.  Fear of people who she doesn't know or understand. Loss of standing in a community that has changed before her eyes.  Fear of change, generally.  Loss of a community that she once knew and that is not so slowly fading into the past.

But, to be frank, I can not let her behavior go unchallenged.  She may very well be a nice person otherwise, but her statements and behavior in certain spaces are simply unacceptable  While I can understand why she may act the way she does, I do not empathize with it.

I think this is the case because I associate these fears and this sense of loss with an undeserved sense of entitlement.  I cannot give quarter to someone who wants to tell me, or people like me, whether I am entitled to be actively involved in this place that I have chosen to call my home.  This is my community and you cannot tell me otherwise.

And so, I continue to work on  promoting discourse, understanding, empathy, and forgiveness.  But I do not confuse understanding with acceptance.  I cannot tolerate intolerance, even when I understand where it is coming from.  I believe that people should held accountable for their actions, especially with the words they use in social media. But I do hope that someone in this neighborhood is able to continue to engage in meaningful dialogue with this woman, at least for her sake. At this stage in my life, I cannot.

Dear Gaming Commission

I am a homeowning resident in East Boston and professor of law and policy at Northeastern University. 

I am writing to urge you to reject any consideration of a proposal for a "Revere-only" casino at the Suffolk Downs site without having gone through the proper process as outlined in MGL c.23K§15(13).  The current plan is so different than the original proposal that has been described by Suffolk Downs for the past two years that it can only reasonably be considered a new proposal.  The current plan has a different applicant, a different location, a different partner, and a different business model.  As such, MGL c.23K§15(13) clearly states that this new proposal requires a new host community agreement and a new vote at least 180 days after November 5, 2013.  The plain reading of the law is quite clear on this point.  As your legal counsel undoubtedly has made you aware, Massachusetts courts pay very close attention to the plain language in state statutes.

To entertain a so-called Revere-only casino proposal at Suffolk Downs without having gone through the process as outlined in Expanded Game Act and your regulations is to render the concept of the rule of law meaningless.  It is not the place of the Commission to divine the intent of the voters in Revere.  This is not an academic exercise in epistemology or logic; it is a practical a legal matter with material implications.  MGL c.23K§15(13) explicitly describes the process by which voters are to make their choices clear.  The Commission needs to ensure that the proponents of this new proposal follow the letter of law and the process described therein.

I also urge Chairman Steve Crosby to recuse himself from all decisions related to Region A casino license applications.  The recent revelations of personal and professional relationships between Chairman Crosby and casino proponents in both Everett and Suffolk Downs reinforce the concern that casinos will corrupt our public officials and public processes.  It is simply implausible that Chairman Crosby could be considered impartial if he were to recuse himself from evaluating one applicant but not the other.  Indeed, the insistence on finding some way, even if contrary to the unambiguous language in state law, to allow Suffolk Downs to submit a proposal suggests that the Commission is trying to create the appearance of competition in order to create a distorted semblance of impartiality. 

The decisions and actions taken by this Commission to date have already reduced the public trust in the ability of the Gaming Commission to provide meaningful oversight of any casino licensed to operate in Massachusetts.  As I stated in my comments to you dated 2 October 2013, the rule of law is first and foremost rooted in the commitment to following procedure.  Procedure in and of itself does not automatically result in fair outcomes.  But without fair procedure, even desirable outcomes are tainted with the appearance of corruption, further reducing trust in our government.  If the Commission allows the proposed "Revere-only" proposal to go forward, and if Chairman Crosby refuses to recuses himself from evaluating any Region A applicants, the Commission's decisions can only be interpreted as stating that laws do not apply to some people and that the government cannot be trusted to look after the public's interest.

Thank you for your time.


Neenah Estrella-Luna, MPH, PhD

The role of advisory committees in sustaining East Boston's awesomeness

Excel Academy is looking to build a high school a few blocks from my house in East Boston.  I heard a few days ago that the political leadership get to appoint the impact advisory committee members.  Two have already been named.  One has already begun to solicit early comments.  However, I'm worried about how it would operate and am frankly wondering what the value of any comments would have.

