Whitewash view of city
A recent caller wanted to know if I had taken a look at Boston Magazine's list of the most influential Bostonians, described by the monthly as ''The 100 People Who Run This Town." The magazine has concluded that of the people who make things happen here, exactly one is a person of color.
''What does this say about this city?" asked the caller, an African-American partner in a major law firm. ''What does it say to a person of color who thinks about moving here, when they see this list?"
Good questions. The list includes a slew of the familiar powerbrokers, people such as Hill Holliday CEO Jack Connors Jr., concessions honcho Joe O'Donnell, and former John Hancock CEO David D'Alessandro. The mayor and governor placed 10th and 15th, respectively. Seventeen selections were new from 2001, the last time the magazine compiled such a list.
Still, if Boston Magazine is to be believed, this city, this ''majority-minority" city, is run by 78 white guys, 21 white women, and the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers of the Ella J. Baker House in Dorchester.
So whatever happened to this ''New Boston" we're always hearing about?
Jon Marcus, the magazine's editor, said yesterday that he and his staff spent a lot of time thinking about this in the seven months they spent compiling their list. ''This year, precisely for the reason you're calling, we spent a great deal of time reaching out to people who have their finger on the pulse of the nonwhite community, and we spent a great deal of time trying to cull some names that would fit on our top 100," Marcus said.
And one in 100 is the result?
''We don't socially engineer the city; we just report on it," Marcus said. ''This list reflects the reality as we saw it after seven months of research. We have not been led to believe we were wrong about it."
Marcus volunteered that the list was less diverse than its 2001 predecessor. ''Maybe this will start a conversation, because it ought to," he said.
Omitted from the list are some powerful black people who would seem obvious selections. Former US attorney Wayne A. Budd and former Suffolk district attorney Ralph C. Martin II certainly remain two of the 100 most influential people in this town. Two Blue Cross Blue Shield honchos, chairman William Van Faasen and executive vice president Peter Meade rightly made it, but the company's president and incoming CEO, Cleve L. Killingsworth, who will outrank both of them in a few weeks, somehow didn't make the cut. And where's Harvard's Henry Louis Gates Jr.?
I could go on, but the names are not really the point. The point is, when white people consider who really matters, almost all the people who matter just happen to be white.
Some would say Boston Magazine hasn't always had its finger on the racial pulse of the city. It sparked outrage in some corners a few years ago with a cover story that proclaimed Gates the ''Head Negro in Charge" at Harvard, and with another provocative story on the ''12 Tribes of Boston."
In fairness, some omissions are right on the money. I don't think any thoughtful list of the city's most influential people would include any black elected official, for example. And the upper reaches of the major executive suites in town are, indeed, pretty white.
That said, this list does not reflect this city. Many would disagree with the conclusion that Rivers is the most influential person of color in Boston. Asked how he felt about it, Rivers said he saw significance in his relatively low position.
''I am number 97 for a reason," he said. ''I am the symbolic representation of the aggregate relative powerlessness of black people in this town, and the apparent unwillingness of black people to play the power game in this town."
Marcus said repeatedly that he hoped the list would spark a needed conversation about diversity. I hope that discussion begins with a debate about whether this is really the way Boston views itself. If it is, this city has changed less than many of us think.
Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com.
