Boston’s POC Christmas Party echoes Eddie Murphy’s famous SNL bus sketch in reverse
First, the old Eddie Murphy sketch. On watching it again after many years, I’m struck by the fact that, although I had remembered the first two bits – in the store; and the party on the bus – I had forgotten the third one: the bank loan. The last one in particular mimics what later happened with mortgages, except in reverse as far as “people of color” went:
Now, the recent news (Wu is the mayor of Boston):
A Wu administration official, on behalf of the mayor, mistakenly sent all Boston city councilors an email Tuesday inviting them to a holiday party that was meant exclusively for “electeds of color,” prompting an apology and mixed reactions.
Denise DosSantos, the mayor’s director of City Council relations, told the body’s “honorable members” that, “on behalf of Mayor Michelle Wu,” she was cordially inviting each of them “and a guest to the Electeds of Color Holiday Party on Wednesday, Dec. 13 at 5:30 p.m. at the Parkman House, 33 Beacon St.”
Approximately 15 minutes later, however, DosSantos sent out a follow-up email to city councilors, apologizing for the prior email, which was apparently only meant for those who were invited. The body includes seven white councilors and six of color.
Oopsies and double oopsies.
Wu is Asian, and DosSantos is black. The “apology” said this:
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.
May have offended? How about “I’m sorry that my email was offensive” – the sort of real apology one seldom sees. Or how about “I’m sorry that even entertaining the idea of such a secret racially restrictive party is deeply offensive, and actually planning such a party in secret is doubly so”? Nah, that sort of apology won’t be seen.
And as far as resultant “confusion” goes, the only confusion I can imagine is the white recipients wondering why they got the email, and some of the rest of us wondering why there probably will be no serious repercussions for the senders.
Mayor Wu hasn’t really got the hang of BIPOC privileges yet, but she’ll learn.
I guess the bank loan part is how Judge Engoron thinks they treated Trump.
There really is racism in the West.
It just isn’t where we keep being told it resides.
I put in eight years on the faculty of an historically black state college (I am very Caucasian [and neither proud nor ashamed of that; it merely *is*]).
I was invited to fill out an entry form to be submitted towards my listing in a Who’s Who in Black America (or something to that effect; it’s been half a century now).
Nothing wrong with racism as long as it’s directed at white folks
Elected of Color, can you have more clunky verbiage possible,
heard it on the clay and buck show
There’s this tale among IT peeps a few decades back, wherein a bank was sending out an advertising mailout regarding some new services they wanted to offer to their “upper crust” clientele.
The wag who was testing it whimsically used “Rich Bastard” as the name of the test form letter, so it said things like “Dear Rich Bastard…” 😀
Needless to say, as you may have guessed, some error occurred and every letter was addressed to “Dear Rich Bastard”. LMAO.
As you may have guessed, the person whose job it was to test the whole thing was immediately sacked.
}}} There really is racism in the West.
It just isn’t where we keep being told it resides.
Indeed. And the real proof of this is the fact that almost every time you hear about some racist event, it usually winds up being a Smollett.
Case in point — some woman, obviously looking to create race hatred, tried to burn down MLK’s birthplace…
Woman charged with attempting to burn down Martin Luther King Jr. birth home identified
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/martin-luther-king-jr-birth-home-scene-of-attempted-vandalism
Unfortunately for her, she got caught and detained. Aaaaand whaddya know… she ain’t white.
Amazing how often shit like this winds up being outed as a “hoax.”
But strangely, it’s never, ever a “hate crime”… which it would be IF it had actually been a white person doing it.
We have gone from Eddie Murphy’s “passing as white” to Rachel Dolezal, Buffy Saint Marie, and Elizabeth Warren (et. al) actually passing as minority group members.
” Wu ”
Anyone ever notice that many Asians are no darker in skin color than many Europeans?
Well, their hair color on average may be darker, since people of European descent seem to have a much wider range of natural hair color than any other group.
This city racism is consistent with the racism out at Harvard.
ObloodyHell,
My test team once accidentally ordered an entire left wing for a 747. Oops.
Got an email Sunday from xxxx telling me they were cancelling an order that I had already received. Somehow they shipped it without billing me. The largest toy company in the world. Called them. They had no clue why they sent the email. No clue they had shipped goods without billing. Few hours later, I got billed a week late.
its curious, in the handmaids tale, the capital of Gilead was in Cambridge, it was in keeping with the whole Puritan witchhunter meme, (I don’t know if they maintained that for the series)
The second email was the one she should have apologized for.
Michelle Wu has had a truly remarkable rise. Her parents were immigrants from Taiwan who came here to study. Her father was an MIT educated engineer. She was born in 1985. Perfect SAT and ACT scores. Harvard. Harvard Law. City Council at 29. Mayor at 36. And all the while still sounding like a little girl when she speaks.
If the “people of color” shindig was about deprivation or justice or structural inequalities, Michelle Wu probably shouldn’t be there. But it seems like it’s more about maintaining a political coalition. If you want to be more expansive what’s going on is about fundamentally transforming American elites and American culture, maybe even America itself. The talk about white supremacy today seems to be more about politics, power, and cultural hegemony — about a new elite cementing itself — than about actual white racism. And the interesting thing may be that Wu’s white voters really don’t mind.
Or maybe the party was just about a girls’ night out without Michelle’s oh-so-white husband Conor.
Daily Mail had a couple of stories, natch. Apparently their 13 person city council is large enough to have several “working groups” of like-minded people, of which “Electeds of Color” is one of about 10-years existence. Per the source, the group has an annual party which rotates its hosting, and Wu got the nod this year.
There were several quoted persons who said that the groups weren’t being exclusive just because there were people who weren’t included in them.
However, I can’t help pondering the news cycle if the invite had been sent from Electeds of Pallor instead.
@ Miguel > “Elected of Color, can you have more clunky verbiage possible”
Well, BIPOCs is close, but you might have a Lord in the SCA with that kind of name.
NTBee says the quiet part out loud.
https://notthebee.com/article/bostons-mayor-michelle-wu-is-hosting-a-secret-no-whites-allowed-christmas-party-for-elected-officials-she-was-exposed-when-her-office-accidentally-sent-the-invite-to-everyone
@ Chases Eagles > “Got an email Sunday from xxxx telling me they were cancelling an order that I had already received. Somehow they shipped it without billing me. The largest toy company in the world. Called them. They had no clue why they sent the email. No clue they had shipped goods without billing. Few hours later, I got billed a week late.”
AI shipping department at work.
Or a time travel anomaly in the warehouse.
Maybe aliens did it as a test run for taking over the world.
What was the toy?
“As you may have guessed, the person whose job it was to test the whole thing was immediately sacked.”
Quoted from a previous comment, with this reaction from me. What do you think will happen to Mx. DosSantos? Or Mayor Wu? Allow me to answer the question:
Nothing.
They aren’t white-skinned, nor male. Blanket immunity has been conveyed on all “people (not merely “electeds,” what ever they are) of color.” Cf. treatment of J6’ers and BLM rioters. See also the recent brouhaha among the three stooges from Penn, MIT and Harvard, where only the white one got shitecanned and the one who resembled Steve Urkel form “Family Matters” has walked away unscathed.
We live in Clown World now, and if you’re white, you ain’t one of the favored clowns.
I apologize if my email may have offended or came across as so.
I don’t remember the exact details, but many years ago a prominent Japanese man expressed a low opinion of the USA in general, because “blacks and Puerto Ricans lower Americans’ average intelligence.”
wasn’t one of the Japanese prime ministers (i forget which) it was right before the property bubble popped in Japan,