Rebirth of The Bean
It’s that big week – the one where sports fans, ad agencies and beer drinkers from all over the world converge to focus on a single football game. It’s true, the Super Bowl is an event in a class all its own, but this year’s confrontation between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants is not just a battle of the gridiron or a tale of two east coast, elitist metroplexes, but the further evidence of a full-fledged revival of the Boston metro area.
With a win this Sunday, the Pats will be the first ever team to win an undefeated 19 games en route to a Super Bowl championship and will have secured their 4th title in 7 years.
Additionally the Red Sox (Boston’s baseball team), after a 80+ year drought, have one 2 of the last 4 World Series Championships. And the Celtics, the once storied, then ridiculed basketball franchise has the best record in the NBA as the season reaches its halfway point. This makes 
it highly likely that Bean-Town could see 3 major professional sports championships in one year.
Meanwhile, as our country heads towards recession, Boston the city is positioning itself as the leader in many industries that will keep our entire country afloat, including education, medicine, and renewable energy. With the knowledge base of the numerous universities, the Boston metro-area is positioning itself as the new silicon valley, the place where innovation happens.
Speaking of innovation, don’t forget that Deval Patrick, is the governor of the state and is the second Black governor ever in US history. And Massachusetts is on the forefront of civil rights for homosexuals, illegal immigrants and the medically uninsured.
Boston is the town that randomly decided to throw all their freeways underground because the SOUND got in the way. And granted, the entire big dig was poorly executed it for years, but it was an impressive undertaking for sure.
Boston is on the rise.
Maybe its the New Yorker in me, but despite all its accolades and achievements, i still think Boston sucks as a city. I’ve felt like this for a while, since my very first visit in 2003, and despite my friends and colleagues at Harvard trying to convince me otherwise, I have never felt comfortable in “The Bean.” And I hear many other Black folks feel the same way.
Why?
Maybe its because all the Black folks are thrown up on that hill away from everybody else. Maybe its because the Subway system shuts down at midnight, and looks like it was built before John Quincy Adams. Maybe just that cold winter weather that breeds an angry disposition or the fact that the entire city still smells like 1776. Crispus Attucks may have taken that bullet, but to this day Boston is the place “America” was born, and where White folks are proud to just be…well…White.
To me the words “Patriots” and “Rebels” (an anti-Black, pro-confederate sentiment, especially in Mississippi) are kissing cousins and the Boston tea party was the America’s first exhibition of “Black Face” (or Red Face). I don’t care if you like Boston Baked Beans, New England Clam Chowder or Samuel Adams Beer. The town still wreaks of a proud American history that wasn’t so kind to Black folks.
So, Go Giants! I hope you beat the “revolution” out of the Patriots this Sunday.
January 29, 2008 at 3:51 pm
“Go Giants! I hope you beat the revolution out of the Patriots this Sunday.” – Officially my quote of the day.
Being a former person who slept in Boston. No New Yorker can ever be a resident of Boston. We’re just sleeping there until we get to our next location. Anyway, when I was sleeping in Boston it was a city I also could never feel comfortable in – if for no other reason than the fact that I seemed to be, other than my two closet friends neither of which were born there, the only black person sleeping in a 50-block radius of what they refer to as Boston. As you probably know, they don’t say them people up on the hill live in Boston – That’s Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan – as if the black people are on a reservation or some sheeeiiitt.
I always thought it was a backdoor corrupted hand shake deal between the cab companies and the city; that public transportation stopped at 12, yet their bars closed at 2am, which forced you into a cab in a city where going five blocks cost like $20.
I’ve since met a lot, correction, some black people whom lived and went to school in Boston at the same as I lived their nine years ago. They speak of this massive amount of black they use to hang out and go to school with at Harvard, BU, and BC. I’m not sure if they’re making up an imaginary excess of black people to make those many years stuck amongst the “patriots” stand as easier memories. When I was there – we saw no black people in our neighborhood, other than the three of us, that didn’t live on “them hills” and they usually only came to “Boston” for work, then headed right back up before it got too late and them red sox fans came out.
No need for any black person to ever go back to Boston. I don’t care what they planning. Down with the patriots and the rest of them can eat my sox.
LOL.
This bitter sounding ass message brought to you from the loneliest black man that ever slept in Boston cuss he didn’t do white girls and had no other options.
