Finally, a new Boston
ASKED WHAT she thought when she heard that WRKO-AM reversed itself and canceled the guest co-host stint of Bernard McGuirk, Beverly Edgehill, president and CEO of the Partnership, said, "I had a broad smile on my face and a warm feeling in my heart because it spoke to the power of how people, not just black people, but many people being in accord on something.
"We can't talk about a New Boston if we keep sanctioning and approving this ugly, negative behavior. A lot of people are saying enough already. We have enough ill-tempered people out there."
If the "New Boston" is ever to lurch into reality, it begins with moments like this. WRKO-AM was set to give aid and comfort to McGuirk, the producer of the Don Imus radio and TV show. The Imus show, laden with racist remarks for years, finally crashed and burned after McGuirk and Imus called the black women of the Rutgers basketball team "hos."
WRKO at first seemed to have learned nothing from watching Fortune 500 advertisers abandon Imus (with Kenneth Chenault, the African-American CEO of
For that, the station should be commended. Old ways in talk-show media, the temptation to put profitable provocation ahead of civility, dies hard. But the station established -- at least for now -- a line where foul mouths are not welcome.
"When you have true, deep, transformational change, both the dregs and the gold often come to the surface at the same time," said Edgehill, whose organization tries to develop professionals of color who will stay in Boston. "This was one of those moments of both negative and positive, but if you have the clarity to push, push, push, the positive can win."
It was important for the positive to win because McGuirk's scheduled appearance was noted in several prominent newspapers across the country. The appearance would have come just three days after Boston Celtic great Bill Russell, in his continuing display of how he put the racism he experienced in Boston behind him, gave the commencement address at Suffolk University.
"I would like for you to do one thing for the rest of your life," Russell told the graduates in the transcript provided by the university. "And that is to be kind to your families and your friends and your neighbors. Kindness is an act of strength . . . a society that is kind is a civil society."
Boston doesn't need anyone to drag its reputation back to a more uncivil time. To be sure, there is much to be done. There is the surge in youth violence and horrible achievement gaps. Corporate boardrooms of the largest businesses in the state, a recent UMass-Boston study found, are still overwhelmingly white and male.
But people such as Edgehill see little things that might become big things. Both Edgehill and Donna Stewartson, coauthor of the UMass study, said the study's results have spurred conversations about how to change the racial and gender makeup of boardrooms. The violence has spurred youth activism and renewed discussions about both short-term and long-terms solutions.
"I really think it's a new day of people beginning to see the cup half full instead of half empty," Edgehill said.
In a fitting follow-up to Bill Russell's call for kindness and civility, Governor Deval Patrick will next week give the commencement address at UMass-Boston. No sitting governor has ever been the commencement speaker at this commuter college, a university spokesman said yesterday. The fact that Patrick is African-American adds to the glimmer of that new day in Boston as he raises the profile of an institution with the highest percentage of students of color among the state's public universities. It was recently announced that UMass-Boston will soon get its first African-American chancellor, Keith Motley.
The last thing all this change needed, whether you call it piecemeal or transformational, was a nationally known provocateur. WRKO said it canceled McGuirk after "deliberate consideration." Translated, the station was forced to consider that Boston is changing into a place that no longer tolerates deliberate racism.
Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com. 