My concern is rooted in the fact that one of the other people who has already been appointed to the committee is someone who has publicly stated that immigrants, which comprise a significant part of the student population at Excel Academy, are not worthy public support. 

I know this because this individual signed (#615) a petition in 2009 expressing opposition to Governor Deval Patrick's New Americans Agenda. The petition specifically objected to:

• expanding programs to support English as a second language learning in public schools,
• increasing funding for translation and interpreter service in public schools,
• providing access to in-state college tuition for all immigrant residents in public universities, and 
• other services and programs that support the successful integration of our immigrant neighbors. 

The student body at Excel Academy in East Boston is 72% Latino and represents 23 different nationalities. And yet, this individual is publicly opposed to the very conditions that support the academic success of many of those students.

Why would anyone who wants to meaningfully contribute to the conversation and planning of this school make the time to participate when someone who has already been appointed to the committee itself believes that parents who are still learning to speak English should be denied translation when talking with teachers and school officials? Think about the message that sends to the rest of us who care about exactly the kinds of families that Excel Academy aims to serve.
 

The problem is not necessarily this individual.  She has every right to hold whatever opinion she wants and to express her political viewpoint in any legal manner available to her.  However, it strikes me as inappropriate that an individual whose public statements are in opposition to how a publicly funded charter school operates is appointed to advise on the siting of such school.

The problem, as I see it, is that it seems that our elected officials, who are responsible for appointing people to these advisory committees, seem to only know a handful of people who live in the neighborhood.

All eight advisory committee members for this committee will be appointed by four elected officials.  How many of those people will be Latinos (who comprise 54% of the neighborhood's population) or immigrants (50% of our neighbors are immigrants)?  How many of them will be parents of students who currently attend public schools?  How many of them will be educators who currently teach?  How many of them will be one of the growing number of urban planners and architects who live in our neighborhood?  How many of them will be people who physically live in the area where the new school will be sited?

Every time the same people keep getting appointed to these committees, we lose the opportunity to capitalize on the diversity of people and talent who live here.  We have immigrant neighbors who were professors of environmental sustainability in their native homelands.  We have young planners who know how to read transportation studies.  We have contractors who specialize in environmentally sustainable and healthy buildings who live in this neighborhood. We have bilingual parents who could more effectively bring those supposedly hard to reach parents to public meetings than either of the two appointed committee members.

If the city and BRA were really interested in a meaningful advisory process (and maybe they aren't), they could more effectively tap the organic talent that already exists in this neighborhood by actually opening up the process of applying to participate.

Instead of going to their friends and political contributors, how about asking for a list of people from all of the neighborhood groups.  And how about actually talking with those individuals to determine whether they have whatever skills are useful, but more importantly, the attitudes to work in a public process to support a public school that serves a population and neighborhood that deserves exactly the kind of support that the petition above opposes?

Think about what it would mean to East Boston's future if we could engage all of our residents, both long time residents and newcomers (domestic and foreign), in the decision-making processes in our neighborhood.  I think it would be awesome.

Dear Marty Walsh - I would like to vote for you

Dear Marty Walsh,

I admit that I did not expect you to be one of the top candidates in the preliminary.  This says more about me than about you.  I was clearly not paying as much attention as I thought.

You should know that, in the past, I have worked with John Connolly.  He provided urban sustainability projects that my urban studies students could work on.  He even came and spoke with my students about development issues.  I also found his office helpful in assisting some parent start to address longstanding issues at the local high school.  Going into the preliminary, I thought, regardless of who I supported on September 24, I would end up voting for him on November 5.

But shortly after the preliminary, I became increasingly skeptical about the friends Connolly keeps.  While he criticized you for the support you received from organized labor, he was receiving money from those who support a number of causes that I oppose and, in one case find offensive (e.g. Pioneer Institute, American Crossroads).

As I tried to make an informed decision about which candidate to support, I began to lean in your direction.  I was able to meet with you when you made time to speak to some of the Latinas of East Boston.  I was impressed when you appeared to be visibly upset by the stories told by one of our youth of high school counselors actively discouraging Latino students from pursuing a college education.  I was also impressed by the level of detailed knowledge around development issues, and the BRA in particular, that you showed. And people who I have a lot of respect for made compelling arguments in your favor.

