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Election roundup: Three candidates pull out of Pride forum; Pride says you can't pull out, we're rescheduling
By adamg on Wed, 06/02/2021 - 9:49am
A year-old debate over the future of Boston Pride has spilled into the mayoral race, with candidates Andrea Campbell, Annissa Essaibi George and Michelle Wu announcing yesterday they won't be at a Pride-sponsored forum this Monday.
Campbell tweeted she would instead take part in an alternative forum put on by people who say current Pride leadership needs to go because it keeps dissing Blacks and trans residents. Essaibi George tweeted something similar. Wu made similar comments to the Globe - which reports that Pride has decided to postpone its forum for a week.
Wu blasted plans by Acting Mayor Kim Janey to re-open City Hall to employees without any provisions for day care. Wu, who used City Hall day care for her sons, said the move is unacceptable. John Barros agreed:
Acting Mayor Janey must pause her rigid and abrupt return to work schedule, and make a sincere effort to solicit feedback from employees about their needs as they begin to return to the physical office. Employees who are caring for children or parents, those with medical conditions that put them at high risk, and those who must make arrangements due to limited public transit deserve a thoughtful plan that acknowledges their needs.
Janey is expected to hold that hearing to remove Dennis White as police commissioner today. She talked to WGBH yesterday about the affair. UPDATE: Janey reports she had the hearing this morning and that " I will make a decision after careful deliberation."
Also yesterday, Wu joined with Councilor Liz Breadon and Big Dig mastermind and Allston resident Fred Salvucci to call for replacement of the current Allston turnpike viaduct with an at-grade version along with accelerated development of the proposed West Station, new north/south bus routes and bike and pedestrian paths.
The Bay State Banner reports on a poll that shows Essaibi George in the lead, followed by Wu and Janey. Other candidates had single-digit support in the poll.
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Comments
Hey Wu
You make $100,000 + a year. Whats unacceptable is you being upset you’ll have to pay for childcare like the rest up us.
Welcome to the real world.
Hey, anon, you're wrong
Wu's kids were in City Hall daycare. At least one of her sons is now a BPS student. The other either is as well or will be soon (I can't remember, to be honest). She was expressing a concern about other people who work in City Hall. I would have mentioned that more specifically, but, I guess I keep underestimating how upset people will get about pretty much everything ever.
This is not meant to be snarky
Adam, you've been writing (and I've been reading) UHub for roughly a millennia in internet years. Have you found that commenters' reading comprehension has gotten worse, or have people just talked out of their ass forever?
For Accuracy's Sake
I'm not sure where Ms. Essaibi George is coming by the information that "Pride" (as it much later came to be known) was "founded by black/brown people". I was around in those early days of 70-71. I remember John Mitzel being a prime mover. Charlie Shively maybe too. Both of them were white. Organizations then known as The Daughters of Bilitis and the Student Homophile League had something to do with it as well, and some people of color were in those groups. But I wouldn't call them "founders". In fact the whole concept for a "Pride" "march" as they were then known, sprang from the aforementioned groups and individuals participating in anti-Vietnam War marches and then deciding to solidify for a specifically gay (no alphabet soup yet) event. I suggest Ms. Essaibi George do her homework and not allow current political rhetoric to get in the way of accuracy.
But I will agree it has been gentrified beyond recognition from those early days. I recall seeing a group march in the one of the very early parades with paper bags on their heads, eyes cut out so they could see, holding signs designating their occupations. One could still be fired from jobs in those days for being gay. After witnessing something as powerful as that, today's inflated corporate spectacle seems rather empty.
Hub of the Universe indeed
Are we only discussing Boston’s pride event as if it was/is an event conceived in isolation? Pride celebrations/protests/riots occurring in June were very much started by Black trans folks. Also, the officially sanctioned corporate pride event is not the only queer event that occurs here in June; the grassroots events have always reflected the broader community much more than Boston Pride and its preference for white abled middle-class gay men (along with folks such as white women who belong to the Log Cabin Republicans wtaf).
Gee I don't know
Gee I don't know.. when many articles have "read times" should tell you what people's attention span is like.
ADHDLack of attention span generation.. so damn busy we need to know how long it will take to read something. Wake up people, we're overworked and over scheduled if we have to think about spending 5 minutes or not to read something.Edited for clarity
We are, but...
