As Boston gets a first chance for meaningful criminal justice reform, why are the White male Dems who represent the 12th Suffolk district silent when a Republican governor tries to stop it?

Spring is a big deal here in the Commonwealth. We welcome warmer temperatures, plan to pack up our heavy winter jackets, and cross our fingers we won’t see snow for at least 8 months. However, as Spring rolled in this year, a storm was brewing in the political arena.

The last week of March and the first two weeks of April were dominated by the very public debate between Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins (Democrat) and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker (Republican). DA Rollins campaigned and won on her promise to address the systemic inequalities present in the criminal justice system that have been perpetuated by her office’s predecessors. On March 25th, she released a policy memo backed up by data and facts – not fake news – explaining her office’s new approach. The governor did not like this (so he basically ignored data and facts, how Republican of him!) and both he and his Secretary of Public Safety and Security released unprecedented public rebukes of the new DA’s plan in order to pressure her to maintain the status quo. A status quo that would have continued to harm and disrupt Black and Brown communities.

Let’s keep it real, the actions of the governor and his lackee were both sexist and racist. Both men are state level officials, they were aiming to throw around their status and check a Black woman who was trying to use her newly earned powers for the good of a district where people of color makeup 54% of the population.

Thankfully, DA Rollins did not back down. Women of color elected officials showed up and showed out to defend their sister in service. Other elected officials of color also showed their support through public statements to help apply pressure on the governor and his Secretary of Public Safety and Security.

The dust has begun to settle and the governor has agreed to back down a bit, but there was something that deeply bothered me about this moment – every white male Democrat who represents the 12th Suffolk district at both the local and state level were silent.

White Male Leaders, Especially Democrats, Have a Responsibility to Step Up

Silence is complicity, and the silence from white male Democrats showed a lack of courage and integrity, and a de facto support for racism and sexism in our community.

The 12th Suffolk district is:

• 67% Black and  6% Hispanic/Latino: DA Rollins’ reforms will impact the majority of the district in real measurable ways as it aims to address the systemic racism we face every day due to the culture of mass incarceration.
• 52% female: The majority of the district is women of color, a constituency that is barely represented in the halls of power, and one that is also responsible for maintaining families and communities – despite the destruction mass incarceration has brought down on them – with very little resources.

We look to our elected leaders for leadership. This was a chance for our white male Democratic elected officials to show unabashed support for women of color, the communities they represent, and to stand up to injustice, but they failed.

We look to our elected leaders to exemplify our values. In an era full of hate driven by every -ism and -phobia in existence, we need leaders who will show empathy. If you are a white man representing a majority-minority/majority-female district, empathy is the most important value you can exemplify as it shows that you are working to understand and support a community that shares a drastically different lived experience from you. You also need to lead and legislate with this differing lived experience in mind. Again, our white male electeds failed at that.

Quite simply, if you can’t stand up to the governor from the opposition party for the communities you represent, how can we trust you to stand up for us any other time?

A Call to Action for Our White Male Elected Leaders

You have a duty to show courage and stand up for the communities of color you represent. You must lead differently and break with respectability politics that only maintains a racist and sexist political system. In the future, be bold and do the following:

• Check the racist patriarchy: Attend rallies and release statements of support for women of color elected leaders who are under attack by a white man. Acknowledge women of color are fighting to be heard and represented. Let your constituents know that this form of injustice will not be tolerated anywhere in the political sphere.
• Be anti-racist: Publicly support and rally behind policies that will dismantle systemic racism.
• Oppose any delay of meaningful reform: How can you be an elected leader if you refuse to take a stand in the face of injustice? You are not in office just to pass legislation, that is only one of your responsibilities. In a state that is racist, sexist, transphobic, and homophobic, you have a duty to take things to the next level. Period.
• Bring together your district, let women of color lead: Sponsor an event in the community centered around breaking down racism and sexism in Massachusetts politics, but let women of color lead the event as they’re the ones who deal with this type of dual oppression everyday. Sit back, listen, and provide whatever support they need.

In the end, we need our white male elected officials to be truly invested in racial justice and feminism. You cannot claim to be a progressive, or a candidate running on positive change if you can’t stand by those things.

Donovan Birch Jr. is a progressive entrepreneur and advocate living in the 12th Suffolk District (Mattapan, Dorchester, and Milton) of Massachusetts. He started the “Live from the 12th Suffolk District” monthly blog and email newsletter to share a different political perspective from the community he loves. He hopes to empower more young, queer, Black, and Latino folks from the district to lend their voices to politics and help redefine what is possible for all of us in the Commonwealth.