Letter: The Subject Of Race In Framingham's Election

This is a letter to the editor and does not necessarily reflect the views of Framingham Patch.

If there is one lesson we Americans should have learned over the last year it is that race does matter. To make our society truly a more inclusive place — to do more than simply celebrate diversity — requires being intentional. It demands that we listen to and understand others' perspectives, how others’ lived experience can be so different from our own, and what effect that has. And it all begins on the local level.

That’s why it was disappointing to hear the better-known challenger in the mayoral contest shrug off a question on race. Asked by Patch if he had "given any thought to how race plays in this election," his answer was, in part, that "race is not an issue, it shouldn’t be an issue … that would be a deflection of the issues if we started talking about that."

If race is summarily ruled a distraction, how can we make our city a place of opportunity for everyone?

Mayor Spicer has plenty of accomplishments — great bond rating, excellent city services, school budgets up more than $19 million, new recreational space. She also has been intentional about bringing real diversity to our city government, which is 90 percent white. She created a chief diversity officer position. She hired our first Black police chief. The mayor has embraced the hard work of building a government that reflects all the people who live here. Not just the folks who have run things forever. Rejecting the subject of race as irrelevant takes Framingham backward, not forward.

—Beth Greeley, Framingham