Biglaw

We Needed A Whole 'Spotlight' Investigation To Figure Out Boston Is Still Racist?

The numbers on law firm partner diversity are laughable, pathetic, and entirely predictable.

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I’ve lived in Boston (well, near Boston), and New York and Indianapolis. I unflinchingly saw that Boston is more like Indianapolis than New York in terms of opportunities and equality for people of color. I didn’t need an entire Boston Globe “Spotlight” investigation to tell me that Massachusetts is a terrible place to be black, they make it really obvious all the time.

But, apparently some people do.

The Globe’s Spotlight Team examined whether Boston still deserves its longstanding reputation as an inhospitable place for blacks. It found that in the corridors of power, blacks have failed to gain commensurate economic and political clout in a city where they make up nearly one-quarter of the population…

Despite Boston’s reputation as a liberal bastion, the region’s power base remains largely white men. Blacks’ political achievements are more occasional than institutional. There are no black faces in Massachusetts’ congressional delegation, nor among statewide officeholders, and the only black to win election to statewide office since 1972 is former governor Deval Patrick. Such infrequent electoral victories are different from an ongoing voice in all the affairs of a city.

Honestly, if I have to hear one more New Englander tell me Boston has “changed” because of Deval Patrick and David Ortiz, I’m going to kidnap one of the Wahlbergs and Pygmalion his ass until his own people reject him.

There are a number of ways Boston has managed to reduce the political and social power of its large minority population, and the Spotlight piece gives attention to all of them. Of particular note, Spotlight focuses on how Boston’s lack of minority business power leads to the lack of political power for minorities.

That’s how the piece ends up on law firms. It’s obvious that there are very few minority Biglaw partners working out of Boston’s top firms. But when you put that obvious reality into a helpful chart, it’s really stark:

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That is a JOKE.

And, of course, that problem compounds on itself. If you have a rep for not being good for black people, and you don’t hire black people, up-and-coming black people are going to stay the hell away, thus making it even more difficult for you to hire black people even if you are so inclined.

Take me: I, you know, give career advice to young lawyers of color trying to figure out how to start their careers. You want to know how many times I advise a young attorney to go to Boston? To work? Forever? NOT OFTEN! You’ve got to show up in my inbox with some very special circumstances before I say “yeah, that offer from Ropes & Gray is the one you want to take.”

“Elie, should I work in Boston?”
“No.”
“But the firm…”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Also, I literally only eat shellfish, and actively enjoy getting my ass kicked on Saint Patrick’s Day.”
“… fine. Live in Jamaica Plain though.”

Boston is the guy that gets drunk, punches you, compliments your ability to take the punch, then starts crying. It’s too racist to change, but secretly wishes it actually wanted to.

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And look, it’s not like Boston doesn’t have an opportunity to attract talented black and brown professionals. It has, like, ALL THE SCHOOLS. It’s the gravitational center of every institution of higher learning north of Yale. Lots of minorities have had the opportunity to sample what Boston has to offer, and most of them FLEE as soon as the ink is dry on their diplomas.

But that’s also why it’s impossible to talk about Boston without talking about New York. New York has many flaws, but it feels more like a “meritocracy” than Boston. Boston is an insular city. It’s parochial. Power is doled out along the lines of who went to freaking grade school with who. NYC doles out power based on whoever has the most money. Oh sure, actually having the most money relies on a non-meritorious network of insular connections. But the allure of New York is the legal fiction that you can make enough money that you can’t be ignored. You can carpetbag New York, and minorities rightly see that as an opportunity. Boston feels like a gated community, by comparison.

And white Boston is still pretty happy with things being that way. We’re talking about a city that had a crisis of identity when its baseball team actually DIDN’T SUCK for once. It’ll have a “black mayor” eventually, but he’ll be a former Beanpot champion who can trace his roots back to Crispus Attucks or something.

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

FOR BLACKS IN BOSTON, A POWER OUTAGE [Boston Globe]

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