Playing Through the Pain

Consider what happened with Gary Matthews Jr. After his observations about Fenway fans, he was shouted down here in Boston, angrily dismissed as a “steroid abuser” on one notable Sox fan site, and called an idiot on local radio shows. There was no discussion—only derision. However ill-informed Matthews may have been, the more effective way to have dealt with his comments would have been to rationally discuss them, to win the debate by the preponderance of evidence. Instead, he was told, essentially, to just shut up, which made it look as if Boston had something to hide. By the time the Angels arrived at Fenway a few weeks later, he refused to speak to me about what he’d said.

As for Garnett, he contended that Wilbon had never talked to him. In any case, when Garnett first arrived, he said, he’d asked around and been convinced that the city’s reputation was outdated. But like a lot of locals, he hasn’t really had much to say about racism since then. And so instead of the wound being healed, it remains raw. That’s a shame, because an ask-me-anything session with KG at the time of Wilbon’s comments might have prevented the media frenzy. More important, it would have been cathartic for the city. It’s hardly surprising, however, that it didn’t happen.

While reporting this story, I reached out to the Celtics, Red Sox, and Patriots, asking for interviews with current players, coaches, and front office members. The Celtics gave me the runaround before ultimately passing. The Red Sox and Patriots failed to do even that much; they simply didn’t acknowledge the requests. An attempt to speak with Mayor Tom Menino, who made improved race relations a key issue during the Boston Miracle, was met with similar stonewalling. Countless e-mails and phone calls to the mayor’s public relations office yielded platitudes from his flacks, but no interview.

The city’s reputation for racism endures because we don’t want to talk about it, because the press seems more interested in reporting on the controversy than in initiating a useful dialogue, because athletes are more careful today than they’ve ever been. There aren’t many Bill Russells anymore—someone who speaks his mind because his conscience demands it. Russell once told me he thought of himself as a man first and a basketball player second. These days, with millions riding on endorsement contracts and a capricious media to navigate, candor is seen as bad business. In a way, that’s understandable, but it would be a powerful thing to hear from more of today’s athletes. Because what Russell realized that so many current players still don’t is this: The best way to move forward is often to deal with the past.

To that end, the city itself could probably learn something from the experiences of Guy Stuart, the Kennedy School lecturer. Before he came to Boston, Stuart, who is white, spent a decade working in black communities in Chicago. It was there that he learned a useful lesson: If you want to improve race relations, “don’t go around simply saying you’re not racist.”