A Series of Fortunate Events: Fighting Cancer with RACEs

New Year’s Resolution that I haven’t yet broken: save Massachusetts from complete volunteer fail.  When last we met, I got you thinking about civic engagement.  Still crucial.  But you can only vote so often (and early, for James Michael Curley).  You know what you can do all the time though?

Go running.

I know, you’re starting to take this ‘go running’ hints personally.  I’m not judging!  You’re perfect just the way you are.  But if you’re going to go for a jog ANYWAYS, you might as well jog for something.  Like, say, fighting cancer.

You know who’s out fighting cancer lately?  The gentlemen of RACE, J. Alain Ferry and my fellow Holy Cross alumni, Brendan Kearney.  They’re not doctors or scientists; they’re runners, bikers, and good people out raising money for a good cause.  What a great combination!  They let me crash their post-run at Crossroads Pub on Thursday to tell me a bit about what they’re doing, how to participate, and who can help.  (Hint:  everyone.)

Starting Line

In 2007, Alain was at a Christmas party with his then-girlfriend, whose mother was fighting cancer.  At the event, they ran into 1976 Boston Marathon winner Jack Fultz.  (Can I just point out that I NEVER run into former Marathon winners?  Never.  Or if I do, I’m never aware of it).

In discussing Alain’s desire to put on an event and raise some money for Dana-Farber, Jack offered some good advice:  Do it.  In under 6 weeks, Alain had managed the logistics of organizing a race and obtaining city permitting to put on a Super Bowl race for 220 runners.  By 2009, he had 1000 runners; by 2010, 1500.

As the race grew in popularity, Alain’s plans grew, too.  He’d lost his father and his best friend to cancer, and certainly he wasn’t the only one affected by the disease.  Alain, with his background deeper in cycling than running, called on Brendan and his running community contacts.  Before long, plans to create a multi-race series were underway.

They brought in existing race organizers to join the series, hoping to get more runners to the established events.  One organizer, Somerville Road Runners’ “Shifter,” is another Holy Cross grad.  (Seriously, we’re everywhere.  Bleed purple, Boston.)  He’d lost his father to colon cancer, spent 18 years running with the Dana-Farber team, and, over a decade ago, began the race now known as “Shifter’s 5K” at a local bar.  (Shifter sounded as excited about this year’s Shifter’s 5K post-party raffles as he does about the 5K itself).  His race usually attracts over 300 people, he’s hoping the series will bring more runners and raise even more money.  According to Brendan, the biggest event in the series is probably the James Joyce Rambleit’s even been in the New York Times!  You know the Times, it’s the paper you read after you’ve read ONEin3.

How can people get involved?

In 2011, there are plenty of opportunities to participate!  Best of all, runners who complete all six events in the series get something!  Not sure what yet, but Brendan guarantees it will be awesome.  I’ll take his word for it.  If you can’t make all six, run five – he promises a slightly less/but still very awesome prize.  Again, I’m taking his word for it.  If you sign up now for all six, you get a sweet gift at the end AND a free case of mix1 now.  The fun doesn’t stop!  So, mark your calendars:

  • Feb 6th – Super Sunday 5K/10K (you’ll probably see me there, pregaming the big game with 6.2 miles+afterparty)
  • April 2nd – Shifter’s 5K
  • May 1st – James Joyce Ramble 10K
  • May 8th – M.O.M.’s 5K
  • June 19th – Father’s Day 10K
  • June 30th – Squantum5

Have you thought about running the Boston Marathon for a charity, but are slightly (extremely) intimidated (terrified) by the fundraising?  Not to worry - you can get your feet wet on a smaller scale with the series.  They’ve teamed up with FirstGiving to help increase the charitable impact of each race and each runner - racers can set up their own fundraising page to directly benefit the charity beyond the cost of race entry.  Pretty sweet, no?  And you don’t even have to hoof it a whole 26.2!

Not a runner?  Don’t sweat.  Literally.  If you want to help with logistics, race day stuff, contributing freebies for runners, coming up with raffle prizes, or you have no idea but want to give some time, they’re happy to have you.  A good place to start – email Brendan@racemenu.com and tell him you want to help!   Then show your love on facebook, follow them on twitter, and tell your friends to sign up to run or help.

