Racist Cambridge Voting?

For about 15 years I attended Cambridge MA City Council meetings speaking and writing to the Councilors. One citizen regularly added to his comments that "the United States is a racist country." I was surprised by his repeated comment. I began ignoring more of what he said. Perhaps he was referring to city government in Cambridge. Two Councilors often berated the City Manager to hire more black people to supervisory positions.When I noted that few persons with disabilities were employed by the City they ignored me. They ignored me when I reported that they violated their own rules. They ignored me when I reported that they violated City ordinances, state and US laws.

When I went to vote on Tuesday November 6, 2012 at my precinct I was surprised to see three city election workers were black women. The Cambridge police officer was a black man. There were no other employees or poll watchers there. Usually there were five election workers, some white and some black. The police officers over the past 15 years were sometimes  black and sometimes white. I didn't think much about it until I saw the police officer putting his hands on women voters and guiding them to the registration tables and to the voting "booths."

I thought it strange. Never before did any of the police officers take an active role in the voting process. But this one did. Later I read that in some states workers are not permitted to guide voters as the officer did at my precinct. You must be aware that in Cambridge among academic and public officials, laws are optional. Inconvenient laws may be ignored. So I learned not to waste my time filing complaints. They are seldom investigated and never enforced in this host city of Harvard University and MIT.