midd wrote:if it were true in half of the city, I wouldn't have used the word unique. call me an egghead, I spent a ton of time this fall researching this exact story.
garrity was an asshole, but the school committee sat on their hands for about 10 years before anything happened. busing was an unfunded mandate that had to be put into place in a matter of 12-15 weeks. it turned into a game of chicken between him and the school committee. I don't think anyone on either side of the argument desired the manner the busing took place.
short story, mick dominance in a geographically isolated neighborhood allowed the irish oppression complex to take hold. and there's nothing we like more than complaining about our lot in life.
as for your last point, I'm confused. are you implying southie high wasn't lily-white pre-70's? in the decade before busing three black students attended southie high and two were siblings.
"half of" was just a figure of speech. But that could just as easily be referring to Eastie, C'town, the North End, or Savin Hill. Wasn't necessarily calling you an egghead. And I'm well versed in the history. The city could've nipped it in the bud but didn't.
Did the Italians, Lithos, Polish, and other ethnicities adversely affected fall under this "irish oppression complex" as well?
I was referring to citywide schools, not SBHS. If you look at yearbooks from the '40s-'60s, there were black students in white schools (as well as black teachers), as they were not legally prevented from doing so (i.e. they weren't segregated). Whether they felt comfortable or had issues going to and from school (like, say, a white kid going to English in the same era) is a separate issue. And yeah, I"m familiar with the whole 'de facto' thing.