However, I go into this election as an East Boston resident, more so than in any other election.  We are faced with potentially the most important change this neighborhood has seen since the airport dispossessed us of Wood Island Park in the 1960s.  I've never been a single issue voter, but this time, there is one issue that can make or break the quality of life in the neighborhood I have come to call home.

Just as decades of expansion of Logan Airport continues to negatively impact the quality of life in this neighborhood, the proposed casino at Suffolk Downs will no doubt have large repercussions for me and my neighbors.

You voted in favor of the casino bill when you were in the statehouse.  And you have publicly stated your support for a casino at Suffolk Downs. After much thought and research, I do not believe a casino in this (or any) dense, urban neighborhood is a good idea.

Some of my neighbors believe that the only thing that could save Suffolk Downs-the racetrack, after the failure of more than two decades of public subsidies and at least one bailout, is a casino.  You give every indication that you believe this as well.

But more importantly, if the residents of East Boston vote against the casino mitigation agreement, you have not publicly stated whether you would reopen host community agreement negotiations with Suffolk Downs if presented the opportunity.

Without that assurance, I cannot bring myself to vote for you. Given the available evidence, I've come to believe that a vote for you is a vote for a casino.  Without a public statement to the contrary, I will unfortunately not be able to support you at this time.

Thoughts on the political spectrum

Earlier this week, I was called by a political polling company to ask about my opinion about the candidates in the upcoming special election for the US Senate.  It's been years since I've been polled and my first thought is that it was interesting that they called my on my business cell phone rather than my personal cell phone.

Image source: https://www.arlingtonva.us/home/web/survey/page63192.aspx

I'm pretty sure that it was from Markey's people since the guy was a little too enthusiastic about my answers to the question about what I don't like about Gomez.  Nevertheless, as a social science researcher, it's always an interesting experience to be the subject rather than the investigator.

There was one question that really did get me to thinking, though.  It's a question that I've seen a million times in both real research surveys and political polls:  Would you describe yourself as liberal or conservative?  The scale is: very conservative, moderately conservative, neither conservative nor liberal, moderately liberal, and very liberal.

Let's leave aside the legitimate question about whether political preferences range on a single dimensional continuum.  I do not have any problem recognizing that I am liberal.  The question for me was whether I considered myself moderately liberal or very liberal.  My instinct was to say moderately liberal because I consider myself a reasonable person.  I see very liberal people as inflexible and dogmatic as those who are very conservative.

Image source: http://www.mix-pics.net/img/13848/i-think-i-am-right-and-you-are-wrong

In the 20 seconds it took for me to answer the question, a number of thoughts came into my head.  Prominent among them is that I'm pretty sure that someone who does not share my positions on a many social or economic issues would consider me very liberal.  I am sure that someone who I would label as very conservative sees themselves as reasonable as I see myself.

From a survey design perspective, this is a real issue with the validity of both the question and the scale.  How we would recognize "moderate" when we see it.  And would we recognize ourselves if/when we deviate from it?  This is a question for all of us, regardless of the labels we apply to ourselves.

Image source: http://frabz.com/2nza

Of course I had to answer the question and I reminded myself that he is asking about how I see myself, not how others view my positions.  Which gets to the most important lesson of the day: it's not worth overthinking a political polling question.

Challenge for the next mayor

Early this afternoon, I had an unpleasant interaction with a City of Boston Parking Enforcement officer.  To be honest, it was pretty horrible.  It started out almost funny when I was threatened with a ticket while I was still parked on the correct side of the street and then told that there would be "no one I could complain to." 

Image source: http://www.guystuffcounseling.com/counseling-men-blog/bid/22929/Married-to-an-Angry-Man-A-Wife-s-View-of-Her-Husband-s-Anger

 As a law and policy scholar, the claim is laughably absurd.  When the individual's aggressiveness escalated, I was on the phone with the Mayor's hotline immediately.  When I was told that the individual also resorted to using gender based epithets and racist comments, I became angry. All of this was reported to the Mayor's hotline, Facebook, and Twitter.  Thanks to a neighbor whose connections are more direct than mine, I was soon after contacted by someone who can do something about this and was promised that there will be follow up.  For that I am grateful, as is my blood pressure.

