General Urban Cambridge Updates and Rumours

[ijmorlan]

I'm not sure how "white baby boomers" is offensive. I myself am person of colour and could tell you a thing or to as to what is actually offensive and derogatory. The fact of the matter is, it's often old white boomers who make up the majority of our NIMBYs that are consistently opposed to new developments for whatever reason they may have. Look up any old news article about NIMBYs opposed to something here, and more often than not, you'll see a photograph of old people with their arms crossed trying their best to seem offended. There's even a subreddit to mock this because it happens all over the continent, although I do not know the name of it.

Here’s an alternate scenario: suppose I regularly get accosted by people when I go to downtown Cambridge. Eventually I start telling people “I’m not going to downtown Cambridge because I don’t want some Black guy to accost me”. Is that appropriate?

Now obviously, in this scenario, there is a good chance that I’m actually a racist or at least somewhat racist who notices when a Black guy accosts me but doesn’t notice when somebody else accosts me (or at least, doesn’t notice their skin colour). But it is also possible, and certainly true in some times and places, that all or most of the people doing the accosting really are Black. Even in this situation, though, is it really helpful for me to include the word “Black” in what I say? Presumably I would also stop going to downtown Cambridge if I was getting accosted entirely by white guys. So what is important is that I’m being accosted by people when I go there.

At the same time, I think it is reasonable to ask certain demographic questions about the NIMBYs. Are they recent immigrants who don’t want the next batch of immigrants to move in next to them? Or are they the descendants of 18th century immigrants? Or something else? Of course it sounds like they are likely the 2nd of those options. But insisting on characterizing them by race feels like it’s tarring everybody else with the criticism.