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Hey, ‘Daily Show’: Stop calling Boston the most racist city in America. It’s not funny. – The Boston Globe

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Hey, ‘Daily Show’: Stop calling Boston the most racist city in America. It’s not funny. – The Boston Globe


“How did you get those guys to vote for you … how did you convince them to put you in charge?

“I think you won your last election at 64 percent of the vote … so you’re incredibly popular in Boston, and they trust you to run the city. How did you convince these Boston people?”

“I still don’t understand how you got elected. I mean, obviously you’re good at your job and your charming and all that, but that was enough for them to convince them?”

“If you can become the mayor of Boston, maybe you know one of arguably the most racist cities in America, then maybe there is hope for everyone yet.”

Ooof.

Wu handled herself deftly, but there were moments Tuesday night when she looked more comfortable sitting in front of a hostile, Republican-led Congressional hearing in Washington than responding to Chieng’s attempt at humor.

“You might be surprised by Boston. Next time you come, we’ll have to take you around a little more,” Wu said. “We’re an incredibly diverse, welcoming, beautiful city … we are majority people of color, we’re 28 percent people born from another country. Boston is a place where people have always come for almost 400 years to make good in the world.”

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I usually love Chieng, a Malaysia-born comedian who spent part of his childhood in Manchester, N.H. He invited Wu on because he wants to highlight Asian American leaders and Democrats who are trying to figure out how to stand up to the Trump administration. It was clear that he respects, and even admires, Wu.

This was supposed to be a friendly conversation, but it felt more like friendly fire. I guess that’s what happens when a running joke falls flat.

Comedian Ronny Chieng hosted The Daily Show Tuesday night, including a segment with Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.Arturo Holmes/Getty Images for Writers Guild of America East

Let’s be clear this stereotype of Boston being super racist is getting super old. We’re 50 years past the ugly days of court-ordered busing in Boston to desegregate public schools. The scrappy white Boston of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck movies was fading 20 years ago, and feels even more dated today.

We have long been a majority-minority city — for a quarter of a century now. Our last two mayors have been women of color, as is the current City Council President, the state Attorney General, and one of our members of Congress.

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It felt like Chieng was hoping he could go viral like “SNL Weekend Update” co-host Michael Che did in 2017 during a segment about the upcoming Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons.

“For three hours, I just don’t want to talk about any social issues or politics,” Che said. “I just want to relax, turn my brain off and watch the blackest city in America beat the most racist city I’ve ever been to.”

Yes, Che got blowback from Bostonians, and even an invitation from then Mayor Marty Walsh to come to Boston for a sit down to talk about his experiences with racism in the city.

But I don’t think Che ever met with Walsh. The comedian stood by his comment and tried to tamp down controversy by later posting on Instagram: “Listen boston, my grandma is racist too, but i still love her. & i still love you.”

I hope Chieng takes up Wu’s invitation to come to Boston so she can show him what the city’s really like. He’ll begin to understand how Wu became mayor, which is putting in the work over the past decade to get votes from every corner of the city as an at-large City Councilor and later her run for mayor. She won election after election because voters want someone who looks like them in City Hall.

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Chieng has been to Boston because that’s where his family used to come to grocery shop for Malaysian foods they couldn’t find in New Hampshire.

“Boston is my childhood Chinatown,” he said. “We go there for supplies to bring it back to New Hampshire. You know, there’s not a lot of Malaysian grocery stores in Manchester, New Hampshire….So, I know, Boston.”

Chieng went on to say that he has a “lot of love for Boston” and how people were “nice” to him when he has been there.

Well, nice isn’t our reputation either. But this is a city that has worked hard to move beyond our racist past. And that’s no laughing matter.


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Shirley Leung is a Business columnist. She can be reached at shirley.leung@globe.com.





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Stabbing in Boston leaves victim with life-threatening injuries – Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News

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Stabbing in Boston leaves victim with life-threatening injuries – Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News


BOSTON (WHDH) – Police are investigating a stabbing in Boston on Sunday afternoon that left a victim with life-threatening injuries.

Officers responding to a reported stabbing in the area of 71 Summer St. around 3:30 p.m. found a victim who was taken to a nearby hospital with injuries that are considered life-threatening, according to Boston police.

No arrests have been made.

No additional information was immediately available.

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This is a developing news story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest details.

(Copyright (c) 2025 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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Another vile step in Trump game plan: accusing Boston of racial bias – The Boston Globe

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Another vile step in Trump game plan: accusing Boston of racial bias – The Boston Globe


The Trump administration’s accusation that Boston’s housing policies discriminate against white residents is part of a disturbing pattern (“US to investigate Boston for bias,” Page A1, Dec. 13). This is no mere policy debate. It is a calculated attempt by conservatives to whitewash history. They hope that if the past can be obliterated, then present-day racial inequality can be repackaged as something that never even existed.

For centuries, Black Americans have been subjected to legally enforced discrimination in housing, education, employment, lending, and voting, atop generations of enslavement. These evils shaped who accumulated wealth and opportunity and who did not. The Civil Rights Act made discriminatory practices illegal, but it did not erase the advantages and disadvantages those systems had already created. That’s why policies such as Boston’s were conceived — not as rewards or punishments but rather as pragmatic efforts to narrow gaps that were deliberately built.

