Story on racial climate brings loud response

Whether measured by volume or passion, Wednesday's Living/Arts story about Tiffany Dufu drew a strong response. It generated hundreds of e-mails and postings on Boston.com.

Dufu, a 31-year-old fund-raiser at Simmons College who moved to the Boston area from Seattle last August, spoke frankly in the story about her experiences and her perceptions of the racial climate as an African-American in this city. Her story launched an occasional Globe series titled ''How We Live Here" that will explore the black and Latino experience in metro Boston over the next several months.

Below are excerpts from some of the postings and e-mails received in response to the story:

To me this article takes the intangibles of Boston's race problem and presents them in words, which I did not think was possible. I hope this begins to create a way for us to have real dialogue about the heart of this elusive problem.

ANIL MONI, Jamaica Plain

What about white people living in metro Boston? Are you implying that white people in Boston never experience racism? White people in Boston are never made to feel uncomfortable by blacks or Latinos? Racism is a two-way street. Why don't you make an effort to give equal coverage to all the people of Boston and report on some incidents of black-on-white racism?

Or do you not care about those stories?

JOSEPH F. KING, Boston

I came to Boston from New York for graduate school, and I must admit that I have a lot of the same concerns that Ms. Dufu has about raising a family in Boston. Most of my friends from school who are people of color decided not to stay in Boston and have either moved back home or to other cities. The question for me has always been whether I want to stay to try to change things and whether there is a support group for me among my peers.

I hope that your article serves as a starting point for fruitful dialogues about race in this city.

SANDY K. YEUNG, Brighton

The viewpoint of one transplanted West-Coaster is used to indemnify the beliefs that Boston is either racist or segregated. When will the media accept the fact that people are racist and cities are not?

ANDREW FORCIER, Brighton

Your first in a series of occasional articles about blacks and Latinos living in metro Boston is the most thoughtful, insightful, and nuanced writing on Boston's racial problems I have seen since Tony Lukas. Congratulations on a fine piece of work -- and on finding a remarkably smart, sensitive, articulate, and honest subject like Tiffany Dufu to profile.

DAVID TEBALDI, Worthington

I can relate to the culture shock that Tiffany Dufu experienced upon coming to Boston. Boston is a culture that is full of old-school preconceptions about people, and those preconceptions hurt us and stunt our growth. Despite my upbringing, I have very few friends who do not look like me, i.e., white and middle-aged and middle class. You end your article with a quote -- ''. . . I don't know if people are prepared to do the work to make it better." I would welcome the opportunity to do the work, because in my book, there is something terribly wrong with this picture, and I believe that we are all diminished by this situation.

MAGGIE MCNALLY, Cambridge

I strongly support Tiffany Dufu's viewpoint about Boston's discomfort about the issue of race. As a black woman who has lived in Minnesota, I have often said that I've felt more comfortable there than I have in Boston. Having said all that, I do sense some change in the offing. For example, the fact that the mainstream media, especially The Boston Globe, this year has featured several articles about Boston's unresolved position on race and diversity. The recent Harvard University study and even Boston Magazine's Top 100 continue to bring light to Boston's unfinished symphony.

GISELE M. MICHEL, Quincy

This is a very tribal place. When the writer speaks about fewer black/white couples, I must admit I don't know of any Back Bay/Charlestown ones, North End/West Roxbury either. I know many people from all of those areas who have married or partnered with people from other parts of the country--or world. But not cross neighborhood. It isn't just black/white.

DEAVER BROWN, Lincoln

I have recently left the Boston area after living there for almost 30 years. The bad news for anyone thinking of settling in the Boston area is that they will never be accepted as locals, no matter how long they stay. The ''good" news is that their children who are born there will be, as long as they stay in the neighborhood where they were born.

STEPHEN SPAIN, Wilmington, N.C.

Racism is a reality here, as it is all over the country. I do not feel that it is any different in Boston than it is in New York, LA, or Seattle. Honestly I think the reason we hear so much about racism in Boston at present is because it pleases the editors of local papers and magazines to reopen old wounds and smear the reputation of a city trying to emerge from the shadow of its own past and the shadows of bigger cities like NYC and LA.

I believe that there is much work to do, but instead of picking up the paper and wondering why aren't there more people of color in positions of power in Boston, get active and change what you don't like. Put down roots, raise your children here, and make the city your own. There's room enough for all of us. We can't make racism vanish, but we can fashion the city in the image of a contemporary Boston. It won't be easy. It will take commitment.

DAVID MARCHIONE, Somerville

I've lived in Boston for 10 years now hoping things would get better. However, I have come to grips that Boston will never change! Perhaps it's not fair to compare cities but growing up in New York City and going to college in Washington, D.C., you tend to look at things from that point of view.

Boston is a very scary place at times for minorities. The parents who protested, cursed, spat, threw rocks, and called names to the hundreds of children being bused to school in the '70s are still alive and kicking. Their children are the ones who are now your local police and city reps. Let's say old mindsets die hard.

CLIFF CALHOUN, Malden

Tiffany is right on the money. I have lived in Boston my whole life and as a black male who grew up in the South End it's all true and more. Basically the city is about class. Money. Status. It's funny. I have quite a few white friends, except for one thing, which I didn't really think about until I read [your] article. None of them are from Boston. They are from the Midwest or West Coast and came here for college and stayed to work.

It's sad that Tiffany has encountered the situations that she has but I am not surprised. I wish we could have talked before you came to Boston, Tiffany. Good luck. Being single here is one thing but raising children here is something to think about.

JOHN WILLIS, West Roxbury

People who lived in other parts of the country find it striking at how insular and uptight Bostonians tend to be. There is more harmony in mixed populations residing in Oklahoma, California, New York, and Texas than in Massachusetts. Maybe it is because Bostonians possess that general New England state of mind, which is a xenophobic view that people are either natives or foreigners with no middle ground. The New England expression that ''just because a cat can give birth to kittens in an oven, it doesn't make them biscuits" tells how difficult it is for outsiders to join into established social circles.

LARRY CHUNG, Brookline