Internationals

Today is Patriots' Day here in Boston. It is the traditional day of the Boston Marathon, a 26-mile race from suburb to city along paved roads. No resemblance to the historic run associated with the famous Greek battle site. However, the winners will be crowned with laurel wreaths from Greece. Go figure.

 

Boston is becoming a stop on the parade of wealthy internationals, the new global, corporate aristocrats. As a Bostonian, who grew up in the Boston of student anarchists and frequent protests against injustice and justice at times, I am astounded to see Boston's streets barricaded the day before an event, geared to glean dollars from these new lords and ladies of global capitalism. But here we are.

 

Peter and I went to Back Bay yesterday to enjoy our annual admiration of magnolia blossoms, always a welcomed harbinger of Spring in this snowy city. The roaming crowds of internationals, herding to brunches at fancy eateries, lent an air of Disney to this old neighborhood I once felt was my homely home. No more. We doubted we would enjoy navigating these streets around the gangs of the well-heeled. We moved over the river to Cambridge, where we took a much more enjoyable amble through the quiet streets of Sunday in a deserted business district by the Charles River.

 

Yes, change is the only constant. But seeing a slick European taking a picture of a barricaded section of historic Charles Street from the middle of the street made me wonder where this change is going.

 

My own Boston neighborhood is middle class, I suppose. However, it lies between South Boston, which is rapidly becoming gentrified into a bedroom community for stock brokers and bankers, and Uphams Corner, a traditional business center of the African-American community. Boston Street, which intersects my own, is a pedestrian and bus route for people who work in the center of the city at the service jobs which keep the buildings clean and in repair. These commuters are the low-paid clerks and laborers who really make a city functional.

 

The contrast between the internationals here for the Marathon event and the people who walk through my neighborhood is disturbing. That contrast illustrates the growing disparity and socioeconomic inequality of the times. My neighborhood pedestrians are tired as they pour off buses and trains at evening rush hour seven days a week. They walk with a determined trudge. Many seem older than their years. They wear the stress of living in a high-priced city on low, stagnant wages. The internationals walk in chatty gaggles in expensive designer clothes. Their accompanying children play with the latest smart phones. Both men and women of a certain age show signs of cosmetic surgery and tanning booths. They are limber and self-assured to the point of pushy arrogance.

 

In a way, the human species is running a marathon. The field grows larger and larger with overpopulation. The vast majority will finish at the back of the race, if they finish at all. They will reap no laurels or prizes for their efforts. However, their numbers support the magnitude of wealth for the few under capitalism. Their admiration of the winners in this race supports the pyramid which crushes them. They are given mesmerizing encouragement by shining media screens to keep them believing that they and theirs can all expect to be winners too. But the race is rigged against them.