Opposition to these programs is an attack on history and truth itself. Limiting what can be talked about in schools, removing displays honoring the struggles of Black Americans, taking Martin Luther King Day and Juneteenth off of the calendar of fee-free days at national parks — these are all part of a coordinated and cynical strategy to foster ignorance in America. This scheme allows the Trump team to attack programs such as Boston’s or any DEI policy and call it a defense of fairness and neutrality. It’s another Big Lie.

For this president and the movement he leads, ignorance is no longer a mere failure of politics. It is the whole point.

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David Wasser

Cranston, R.I.





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Boston sports anecdotes aplenty feature on new YouTube channel

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Boston sports anecdotes aplenty feature on new YouTube channel


Sports

Front Row to Boston Sports shares stories from the past by area media legends, including the Globe’s Bob Ryan and Dan Shaughnessy.

The Front Row to Boston Sports channel has launched on YouTube. screenshot

When reminiscing about sports moments and personalities of days gone by, the familiar anecdotes are often a joy to hear again and again.

Even better, though, is when there are fresh new stories to be told by those who were there.

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The new YouTube channel Front Row to Boston Sports offers both familiar tales and ones you may not have heard before, as told by four of the most connected journalists and best storytellers in the modern annals of sports in this region.

Legendary former sports anchors Mike Lynch (Channel 5) and Bob Lobel (Channel 4), along with Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy and former Globe columnist Bob Ryan, have teamed up to share the funniest, most heartfelt, and illuminating tales from their storied careers, from press row and the locker room.

The project is the brainchild of Peter Brown, a former news director at Channel 4, where he spent 22 years before moving on to an accomplished career in public affairs and communications.

“You come from a news background, you’re always thinking about what’s the best way to tell a story,” he said. “What better story is there to tell than those about Boston sports? Everyone who is from here or has lived here is in some degree a fan. I thought a look back at some great moments and some behind-the-scenes details that only the most plugged-in reporters would know would be a fun thing to do.”

So Brown reached out to Alan Miller, a former sports producer at Channel 4 who worked with Brown during the local news heyday in the 1980-90s. Miller, who later worked at the Globe and in the Channel 7 newsroom before retiring in May 2024, has long been one of the most well-liked figures in the Boston sports media landscape, someone who knows everyone and whose word is as good as a signature on the dotted line.

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Miller thought it was a super idea, and reached out to his close friend Lobel, along with Lynch, Shaughnessy, and Ryan. They all said yes immediately.

“We basically said, just tell us your best stories,” said Miller. “We wanted the stories that maybe you couldn’t tell on TV or in the newspaper, but the ones you might have told your buddies at the bar. The ones about what people are really like and what gets said behind the scenes. The ones about relationships. These were the four perfect guys to tell those.”

Currently, there are eight clips posted on the channel, ranging in length from just longer than three minutes (Ryan talking about his top five all-time Celtics) to 13 minutes (Shaughnessy sharing an assortment of Terry Francona stories). One of Lobel’s clips includes an emotional discussion of Ted Williams, while Lynch is especially insightful talking about Bill Belichick’s candor off camera during their old Bellistrator segments.

Brown and Miller plan to sprinkle out a few new clips each week. Since the project has been in the works for approximately a year, they were able to build up a catalogue of 30 clips before launch.

Miller said there’s another reason that everyone involved wanted to be part of the project — the fear that institutional knowledge about Boston sports isn’t what it used to be because of the changing media landscape.

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“When I was at Channel 7, John Havlicek died, and I think there were about three people in the newsroom who knew how John Havlicek was,” he said. “It’s not their fault, a lot of them are 20-something kids and half of them are from out of town.

“But there can be a real lack of knowledge about the past. And Boston sports, as you know, has an amazing past. You’d like the legacy and the memories to stay alive.”

Bonkers ratings in Boston

It’s no surprise that Patriots television ratings have risen this season corresponding with the team’s return to prominence.

But even if the rise in ratings is logical, some of the heights that they are reaching — or returning to, a half-dozen years after Tom Brady’s final season in New England — are remarkable.

Take last Sunday’s 35-31 loss to the Bills, which aired at 1 p.m. on CBS as a regional broadcast. The game had a 31.4 household rating and 78 share in Boston.

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That household rating — the percentage of households in a defined area tuned in to a program at a given time — is the highest for any Patriots game on any network since the regular season finale against the Dolphins in 2021. That also happens to be the last season the Patriots made the playoffs.

The 78 share — the percentage of households with television in use — is reminiscent of the viewership the Patriots enjoyed during the dynasty. As noted here previously, the Patriots averaged a 35.3 household rating and 66 share in 2018, their most recent Super Bowl-winning season.

Nine of the Patriots’ 14 games have aired on CBS this season. Those broadcasts have averaged a 25.7 household rating and 73 share, up 35 percent from last year (19.0/59) through the same span.

Overall last Sunday, the 1 p.m. slot — which also included the Chargers-Chiefs matchup — was a massive success for CBS, averaging 18.9 million viewers across the games. That made it the most-watched regional window on any network in 37 years.

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Chad Finn

Sports columnist

Chad Finn is a sports columnist for Boston.com. He has been voted Favorite Sports Writer in Boston in the annual Channel Media Market and Research Poll for the past four years. He also writes a weekly sports media column for the Globe and contributes to Globe Magazine.





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