January 29, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Yeah,
Boston gets slept on all the time. but we actually like it that way. It’s not like NYC. It takes a different kind of person. Boston has two sides to it which Vasco pointed out. There is the “earthy” side with its many bars, one of the a kind accent, and vibrant sports culture. And there’s an “intellectual” side with world renown universities, prominent thinkers holding forth at public events, and start-ups around around every 3rd corner. For the well-educated, it is a place with abundant opportunities.
Boston is a city of networks, but it’s small so getting plugged is relatively easy. So while it is low on advertising (unlike NYC), there’s actually a lot going on beneath the surface. It is a place of house parties rather that clubs, and bars over lounges.
Boston is a city of small confluent neighborhoods versus expansive Burroughs. Most newcomers live in Medford, Cambridge, Brighton, Brookline, Back Bay, or Jamaica Plain all of which put together is probably smaller than Brooklyn.
The “Racist Boston” stereotype is dying fast. That’s not to say that you will run into to throngs of buppies, but throwing rocks at elementary school buses is definitely out.
Boston is a place where you stand on the merit of your ideas and work ethic. It is a place where you can go from an concept to policy, product, or movement. It’s not the place for catching waves, it’s the place for making them.
I love it!
January 29, 2008 at 4:34 pm
This is not in defense as much as factual…Boston is truly the only place in America where one can look inside the window and actually watch how the low income Southie treats the low income Quincyite! Where as someone said in an earlier post “up on those Hills” – actually called Beacon Hill still attracts the fake crowd that wants to clings to a history that was not even theirs yet feel that Plymouth Rock is them and still behave as if it still lives!
Boston is a cool town if you have NO expectation of being accepted or being the exception to expectation.
And by the way growing up in MA – I have hated the New England Liars since the Black dude was walking across a Business park and was stabbed by the eagle on an American flag during the busing era!!
The Craft family bought the Patriots for a song and has created a money making franchise and he was smart enough to get out of the way of his coach. He is a business dude and now he is suckering the White market of Boston to pay for his new stadium! Come on – see the light – it ain’t about Boston – it is about Mr. Krafts $$!!
Like all dynasty’s from Steeler to Cowboy’s – the era will end and things will go back to usual but racisim will remain. As I have always said in many white house holds – the only Black invited is Jimmy Hendrix!
Go NEW YORK GIANTS!
January 29, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Look, I get it, the bean was built up from some racist at white people, unfortunately most of the world is. We had the fucked up busing siutation in the 70’s, the last city to integrate in sports, South Boston just in the last 5 years has become more diverse, and we are like the higher education mecca of the US. But we still got issues. One thing I appreciate about the bean though was that its not that big, and we were all exposed to all sorts of different cultures. Everyone who was born and raised there has an immense sense of pride and respect and on a national level a brotherhood/sisterhood of sorts.
Everytime I tell folks out in San Francisco Bay Area im from the bean, their like, ‘isnt it really racist?’ “there are black people there’? I see signs of racism here in San Francisco! Get familiar people, the ‘Man’ or ‘Men’ rather set the stones to make the country what it is today…. progressively fucked up. It takes the new generations and the new outlooks to change ish, should we talk about LA, or Harlem or Oakland, where ish was systematically made to fuck up the lives of people of color everywhere. We could argue what city is the most racist for days, but I think the point is to consider who is making major strides to uplift the oppressed and shine light on a old fashioned historical roots.
Cats have always slept on the Bean, now everyones mad cause they realize we actually got a culture going on.
‘Haters gonna hate, ballers gonna ball” -R. Kelly
January 29, 2008 at 5:12 pm
sorry vasco but “that’s [not] fair.” after going to college in boston (and mostly due to the lifelong siblinghoods i found in my boston native peoples) i have boston pride that’ll stay with me always. stop hating and let me know when youre ready to give the bean a real chance. i have some people you need to meet.
p.s. boston has a VERY dope underground hiphop scene. dont sleep.
January 29, 2008 at 5:26 pm
People of Note who have spent time in Boston:
*Admittedly institution heavy
-Barack Obama
-Deval Patrick
-Lani Guiner
-Martin Luther King Jr.
