Boston Progressives Should Not Jump to Conclusions About Chuck
November 24th, 2008 | Category: pressNovember 21, 2008
Open Media Boston, Editorial
If there’s one politician that Boston community and labor activists can count on to “afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted” it’s Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner (G/R - District 7). One of the vanishingly few African-American politicians in this “majority minority” city, he has energetically represented the interests of his largely low-income constituency of color. But he is has also been a rare progressive voice in a sea of conservative politicians - most of whom are Democrats, but that’s Massachusetts for you - and a bridge-builder to other communities and constituencies around the region. Not coincidentally, he is the only Green-Rainbow Party elected official in Boston. Yet today the city awoke to the startling news that Turner was arrested by the FBI at 7 a.m. this morning at City Hall, and charged with accepting $1000 in bribes from the same government informant who gave over $23,000 in bribes to former state Senator Dianne Wilkerson in exchange for assistance getting a liquor license for the Dejavu nightclub on Melnea Cass Blvd. in Roxbury.
However, progressives in general and the African-American community in particular have little reason to trust the motives of the FBI in this instance - given decades of official government harassment of both groups - and so progressive political lists have been abuzz all day about the whys and wherefores of this case.
