Updated 9:06 p.m.
The chairman of Boston’s Employment Commission is calling on the city’s planning agency to remove a board member who recently referred to non-white people using an outdated term now considered close to a slur during a public meeting.
Travis Watson called for the removal of Boston Planning and Development Agency Vice Chair Michael Monahan, who used the word “colored” in a BPDA virtual meeting earlier this month.
The word, formerly used as a descriptor for Black Americans during the Jim Crow era of legal racial segregation, is now widely considered racist. Its present-day use is typically excused as ignorance or political incorrectness, but Watson said it doesn’t fit with the city’s commitment to forming equitable planning and policy-making.
“The city cannot be real about equity and inclusion with a staff member like Mike who thinks of black people as, quote, colored people,” Watson said in opening remarks at the commission's monthly meeting Wednesday.
“My initial expectation was that the BPDA and the city would do the right thing. But historically, relying on government to do right by Black people is often a fruitless effort, especially when the offending party is part of the old boys club and or sacred cow,” said Watson, insisting that Monahan be dismissed.
GBH News reached out to Monahan Thursday, but he was not availble to discuss this story.
In his public comments Wednesday, Watson said that he has reached out to BPDA Director Brian Golden to ask for a conversation about Monahan’s use of the term and had yet to receive a response. Shortly after Watson made his statements, Golden responded to Watson’s message thanking him for reaching out.
"The BPDA continues to communicate with Mr. Monahan, agency staff and community stakeholders about the significant concern you reference," the letter said. "BPDA personnel, regardless of our specific roles or departments, are committed to ensuring that the agency’s activities — in the workplace, at the board and in our neighborhoods — are inclusive and welcoming."
Golden also addressed the incident in a letter circulated to staff at the end of last week.
“I have spoken to Mr. Monahan to express my concern and disappointment. He has passed along his sincere apologies” Golden wrote, referring to an apology letter Monahan wrote.
“I ask that we all continue to work together to create an environment that is inclusive and welcoming for all,” Golden wrote.
It is unclear whether the agency plans to take any further action over the incident.
Video footage of the March 11 BPDA meeting shows Monahan, who is also International Vice President of the New England district of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, inquiring about whether people who perform the same duties on a project will be paid equally. Instead of speaking about people of color, he asked "Will white and colored people be paid the same?"
In his own letter of apology to BPDA colleagues, Monahan expressed a commitment to keep educating himself on race and the history of harmful language in America.
“I implore you not to let a mistake I made define me. My decades of work in the building trades have been characterized consistently by respect for the dignity of people of all races,” he wrote in the letter obtained by GBH News. Monahan serves as a mayoral appointee on the BPDA; he was first appointed by former Mayor Tom Menino.
Historians acknowledge the use of "colored people" is complicated, contingent upon speaker and intent.
“What do you do with the fact that the oldest Black organization is the NAACP,” said John H. Bracey, Jr., professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Ultimately, he said, the term hinges on power and harkens back to a period when Black people were increasingly oppressed.
“And so, if a white person says it today, the implication is that he wants you to be back in the era when there were colored people, not Black people,” he said.
Bracey, 79, added that older people may have trouble following the evolution of different terms.
“White people just have to learn how to keep up,” he quipped. “You kind of forgive them if they’re trying.”
But Bracey said he cannot shrug off the use of the term. "Given the power relationships now, that’s an indicator that you don’t see Black people at the same level of equality as you see white people, because this is how we define ourselves," he said.
Watson, who has a contentious history with Monahan, said his apology letter was “baloney.”
The two men have sparred via email and social media, with Watson highlighting the lack of diversity, equity and inclusion within local unions and Monahan defending the institutions and their efforts at diversity.
Recently, the exchanges took a threatening turn when Monahan sent an email to Watson, who lives in Falmouth, that closed with, “Goodnight — what time does the sun set and rise in Falmouth? Make sure you lock the doors.”
Watson said the message could be interpreted as an intimidation tactic used in so-called sundown towns where white people enforced segregation through threats of violence beginning at nightfall.
Watson said Monahan’s dismissal would be an appropriate course of action.
“It's inappropriate for black people who seek zoning to have to go before a white person who thinks of black people as less,” he insisted.
This story has been updated to reflect the BPDA director’s response to Travis Watson.
