Another View on the Carson Beach Dustup

Yesterday, Boston news outlets were aflame with reports of “gang-related” fights breaking out at Dorchester’s Carson Beach. Over 1,000 young people were said to be present. The altercations were even said to have been announced over various social media - especially Facebook. Since most of the “14-19 year old” (which we know because there were clearly teams of sociologists present doing on the spot statistical analysis) kids on the beach were observed to be mostly black and latino, much of the reporting - and especially the public comment on the reporting - was shot through with racism. Spectres of race “riots” past were raised. As well as the old fashioned demonization of young people - usually young people of color - as “animals” in some of the less circumspect commentary. Someone even sent Open Media Boston a letter to that effect ... that we’re not publishing. Today we see the Boston cops disputing the claims of the State Police (who, in a classic bit of Boston politics, control the city beach) about gangs being to blame for the fights. We also hear that there were few arrests on the beach yesterday for any infraction, and that there were no serious injuries. Plus, we're starting to hear from some of the kids present - and from more thoughtful pundits like Adam Gaffin atUniversal Hub - who are all like, yeah, it was hot, it was a holiday; so lots of city kids decided to go to the beach. There were some minor fights between some individuals - not gangs. Big whoop.

But I think there’s one angle on this whole thing that isn’t getting discussed much. Lots of the funding for jobs for working class city teens is likely to get cut in the final state budget. Even after the Mass. Senate restored $3 million in funding in its version of the budget, Mayor Thomas Menino said that Boston will still be 2400 jobs short of the anticipated need. And that’s after area corporations have kicked in money to restore some of the jobs for this summer. Most of whom are getting all kinds of public kickbacks and tax breaks - and are therefore part of the equation that adds up to structural poverty for all the teens in all the neighborhoods that are feeling the brunt of the ongoing economic crisis. As usual.

The teens that need jobs, and many of the teens at the beach from neighborhoods near Carson Beach, are the same people. And when you set up a situation where you have lots of unoccupied kids hanging out around town - that is, lots of kids who are unemployed and out of school and whose parents are also likely to be unemployed or underemployed - you’re going to see an uptick in crime and violence in affected communities (as opposed to yesterday's non-happening, mind you).

Not because the kids are stupid or “lazy” or “animals.”

No. In fact, it’s precisely because they are intelligent human beings that the kids will start looking for ways to make money. And since they come from neighborhoods where the “private sector” doesn’t usually set up shop - largely because of racism - and where the public sector has been wiped out over the last few decades … taking away thousands of (often-unionized) public sector jobs that used to be worked by the parents and grandparents of many of those kids … what jobs are left? Selling drugs. Prostitution. Gambling. Theft. Scams. Protection rackets. All the ancient activities of the dispossessed. Sometimes as part of organized gangs, sometimes not.

For those that respond that “they should go to college” and work their way out of trouble, I’d have to point out another bit of news that will directly affect these kids - UMass just shoved through another 7.5 percent fee hike. So working class kids in Boston are being priced out of a public university education at the only university in their city that was originally set up to serve them (but increasingly does no such thing). And tuition and fees at all other state and community colleges are also going through the roof. And most will never find money for an education at a private college.

And ok, some of them - the ones that could compete with legions of white suburban middle class kids now flooding the public higher education system - could get student loans, and go anyway to UMass Boston - assuming they can find enough crappy little gigs to make ends meet while they’re in school. An even smaller group might even get some scholarship money. But when they get out they’ll be saddled with over $50,000 in debt that they MUST PAY under the current federal loan regime. No matter what. Even if they never find a good job. Which is increasingly likely. And which would them put them in the same boat as the rest of the declining middle class. With the additional burden of being a person of color and continuing to face structural racism for the rest of their lives.

Of course, it doesn’t have to go down that way. Because perhaps the fact that the kids at Carson Beach are digital natives and decided to go to the beach en masse using available social networks with great facility speaks to the possibility of another better outcome for them and their families.

That the young jobless kids of Boston organize themselves using those same technologies and start meeting up not just for nice days on the beach, but to make political and economic demands of government at all levels and the corporations that currently control them.

I think that’s what all the clueless and racist commentators are really afraid of - especially when the word “riot” is invoked. They’re afraid that all these black and latino kids are going to organize and vie for power - as earlier generations of kids did in those same neighborhoods. Contest their second-class status. Fight back against all the structural barriers put in their way, and become the backbone of new movements for social justice.

I know that wasn’t what was happening on Carson Beach yesterday. But a few more incidents like this, and maybe some of those kids will start thinking about changing a few things in this society. In fact, I strongly suspect that some of them already are. Because I meet kids like the Carson Beach kids around town all the time. The teens I meet are already plugged into different youth organizing efforts, and they know what’s up.

So to me the question is not will they fight back en masse. It’s when.

And I can promise you this: Open Media Boston will do our best to help them get their ideas out far and wide when they're ready.

Holler back, as usual, if you have something to say on this topic.

Jason Pramas is Editor/Publisher of Open Media Boston