Posted by Kevin Arnovitz
In this morning's Boston Herald, Doc Rivers answers Steve Bulpett's questions about Boston's racial image and the popular meme that black players don't want to play in the city.
Rivers responds that while the history might be undeniable, popular opinion has been slow to catch up to contemporary reality:
Well, I think that's the old opinion of Boston...You know, it was in Bill Russell's book years ago, but that's changed obviously - and it's good that it's changing. But sometimes change happens first and the perception (changing) happens second.
When Kevin Garnett announced that he wanted no part of a trade to the C's, Michael Wilbon speculated on Dan Patrick's ESPNRadio show that Boston's history might have played a part in Garnett's position. Wilbon addressed the issues of Boston, sports, and race Monday in "
The Chat House," his live discussion with readers in the
Washington Post:
A great, great many of us -- black folks -- have had openly hostile and unpleasant experiences in greater Boston. I'm talking even physical confrontations. I've been called "Nigger" to my face in Boston Garden on two occasions, openly and publicly and to no great objection by the people sitting nearby...I can talk to just about any black person who spent time in Boston through the 1990s and get similar stories...So I'm not going into any more anecdotes. I have hundreds. Having said that, I've been in greater Boston recently and noticed what I feel is a huge change...Hey, Chicago went through this in the 1980s and 1990s...Maybe Boston was just a few years behind...For every Mo Vaughan you point out I'll name you 20 players who've turned down free agent money or a trade to Boston teams...The Red Sox were the last to integrate...15 years or so after Jackie Robinson. That's an entire generation later...On the other hand, and this is the great contradiction and complex thing about Boston, the Celtics were the pioneers when it came to race relations in the NBA, both in the playing and coaching ranks. Red Auerbach wouldn't have it any other way. The Celtics were among the first to draft a black player, to have three or four blacks in the starting lineup, to have a black coach (Bill Russell)...It's a fascinating irony, the Celtics and race...The Celtics produced Big John Thompson, remember. I covered Patrick Ewing's announcement, when he left Ringe & Latin High for Georgetown and didn't go to a Boston school...He was called every kind of "Nigger" in the book by locals because he dared leave and didn't stay to be their boy. Yet, if you go back 150 years, Boston was the home to so many abolitionists who fought slavery and assisted in the Underground Railroad...It's complex and fascinating and I wonder if anybody in and from and of Boston has ever written extensively about it.
Wilbon, judicious as always, doesn't deny that the city has been on the vanguard of civil rights (which is true both then and now). But sometimes enlightenment can produce an eerie dialectic, and the "fascinating irony" of the Celtics' history is a prime example.
Regarding the sincerety of athletes who consider race when choosing or not choosing Boston, C's blogger RedArmy
points out the following double-standard: "[Y]ou don't want to come to Boston because the team sucks...but you're happy to go to Phoenix because they're a championship contender." As RedArmy mentions, Arizona hasn't exactly been a bastion of tolerance. It was the last state in the nation to honor MLK Day, only after being threatened with a tourist boycott. But the Suns are not only poised for a championship, they play an intoxicating brand of basketball. Is the issue racial history or the presence/absence of a point guard who can get you the ball exactly where and when you want it? I would guess a little bit of both, and a coherent organizational philosophy might go a long way toward making Boston a desirable burg again for a person of any persuasion that wants to play basketball for a living.