This is the kind of incident that really diminishes our quality of life.  It is the kind of incident that makes people wonder whether they want to live here or not.  I've lived in Boston for more than a decade and this is one aspect of the city that hasn't changed much.  Which gets me to the race for mayor.

Image source: http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2013/06/14/meet-the-12-confirmed-candidates-for-bostons-2013-mayoral-election/

Most of the candidates have focused their platforms around issues like education or community and economic development.  This makes sense.  The city has more control over these than other important issues that affect Boston residents and workers (like immigration or public transportation).  And they are really important issues.

Quality schools and sustainable development are the big issues that shape our city.  But our daily interactions with city workers shape our quality of life. This issue is what is missing from our discussions about the next mayor.  We've all had interactions or run-ins with police officers, school staff, planning department personnel, or ISD inspectors that were made unpleasant because of the bad attitude of the city worker or because of rules that make no sense.

To be clear, I believe most of the workers in our city are good people.  Some of them are trying to do their job with too few resources (a shout out to Graffiti Busters).  Some of them simply need better guidance or leadership.

But there seems to be something about working for the City of Boston that allows poor service and/or bad attitudes to go unchecked.  I've heard some complain that the problem is the union rules.  Or that people have been there too long.  Or the history of patronage hiring. 

Image source: http://tripleespressoshots.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html

 To be honest, I don't care what the problem is. I just want it changed. 

I want a system put in place that ensures that residents, no matter who they are, where they live, or what language they speak in their dreams, are treated with dignity and respect.  City rules and regulations need to be enforced.  But you don't have to be a jerk about it.  And you certainly shouldn't be a prejudiced ass in a city that is majority non-white.

It was that parking enforcement guy's bad luck to pick a fight with an over-educated person who isn't afraid to use social media and has neighbors willing to help.  But my brown skinned neighbor shouldn't be belittled by school staff for not speaking English very well.  And my low-educated white neighbor who doesn't know how to tweet about a twat making his life miserable shouldn't have to suffer this either. 

Image: "Digital Divide" from http://www.flickr.com/photos/schnaars/2586457836/

City workers should treat everyone in my neighborhood the same as the folks who live in the mayor's neighborhood, where ever that may be.

So, my challenge to the mayoral candidates and the next mayor: what are you going to do to ensure that our interactions with city workers and officials is constructive and respectful?  What are you going to do to prevent the kind of interaction I had today?

I was not afraid nor was I alone

I haven't written in a while.  Sorry.  I've been busy.  Got a job and everything.

But I felt that I needed to say something about the request to Boston area residents to shelter in place while police looked for the second person responsible for the Marathon bombings.  I want to make one thing very clear: 

I was not afraid for my own safety at all during the day.  I was anxious about the safety of my friends who live in Watertown.  I was concerned about my neighbors who may have needed food for their children (we've all waited until the last minute to go grocery shopping - so don't judge).  But never once was I afraid that someone was going to hurt me. 

I understand that some folks really were afraid.  Forgive me if I sound unsympathetic when I say, I am really sorry for that but I felt surrounded by friends and neighbors the whole day. 

Like the majority of my neighbors, I stayed in my home.  Mainly because I was glued to the computer but also because I didn't want to be that jerk who accidentally needed emergency services when they were needed elsewhere.  Never once during the day did I feel like I was alone.  I can thank social media for that.

My friends who live in Watertown regularly posted something to Facebook or Twitter.  I thank them for relieving our anxiety about their safety, which admittedly grew as the day went on.  

My friends and neighbors on Facebook and Twitter made regular updates, posted their thoughts, concerns, fears, and some LOLcat pictures.  There were conversations.  We kept each other in check.  We calmly but forcefully addressed the occasional burst of hate speech on our feeds.  Several neighbors started organizing a community Peace Potluck to be held once this was all over (and it was held the very next day).

I really do live in a wonderful neighborhood and city.  Even when we couldn't get together, we came together as one community.  Let us continue to be one community in real life.

