What Is Mingle City?

Is Boston a racist city?

• I've heard about Bostons racist past of the 70's but I'm wondering if the city still has that racist reputation that it once had. I'm pretty sure that there aren't huge acts of racism, but I'm wondering if there is an underlying feeling of it from people living in that area. Basically where people of certain ethnic groups only associate with their own. Its not the type of racism thats violent or out in the open but racism where people are somewhat segregated in a way. For example, do people of certain ethnic groups (Black, White, Asian, ect.) in the city only seem to mingle with their own? And is there a lack of interracial dating (or relations) between groups of different ethnicities?

• Answer:

  Not so much. But you can't use race and ethnicity interchangeably. There are in the Boston area Black people of many ethnicities. I wouldn't expect and Asian-American from a Korean immigrant family to have shared cultural or linguistic experiences with someone originally from Manila. This is very much a college town. There is a great deal of interracial dating (and marriage) in this area. Things have changed since the '70s. Racism (and other forms of ignorance) will be with us always; hopefully the influences are waning.