The unique terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon rightly spurred collective outrage and more than $29 million in generous donations that, sadly, is only a drop in the bucket of medical and business expenses. Meanwhile, we’re back to our regularly scheduled terrorism of street crime that plagues many residents, especially young people, and where $29 million would make a huge difference, but is nowhere in sight.
For $29 million, we could have more jobs to get kids off the streets with legit paychecks. We could hire more cops (especially Transit Police) to prevent crime instead of watching it on video afterward. We could spur truly affordable housing to counteract the hopelessness of ownership in a highly expensive city. We could offer much more help to street-crime victims.
Amid the sense of “Boston Strong” unity, we should donate still more to the marathon bombing’s victims, because more help is needed. But we also should acknowledge that Boston’s daily terrorism shows some disunion and that many parts of Boston aren’t so strong. Some of them are right here in Mission Hill, and it looks like another bloody summer is on the way.