We are overworked and over scheduled...but ADHD is not the same thing as being inattentive or temporarily overwhelmed by events. It's a condition that causes a lot of trouble and grief for those who have it. Maybe don't speak of it as if it were a fad that people choose to participate in.
Yes, thank you
Sometimes overworked and over-scheduled but my brain is always just that little bit off from where it should be. A whole lot of people in earlier generations could have benefited if this disorder was recognized sooner.
I have it
I have it, thank you very much. I'm pretty educated on the topic, thanks.
I think my point to poking at myself was the attention span we all have, regardless of ADHD.
Everything we do so time sensitive because we can't keep people's attention long enough.
News articles have gotten shorter
Long gone are the hour long specials on TV about one specific topic
Hell long gone are is news with any sort of in depth look. "In Depth" is now 2.5 min segment vs 30 seconds.
TikTok is *exactly* this
No one takes time anymore. No one reads anymore. Its 'how fast can send what people need to know before they lose attention"
Understood
I have a friend with ADHD, and it's causing him a lot of grief right now. It's cost him some friendships. It's hard to watch.
I agree with your general observations, although I might disagree with what comes first, the chicken or the egg. Monetization leads to pushing more content, as aggressively as possible, and that leads to trying to capture attention. It takes discipline to just say no to it. It's a natural progression for content providers to offer tools or handles that consumers can use to filter -- and, yes, to shorten and simplify. "No one takes time anymore" is a bit of an oversimplification: people don't have the time, unless they're first discriminating enough to be their own filters.
Moderation question:
what's the point of approving an anon comment that's full of misinformation here?
OK. If anon has it all wrong,
OK. If anon has it all wrong, then what that was stated was false? What's the true history of Pride in Boston?
...the part about Wu paying for childcare?
As Adam pointed out, she doesn't have kids who would be in daycare anymore, so she can hardly be looking for a handout for her own kids here.
That OTHER anon. Sorry--can't
That OTHER anon. Sorry--can't keep it "straight." Get it? Cause I am so gay. Not the best kind of gay--but a boring bad white one. I was referring to the gent who seemed to have actually known people who started, and himself attended, an early Pride parade.
So Boston Pride was founded
So Boston Pride was founded by black/brown people, gentrified, and today is led by an all-white board? That's very Boston.
More details
I'd love to read more details/history on Boston pride 'committee'. Many moons ago it was all volunteers, and no one wanted to help out, so it was indeed the same volunteers over and over.
Bike Path
Having the Esplanade path be elevated in the river on stilts and trees around Storrow is the best plan for I-90. It would be enjoyable to use without requiring filling in the river.
If MA was smart they'd try to fast track it now while it would probably be approved by the feds. They should build/complete that section irrespective of anything else that happens to the highways.
polls
I wouldn't assume that Anissa is the front runner. My guess is that most of Janey's supporters would go to Wu same with Barros supporters, Campbell supporters and even Santiago supporters. Or to put it another way, if the same people polled only had the option of Wu or Essaibi George, Wu would have been up by big numbers.
That's not an option (yet)
At the end of the day, the top 2 get through. At this stage, people's second choice is immaterial.
I'm kind of surprised that Essabi-George topped the poll. Nothing against her- she's on my shortlist- but not expecting that.
Not surprising
She's the candidate of the political unions and developers, the people who don't want the city to change and think White got a bad deal. She's the Marty Walsh soft corruption continuance candidate, a very popular position.
How many people are going to
How many people are going to bat for White? It’s the Willie Gross for mayor crowd supporting AEG.
Wu consistantly sounds mayoral
I find that her comments are nearly always the most well-thought-out of the candidates. She seems to really know how things work and how to address changes that are needed.
You know who else sounds mayoral?
The acting mayor.
She sounds mayoral every day when she's on TV doing some mayoral business.
The problem with being acting mayor
Janey now has a problem none of the other candidates have to deal with. She'll have a track record as mayor, filled with newby gaffes, without having been in office long enough to have learned the job and had positives to show for it.
Read up on the history of "Mumbles"
Janey has the bully pulpit. So long as she doesn't cause a major gaffe, she's getting a leg up on the competition every day. Of course, if there is some kind of catastrophe (sorry, the saga of BPD commissioner doesn't count), she'll end up being an important footnote in the history of Boston.
Myself, I might not vote for her, but I am accepting the fact that her term will be longer than months.