-Coretta Scott King
-Malcolm X
-Edward Brooke, III
-Cornel West
-Anthony Appiah
-Henry Louis Gates
-Charles Ogletree
January 29, 2008 at 6:46 pm
I see many people coming to the defense of “the bean” but the last straw for me was when Bob the Chef’s changed the name (I won’t even write it, because it’s blasphemies) and then fucked up the catfish recipe. That was officially it. I was done.
P.S. To E Scrooge
I appreciate the Co-sign, but I must admit I was one of those people living in Beacon Hill. The problem for me wasn’t an outward showing of racism, besides when Id wear a full Yankees uniform to Fenway Park even when the Red Sox werent playing the Yankees you just have to take what you get when you put yourself in such a position – actually had many great friends while there. My real issue was everyones contentment to stay on his or her side of the street. Boston was like four blocks long and no one crossed the street. I knew people who lived in Dorchester who had never, in their lives, stepped foot onto Newbury st.
It did bug me out when I realized your key chain determined what type of customer service you received in Boston. There were really only two grocery stores, at least back then, Stop N Shop and Star market (Don’t really remember Farmer Joe’s being around back then). Anyway, I noticed depended on which grocery store keychain you had – would determine how someone would treat you. Therefore, I got me a Stop and Shop key chain, added it to my Star market key chain, and messed everyones head up. They didn’t know what to do follow me or offer me a beverage.
I have a question for all you pro-Boston people – I have two very very good old friend who currently lives in Boston, both black, upwardly mobile, successful, cultured, and in desperate need of some black love and culture. They both seem to be having the same problems I had when there of not being able to find other upwardly mobile black people in Boston. Where would you recommend them going – open to all suggestions (restaurants, clubs, websites, social/public functions, organizations, etc.)?
January 29, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Where to find buppies in Boston:
The key is staying in touch with people after you met them…
-BlueWave (Saturday, before 11:30)
-Talks by Black people at any Harvard or BU venue (most are public and on their website)
-First Friday’s Boston (google it)
-Salsa Boston (google it)
-Huntington Theater Plays w/ Black people (1-2/yr)
-Harvard/Yale Homecoming (Nov): the black biz & law student have tents that open to all
-Churches in Roxbury & Dorchester (esp Morning Star)
-Cambridge Dance Studio (pick your performing art of choice)
Damn, I should get paid for this…lol
January 29, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Thanx for the recommendations BlackMan. I will be sure to pass them on. If anyone has any others, I would love those as well.
February 6, 2008 at 11:14 am
VB, you had me worried for a second there, i thought you were endorsing the wretched city of boston. i’m going to admit it, my analysis is completely anecdotal. but so be it. i hate everything about that city, and more importantly everything it represents.
look my parents are from boston. my dad is a bc law guy, and worked in the public defenders office. my mom taught high school math in basically segregated schools in roxbury. but i’m still pretty sure my mother has still not – and never will – forgive me for not attending “cambridge”, as they call it, instead of staying home at rice u. whatever.
i mean first of all, it’s the fake sense of humility that everyone in that city has. ask a harvard alum where he went to school. what’s his first reaction? the conversation goes something like this.
Crimson: “oh i went to school in boston.”
RJA: (i keep pressing.) “oh really, where?”
Crimson: “just a little school on the west side of town.”
RJA: “oh wow, so you went to Smith. I didn’t know it was finally integrated. good for you. how was that, being a trailblazer on the gender frontier?” (i’m thinking this will fire him up, but no, he still doesn’t get it.)
Crimson: “no, i went to harvard. but we f***ed all the smithies. (next comes ”
i mean, what an idiot, i’m sorry. this utter arrogance masked as humility is incredibly patronizing. and it’s very typical of the entire city. (and don’t get me started on the minorities who attend harvard, its like 10X worse.)
why is it that every male in boston is that guy in the bar with the long blonde hair and raspy voice in the movie good will hunting, who matt damon has to clown when he starts eulogizing about gordon wood?
boston is full of pseudo-intellectuals. there i said it. they are. pseudo-intellectuals. tell me one great accomplishment or one great leader to come out of boston since 1960. i mean, c’mon guys, we can only hang on to the camelot mystique for so long. god rest her soul, but jackie is dead. so is dead-man-walking teddy. (the obama camp can see how his endorsement really does a lot of good.)
i know this is all probably inappropriate for your blog vb, so my apologies. but hey, i’m from tx. we’re known for having big mouthed idiots that spout regional rhetoric. it makes for presidential candidates!
i’m out!