Oversimplifying simple problems

It's a truism amongst most social scientists, at least thoughtful ones, that most social problems defy simple solutions. There is often a complex relationship between history, economics, law, culture, politics, geography, and social psychology that results in the social challenges of any time period. Because of that, no single solution is ever enough to really "solve" the problem. This does not stop everyone who has found their hammer (or at least has a book to promote) from bringing it out with every alleged nail they see. Richard Florida seems to be one of those people.

Florida recently wrote in The Atlantic Cities about the geography of class. His own Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto produced a report that shows which metropolitan areas in the US have larger service industries. As we all know, service jobs are the lowest paid in the country. People who work in these industries tend to be the most economically vulnerable. According to Florida, the solution to being underpaid is to work harder and more creatively.

The service class is both the largest (60 million workers) and the least paid of America’s three major social classes. The only way to improve its members’ prospects is to upgrade the work they perform—to make it more creative and hence more productive and remunerative. As I have written, that is the key task of a jobs strategy today, as well as being required to spur the demand required for broader economic recovery.

Sigh. Deep breath.

First, service workers include everyone from home health care workers to the people who sell popcorn at the movie theater. They are the janitorial staff at my university and the person who checks me out at the grocery store. My tailor. The guy who delivers my newspaper. The wait staff at my local pub. Florida explicitly acknowledges the diversity of jobs included in this industry in the first paragraph. Does he really believe that the home health aide who cared for my father-in-law in his last days at home before his Alzheimer's made it too dangerous for him to be there was "unproductive"? Does he really believe that my friend who is a housekeeper at a 5-star hotel here in Boston does not have to come up creative solutions for some of the bizarre requests that people of the apparently creative class impose on them?

Second, Florida's "solution" completely ignores the race and gender context of remuneraton. Service jobs have historically been filled by women and ethnic non-whites. Both of these have historically been paid less for their work (and continue to be paid less than men or whites). These two realities are related. You cannot ignore the history of systemic oppression of entire groups of people when talking about that oppression.

Which gets to the final point. If you are going to offer a simple solution to being underpaid, by what logic to you go straight to "let's change the work" rather than "let's change the pay"? Service industry jobs are low wage jobs because employers pay them low wages. It has nothing to do with how difficult or creative the work is. It has everything to do with how we, as a society, treat those "others" who just happen to make our lives easier. If we want to ensure the economic stability and resilience of my neighbors who clean the airplanes and push the wheelchairs at Logan Airport, then perhaps we should insist that they be paid something close to a living wage and be treated like human beings.

With this article, Florida missed out on an opportunity to discuss the root of economic vulnerability. The jobs themselves are not the problem. The problem is that society, or at least the part of society that has money and power, does not value certain kinds of workers. I'm not sure how much more creative the job of security guard at my dentist's office building needs to be. But I do believe that Florida could have done more to engage his own creative faculties when he was thinking through the problem of concentrated vulnerability.

My views on the morphology of family

On the event of our anniversary, I posted the following message to Facebook:

Today, we celebrate many many years of commitment, three-quarters of which include the legally binding contract called marriage. We honor our love for each other every single day. But today, we give thanks for the legal protections afforded to us by the government for making this legal contract with each other. We hope that one day soon, our friends who live in states whose government continues to discriminate against them will one day also be able to share in those legal benefits.

In response, a friend asked me whether I feel that people who engage in polyamorous relationships, but are prevented from getting married are being discriminated against.  He extended the question to GSA couples who are prevented from being legally married in some places.  It's a completely legitimate question.  I started to respond in Facebook, but decided that it needed a longer and more thoughtful response than Facebook provides.  Here is my response:

I have been blessed to have met a lot of people who live in all kinds of relationships.  I have met happily married people whose marriages were arranged and did not know each other until weeks before their marriage.  I have met one person who lives in, and have read a little bit about, polyamorous marriages.  I also know and love people of a variety of sexual and gender identities, many of whom are in committed relationships, some of whom are married, and many who are unable to be married or have their legal marriage recognized by the state they live in.