Look at that.  You’re a volunteer now.  See how easy that was?

If This Is the New Boston Then Preaching Diversity Is Not Enough

Written with support from ONEin3 Dorchester Chair Jackney Prioly

By now, you’ve most likely heard about how a group of black Harvard and Yale alumni had their party shut down because the club, Cure, was afraid that “gangbangers” might sneak in among the patrons and cause trouble.

This incident has rightly touched a nerve in Boston, where tolerance and inclusion are much emphasized virtues. At ONEin3, we feel that, as young people, we have an obligation to grapple with the causes and effects of such an incident. We realize we’re treading on some risky terrain here, so please tell us what you think (positive, negative and in between) in the comments bearing in mind that ONEin3 Boston does not tolerate racism or segregation and we take these issues seriously.

Here is how I see it:

While Cure and the party’s organizers had an obligation to be prepared for potential security concerns,  it’s impossible for me to believe that a group of mostly white alumni would be held to the same standard by the club.

At the very least, the proprietors of Cure were guilty of lazy thinking on the issue of race. They perceived a risk in allowing the alumni group to proceed with their party because they could not distinguish between black Ivy alumni and  “gangbangers.”

For starters, there is no more pernicious stereotype than the one that paints black men as “gangbangers.” And let me remind you that these men were in all likelihood studying economics or biology at Harvard or Yale a couple years ago.

But more importantly, they have the right to go to any establishment they choose. No one deserves to have a door shut in their face because they might present a problem. That’s unfair, discriminatory and un-American.

Socializing with friends is a necessary feature of human life and, as a cosmopolitan City, our biggest advantage is the relative ease with which residents and visitors can access this outlet. If we allow an environment to exist in which any group is assumed to be a safety risk,  we prejudicially deny people a basic benefit that city-living offers.

This is short-sighted and self-defeating. Boston loses talented, committed people when simply socializing with friends is difficult.

A friend of mine, a very successful young African-American doctor, once told me that Boston is professional heaven and social suicide for African-Americans. She came here after medical school despite warnings about our social climate and racial problems and found tremendous professional satisfaction. She worked at a great hospital, managed a strong team, found exceptional mentorship. Her employer invested time and money in her development and gave her opportunities to take on responsibility.

However, she found it difficult to make new friends and felt isolated. Let me repeat: a beautiful, talented doctor with a great personality, tons of interests and an openness to the world felt isolated in Boston because she could not find a social life in which she could express her fullest identity. And man, her dating stories were either comic or tragic. I’m still not sure.

In her future, I feel sure that she will run a hospital, sit on Presidential committees, teach the best and the brightest, but she will do it in Atlanta where she moved this fall in search of personal fulfillment.

In my friend’s case, the same dynamics that led Cure to close the Harvard/Yale alumni event diminished her social options and caused her to leave. Her case is not unique.

Boston is an exceptional place. It has the potential to be the best city in the world for anyone to live. It will never reach that potential when groups of people are shut out.

This city belongs to us young people now. We may not sit in power positions, but don’t let that fool you. We own this place and we can shape it if we want to. For Boston’s survival, we need to face the fact that we are segregated in order to change the perception of Boston as a bastion of quiet, institutional racism.

At ONEin3, we’re ready to go all in. We keep talking about it but we need partners, supporters and organizers. Most of all, we need ideas about how to make Boston’s social sphere more integrated and welcoming.

This past summer, ONEin3 Boston co-hosted a Community Dialogues group with the YWCA. It was a worthwhile experience, although there is significant room for improvement. Our group had some ideas, including Friendly Takeovers of bars with racially diverse groups of friends, book and discussion groups and a plan to use this blog as a platform to continue the conversation.

Are these good ideas? Would you be willing to help with any of them? What other actions can we take immediately and over the long-term?

Please weigh in in the comments!

