Black Romeo
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:date: 2006-01-05T05:40:00
:category: research
:tags: race, BostonMiracle,

I was watching yesterday on WGBH_ on a `documentary about black poor
kids from London playing “Romeo and Juliet”`_. It was really deep
experience for me. I was quite surprised by the fact that black kids
(mostly guys, but of course Juliet and her friend were ladies) could
play Shakespeare and that issues which are hard to understand for me,
are very same (and much more understandable) for them. Suddenly I saw
how much I am still in the grips of seeing folks from Roxbury,
Dorchester, and Mattapan as *different from us normal people* and how
much I see them primarily as potential criminals.

It seems to me that actually this could be one of the most important
issues of whole Boston Miracle—how “them, making trouble” became “us,
needing help”. And then how all the petty issues of money etc. were just
less important tools empowering a long-term process of this change, not
direct tools to decrease crime.

And of course, I see no way how to prove this. On the other hand it
shows how much more than just bloody news (literally, news about blood)
I need stories describing normal life in the Black community of Boston.
Which unfortunately makes my news articles reports totally unmanageable,
because I would need much more than what I already have. :-(

.. _WGBH:
    http://www.wgbh.org
.. _`documentary about black poor kids from London playing “Romeo and Juliet”`:
    http://www.wgbh.org/schedules/program-info?program_id=2543908