What I've learned is that I cannot say that the structure of their intimate and family relationship is fundamentally wrong.  Especially when I see so many examples of heterosexual couples who mistreat, abuse, and disrespect their partners and their families.   How can I say a same sex relationship, a polygamous relationship, or even an arranged marriage is inherently wrong when there are so many examples of loving, supportive, and devoted relationships in exactly those kinds of family structures.  These folks have taught me that there are many ways of being and many ways of loving that are based on mutual respect and devotion. 

For me, there are two issues here.  First, there is the issue of dignity and abuse.  There is a long history of subjugation within and through marriage.  You have to look no further than the bible for examples of this.  We find oppression and degradation (especially of women) in both monogamous and polygamous relationships.  As such, it strikes me that abuse is not confined to a particular family morphology.  Rather, history (and reading today's newspapers) shows us that patriarchy and the structure of power between social and gender groups is what creates oppression.  If dignity can be found in arranged marriages, same-sex and opposite-sex marriages, then it is entirely possible that people (again, most especially women) can live dignified lives even in polygamous relationships.

The second, and more important issue, is the legal one.  To me, this issue is about the law, and by extension the relationship between the state (i.e. the government) and its citizens.  I am not concerned about what any particular faith community believes or practices and would not support requiring faith communities to perform religious rituals that are contrary to their belief system.

My concern is the extension of legal protections and privileges to people who choose to engage in the legal contract that we call marriage.  There are hundreds of benefits and protections that are afforded to people who are legally married that people who are not allowed to be legally married are denied.  Again, my primary concern is the ability of people to be able to live lives of dignity and respect.  By not extending the access to legal recognition of a relationship between consenting adults, the government is discriminating against those people without any rational relationship to a legitimate government interest.

However, the question that is really at the heart of my friend's inquiry is would I support extending legal recognition of polygamy.  I would have to say at this point, I just might.  Since my primary concern is the ability of people to live in loving, devoted, dignified relationships of their choosing, I can't say that I have an a priori objection to any particular family structure.

However, I will also concede that I don't really know whether I would support the legalization of polygamy yet because I don't know that we have in place the social and legal structures to manage what is a more complex family structure.  We barely have the legal capacity to handle definitions of family that extend beyond one or two degrees.  Two cousins living together do not constitute a "family" in many jurisdictions, which is contrary to how many non-white or lower income cultures view family.  The obsession with maintaining the "nuclear family" as the only legally acceptable family structure makes dealing with potential conflicts within polygamous families a legal minefield.

What do you do if one wife asserts she has been abused and the others either have not or do not agree there has been abuse?  How do you handle divorce settlements, especially in community property states?  Do all spouses have to agree to an adoption?  Or to give permission for one spouse to travel with a minor child overseas?  Who has decision-making power in the event of medical emergency and death?  Does one mother have the same legal rights over the biological child of co-wife?

None of these are insurmountable. But they require that we as a society engage respectfully with communities who do live in polyamorous relationships.  It may require that we look to cultures that accept polygamy for guidance - something U.S. Americans are loathe to do.  But if we can find a way to distinguish between abusive relationships from loving, devoted ones, then perhaps we can accept this is a family structure.

I can't say I've met people who meet the criteria for GSA, at least not to my knowledge.  I haven't read much about it but I suspect that this may become an issue that will have to be addressed legally in places where known genetic relation prevents legal marriage.  With the increase in the use of anonymous sperm and egg donors, the probability of such relationships occurring may increase.  Again, I suspect that I would not object to allowing these couples to marry.  If there is no indication of abuse, if they live healthy, supportive, loving lives, that is their business and not mine.

Sustainability

Tonight I am going to have dinner with a dozen or so first years at Northeastern University to discuss the concept of sustainability. This dinner was organized jointly with the RA for the Sustainability Living and Learning Community (LLC). This is a new LLC with an enthusiastic, if somewhat overworked, RA who really wants to raise the awareness of LLC residents about their environmental impacts.

As many people may be aware, sustainability is a squishy concept. In my view, there are many different forms of sustainability, all which intersect. These include social sustainability, economic sustainability, and environmental sustainability. True social justice occurs at the center of these circles (if you think of it as a venn diagram). The question that I must pose to these young people tonight is, "What is your view of sustainability? What does it mean to you?"