Us vs Them: Blue City/Red City

Boston is a city of many villages, squares, corners, and neighborhoods. Within these places, you can find every ethnicity, language, and culture you could imagine. Each has it’s own distinct character and feel to offer the rest of the city. It’s also true that these little villages can be cities unto themselves, starkly divided from the village next door. More often than not, the line that divides these places is drawn racially. I recently came upon cartographer, Eric Fisher’s “Race and Ethnicity” maps (inspired by Bill Rankin’s similarly themed maps) that took a look at our country’s major cities in Racial terms. Below, you will most likely recognize the geography of Boston’s shoreline and a small chunk of Southeastern Massachusetts. What you may not recognize, are the large sections of Red and Blue dots. Each one of those dots represents 25 people. A red dot equates to 25 white people, blue to 25 black people, green-Asian, orange-Latino, grey-other. As you can see, the city is clearly grouped into two distinct areas of blue and red - black and white.

Why is this?

Boston is a city with a long history of racial tolerance, progressive attitudes, and in many ways, a leader in the charge against racism and bigotry. Martin Luther King, Louis Farrakhan, Malcolm X, Fredrick Douglass (to name a few) all came through Boston at crucial points in their lives. But juxtaposed against this great tradition, Boston has a dark past filled with tension, violence, and segregation. It is a city that boasts of a hockey and basketball franchise that the first broke their respective color barriers (not to mention first black starting five and coach) while still admitting to host the last baseball team to integrate (and first to pass on Willy Mays). One of the biggest stains that I would add to this list is that we don’t seem to be getting much better at coming together. There is no getting around it, we are a city defined by difference.

Willie O'Ree

I was reminded of this fact when I read a recent Boston Public Health Commission study that reported that 43% of Boston youth trust the Boston Police Department. The most striking thing about this report wasn’t how low or high this number is, but rather, how much this figure fluctuates depending on what neighborhood (blue or red) you live in. As you can see below, Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan (who constitute much of the blue) average to around 33% trust while West Roxbury (the reddest of the red) has an 80% trust rating. Feel free to compare the other high figures (Allston/Brighton, Back Bay, etc) to the color on the map.

So what does this all mean? Why is this important to 20-34 year olds like us?

Well, a lot has been made of the achievement gap in our schools systems, many of which will point to this gap forming along the same lines in that map and in that study, but I think there’s also something to be said of the differences in the experience of young people growing up in this city outside of school. Sure there are obvious differences in environment between red and blue neighborhoods, just watch the news or read a paper - they’ll tell you all about violence and drugs and murders, but I think there’s also something deeper at play here. What does this abundance of or lack of trust for authority figures translate to in terms of attitudes about oneself or one’s hometown? As a member of the generation one notch older than these young people, I think it is a disturbing example and trend (both ways) of where we don’t want to be as a city. Too many have already grown up thinking that this city either owes them something or has nothing for them. A power divide this stark cannot sustain itself.

What will it take to reverse this trend of Red vs Blue?

How can we make our city more… purple?

And more importantly, what are we doing about it?

Join ONEin3 at Community Dialogues - Let's Talk about Race Finally

A few weeks ago we risked the third rail and asked the questionHow can we, as a new generation of young Bostonians, make Boston a more inclusive place that people of color from all over the world want to call home?”

The ONEin3 community wrote in with thought and consideration. Thank you to everyone who commented.

We were so impressed with how people engaged with this topic, one that Bostonians have had trouble addressing for a long time, that we decided we NEEDED a follow up plan.

So we were overjoyed when we noticed in the comments that the YWCA hosts a series called Community Dialogues which “brings people from all walks of life together to create stronger, safer and more unified neighborhoods.” The Dialogues are facilitated conversations on race and diversity designed to give people and organizations the framework that they need to discuss difficult issues.

So, we’re happy to announce that ONEin3 will be hosting a Community Dialogue series. The series will be 5 consecutive Tuesday evenings starting June 22nd at the YWCA Boston offices on Clarendon Street in Back Bay.

We have 15 spots open for ONEin3ers and we hope that you will sign up fast since the first session is coming up quickly.

Register here and make sure to tell them you heard about it through ONEin3 so that you’ll be placed in our session. **Please note that the registration does not allow you to indicate specifically what day/time you want to attend**

Out of these dialogues, ONEin3 has an opportunity to set an agenda for young Bostonians on the issue of race. Let’s take full advantage.

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