Such concerns spurred the Rev. Fred Small of First Parish in Cambridge, a Unitarian Universalist congregation near Harvard Square, to try to do something. He said his church has long held out diversity as a goal, but on Sundays few minorities fill the pews and none occupy roles of leadership.
Small said he is hoping to transform his church by reaching out to more blacks and Hispanics and hiring its first minority ordained clergy member.
As a white person, Im embarrassed by racism, said Small. Im embarrassed that white people have not done more for justice and to break down barriers of race, class, and culture. But embarrassment is helpful if it spurs action.
These houses were owned by blacks, she said, gesturing down a street and pausing by a sign honoring Tuskegee Airman Roland W. Moody, who lived in the neighborhood. Now they are owned by whites.
She and others worry that they are among the last surviving black working-class families still in the neighborhood.
Its like they did in the South End [in Boston], said Lois McGhee, another longtime resident.
I know a few families that are still there, but most of them are gone.
The demise of such neighborhoods has contributed to a feeling among some blacks that they have lost a sense of community in Cambridge.
I think there is widespread disconnect among the African-American and Hispanic communities about this atmosphere of racial humiliation that is really imposed upon them, said S. Allen Counter, a Harvard professor. That feeling is pervasive.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/02/10/in_cambridge_concerns_that_diversity_is_now_just_a_word/White liberals from Cambridge, Mass. applying their view of racism on a nation?
Not everyone lives in Cambridge, and I would suggest Cambridge IS NOT representative of the rest of the nation.
Did the Rev. Wright ever worry about diversity and white's in his church?
Why aren't they pointing fingers a the blacks leaving the traditional black neighborhood and accusing them of being racist?
When whites left their traditional white neighborhoods years ago, it was called 'white flight' and folks were accused of being racist and fearful of the new residents.
Why aren't these black folks being accused of being racist for leaving?
African-American and Hispanic communities have an 'atmosphere of racial humiliation' imposed on them?
Did Barack Obama ever understand the fear here white grandmother had about being mugged in a climate that was biased against whites?
Do white liberals work to impose their own solutions to race relations based on their biased and limited world view?
It happens in Cambridge, I see it is racist, therefore everyone who is white is a racist?
No minority people come to our church so we must be racist?
No minority people come to our church so we must make our church...by hiring minorities?
