Eli Steele is one documentary producer and writer.
When I heard that Boston Mayor Michelle Wu was hosting a racially segregated party for the City Council's “Electeds of Color,” I wondered: Would I have been invited?
After all, my dad is black, but my skin looks white.
The 'no whites' meeting came to light this week after a council worker accidentally emailed invitations to white councilors before hastily withdrawing the offer.
If I had received an invitation – accidentally or not – I would have gone to Mayor Wu's office for an explanation.
My mother is Jewish and my paternal grandmother was white. But my paternal grandfather was black and had Native American ancestry.
Would I be allowed through the doors?
I've tread this racial water before, so I imagine the mayor, when confronted with my complex identity, would have responded, “Of course you are one of the 'chosen ones of color.'
However, her answer would be meaningless.
My father is black, but my skin looks white. (Above) Author, Eli Steele, documentary filmmaker and writer.
Neither my skin color nor my race reveal anything essential about me or my character.
“All year long, we work to represent our communities with urgency and determination,” Mayor Wu boasted on Instagram on Friday, posting a photo of the “Electeds of Color” celebration. 'During the holidays we take the time to celebrate…'
You're wrong, Mayor Wu.
This is not something to celebrate.
For this not progress.
Incredibly, nearly sixty years after the Civil Rights Act outlawed segregation in America, the country is once again grappling with this despicable practice.
Today, K-12 teachers divide students by race in the name of social justice. White people are told that they are the oppressors, while students of color are the oppressed. Teachers and administrative staff are divided into racial “affinity groups.”
Our universities are not better; everything from first-year orientation to housing decisions is determined based on immutable characteristics.
Some colleges, including Harvard, hold “special” celebrations during graduation week—whites and Jews excluded.
Even stranger, segregation is being reintroduced into almost every aspect of public life as America becomes increasingly multiracial.
The 'no whites' meeting came to light this week after a council worker accidentally emailed invitations to white councilors before hastily withdrawing the offer. (Above) Mayor Wu posted an image of the 'Electeds of Color' party on her Instagram account
You're wrong, Mayor Wu (above). This is not something to celebrate. Because this is not progress.
According to Pew Research, in 1968, 3 percent of all married people in America had a spouse of a different race or ethnicity. By 2019, that number had risen to 11 percent and is still rising because at least 19 percent of newlyweds are in mixed marriages.
Public acceptance of interracial marriage is 94 percent – and of course the United States' second family is an interracial couple.
And yet here we are: as the nation comes together, attempts are being made to tear it apart.
Mayor Wu and her fellow modern segregationists have more in common with the racial essentialists of the past than with the majority of Americans today.
Moments like these remind me of my white grandmother's funeral in the mid-1980s.
I was 10 years old.
When I walked into church that day, I expected to hear stories of the courage of my grandmother, a daughter of the revolution, who married my black grandfather in 1944 in deeply segregated Chicago.
Her sisters had turned their backs on her when she crossed the 'color line' that separated white and black.
But she was not deterred. Along with her black neighbors, who loved her dearly, my grandmother helped lead the nation's first boycott of a segregated school north of the Mason-Dixon line.
Her protest led to the opening of an integrated school that my father attended.
She and her husband built one of the first integrated churches in Chicago. And almost every weekend she marched for civil rights for all.
Along with her black neighbors, who loved her dearly, my grandmother (above) helped lead the nation's first boycott of a segregated school north of the Mason-Dixon line.
Mayor Wu and her fellow modern segregationists have more in common with the racial essentialists of the past than with the majority of Americans today. (Above) Guest arrives at the Electeds of Color holiday party
My grandparents' goal was to realize the one thing they had been denied: the right to be recognized as full Americans under the law—without compromise.
My grandmother was not recognized for her efforts during her lifetime. And at her death she was also denied any recognition.
The funeral was hijacked by a black militant who had recently married into the family.
I remember my family doing everything they could to make this man feel at home. Yet he seemed to be seething with anger; even his smile had an edge to it.
In the grip of black power and the black liberation movement, he saw everything through the prism of race.
This militant man did not care about my grandmother's good deeds. He reduced her to the color of her skin. She is no different from “the white man,” he sneered.
To this man, my grandmother was an oppressor – unforgivable.
Back at my grandmother's house, he ordered my mother out of the room so the black men could talk.
Mayor Wu, would you have told my mother to leave the room?
It was my grandmother's old friend and fellow civil rights soldier, Mrs. Iola Toler, a black woman, who my mother found after retreating to an upstairs bedroom.
Mrs. Toler believed strongly in Martin Luther King's message of inclusion. Mrs. Toler brought my mother back downstairs and together they sat proudly in the living room.
Mrs. Toler knew that my grandmother had sacrificed far too much to let a racial essentialist have the final say over her life.
The evil of anti-black racism is not defeated by anti-white racism.
Any form of discrimination leads to division. Why separate the Americans when we have already achieved so much together?
My grandmother and Mrs. Iola Toler recognized that.
Mayor Wu, would you have told my mother to leave the room?
Eli Steele's latest documentary is 'What Killed Michael Brown?' Substack: Man of Steele Twitter: @Hebro_Steele