In the general, the concept implies a number of things. There is a generational equity component. This idea focuses on the relative impacts of a decision on current versus future generations. Generational equity is achieved when there is a balance of benefits and burdens (or obligations) between current and future generations.

This isn't the only kind of equity involved here. The concept also pay some homage to the notion that people get what they need in order to live a healthy, safe, dignified life.

Sustainability also implies doing no harm, or at least no long term harm. In my view, this doesn't necessarily mean that there is no impact. It does mean that the impacts are either temporary or part of a cycle which transforms one impact into something that is either benign or beneficial. I think of animal waste when I think of this. The consumption of resources, in this case food, produces waste products. Manure (i.e. animal waste) is a waste product. If used properly, it also can become fertilizer for the production of food. If produced in quantities that does not allow it to be turned into fertilizer efficiently or otherwise be managed properly, it becomes not only a nuisance but a public and environmental health problem.

Operationalizing the concept of sustainability, however, is not as easy as pointing out the abstract elements of it. The term was popularized with the development of the idea of sustainable development, which has been criticized as nothing more than "controlled capitalism" (Lewis, 1992 as cited by Pulido, 1996). Given that capitalism depends on social inequality to sustain economic growth, critics argue, it is not likely to be an effective vehicle for addressing environmental and social inequities.

But even if we are willing to take economic growth down from the pedestal on which it currently stands, there are other issues to deal with. The first is the issue of tradeoffs. In the movie No Impact Man, the Beavan family experiment in living the truly sustainable life. This included washing their clothing by hand (or in their case, by foot). In response to someone reminding him that household chores have historically been, and for the majority of humanity still are, women's work, he simply states that this is not how it is in his household. Fair enough, but I don't think you can dismiss the fact that the reality of gendered housework in majority of humanity.

Beavan further criticizes what he views as the marketing gimmick that labeled household chores "drudgery." While there are elements of this last critique I might agree with (in terms of promoting consumerism), housework for the majority of the women of the world who do not have access to magical things like electricity or gas or supermarkets to buy cleaning supplies is, in fact, drudgery. Which, as Hans Rosling describes in his TED talk, is one of the many mechanisms that prevent women from breaking free from economic domination and gender oppression. It prevents them from going to school or reading to their children. Taken together, Beavan's response reminds me of a quote from John Galsworthy: "Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem."

I would also note that the Beavan family did end up going back to using the washing machine.

One of the lessons that the Beavan family took from their experiment is that, as individuals and as a society, we need to figure out how to get what we need in a sustainable way. But this is the other important tension in the concept of sustainability: who gets to determine what I need? If the concept is about balancing needs, how do we decide what the appropriate balance of benefits, burdens and obligations are between generations and within different groups in society? And, at the risk of sounding redundant, who gets to make that decision?

As you may know, I am primarily concerned about social justice in all its forms, most recently environmental justice. At the heart of social justice struggles is the idea that some people are shouldering most of the social (particularly economic and environmental) burdens that the rest of society benefits from, as well as being barred from access to social amenities. Those of us who struggle for social justice in its varied forms are seeking to change power relations and the distribution of those burdens and benefits. Given the historical record, will the socially, economically, and politically marginalized be tasked with carrying the weight of other people's sustainable lifestyles? If the past predicts the future, the Beavan's conspicuous unconsumption will become one more way to marginalize the already marginalized.

Yes, if you reduce your consumption, you will definitely relieve the burden placed on communities who host the landfills that hold your waste. Yes, if you reduce your electricity use, you will relieve the burden on those communities who suffer the air and water pollution associated with oil and coal burning power plants. But will any of this make the health, safety, well-being, quality of life, and livelihoods for those who do not have your privilege any better?

I'm not saying that you shouldn't do any of this. In fact, I want you do. I'm saying that sustainability should mean more than just reducing your carbon footprint or the amount of waste that you create. Sustainability may also mean recognizing your own privilege and being willing to give up not just the $1000 Chloe boots, but the assumption that you get to choose whether I wash my laundry by hand.


Pulido, Laura. (1994). Environmentalism and economic justice: two Chicano struggles in the Southwest. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.