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With the Urban League conference coming next week, Boston's movers and shakers are scrambling to project a progressive racial image
After years of trying to convince groups with large minority membership that the Hub is now a welcoming, friendly destination for African-Americans, this is the first big organization to test the theory.

SEA CHANGE With the Urban League conference coming to Boston next week, local leaders are out to dispel old stereotypes about race in the Hub.

When Boston hosts the American Academy of Pediatrics this October, or the Association for Financial Professionals a month later, nobody will worry too much about how the thousands of convention attendees spend their time. As long as they enjoy themselves, and spend plenty of money, it's all good.

But the Urban League conference, taking place next week, is different. Like it or not, this is a major showcase for Boston.

After years of trying to convince groups with large minority membership that the Hub is now a welcoming, friendly destination for African-Americans, this is the first big organization to test the theory.

Some 5000 people from all over the country, mostly racial minorities, are expected to come to Boston (to be joined by another 5000 from this area). Ideally, they will return home with positive tales of their time here. And for that to happen, some say, those attendees need to get out to see the city for themselves.

"Obviously we're bringing a lot of skeptics into Boston," says Darnell Williams, head of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts (ULEM), "so we want to expose them to as much of the city as we can."

But Williams, who has used his smooth, patrician manner to gain respect and power in Massachusetts and beyond, has his own skeptics here in Boston.

Some community leaders — not wishing to be named criticizing Williams — fault his leadership in the conference preparations. "He was not ready for prime time," one says.

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Our annual look at the dishonorable enemies of free speech and personal liberty in New England
To understand just how disappointing Barack Obama has been on civil liberties, you need only consider the case of David House, a founder of the Bradley Manning Support Network.  

To understand just how disappointing Barack Obama has been on civil liberties, you need only consider the case of David House, a founder of the Bradley Manning Support Network.

Last November, House, a Cambridge resident and former MIT researcher, arrived at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago following a vacation in Mexico. According to a lawsuit later filed on his behalf by the ACLU of Massachusetts, federal agents stopped him, seized his laptop computer, a flash drive, a digital camera, and his cell phone, and kept them for 49 days while they inspected the contents.

The agents also interrogated him about Manning, the Army private suspected of providing confidential US documents to WikiLeaks. In a classic example of guilt-by-association, the feds decided that House's activism on Manning's behalf was enough to raise suspicions. House, to his credit, has stayed strong, refusing recently to testify before a grand jury looking into WikiLeaks and calling the investigation "Nixonian."

By targeting House for, in effect, speaking out, the Obama administration demonstrated its utter contempt for the First Amendment. And though the House case has received considerable publicity, it was hardly an isolated example.

It is against this depressing backdrop that we present the 14th Annual Muzzle Awards, our Fourth of July round-up of outrages against free speech and personal liberties in New England. There is never a shortage of overzealous police officers, clueless politicians, and censorious school officials upon whom to bestow the uncoveted statuettes. What's truly distressing, though, is the situation at the national level.

No, the Obama administration can't compare with the Bush-Cheney White House and its embrace of torture, its illegal wiretapping program, and its secret practice of extraordinary rendition, under which terrorism suspects were sent to be questioned in countries where waterboarding is considered a warm-up for the hardcore stuff.

Still, for a president who came into office promising transparency, the Obama record is a bitter disappointment.

Consider that two Democratic senators, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado, recently accused the administration of secretly abusing the notorious Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows the government to snoop on what library books you've borrowed, what videos you've rented, your medical records, and other personal information.

Or that the Justice Department recently issued a subpoena ordering New York Times reporter James Risen to reveal his sources in his reporting on the Bush wiretapping scandal.

Or that the FBI will reportedly soon unveil new guidelines that will give it even greater powers to invade people's privacy than the agency claimed during the Bush years.

"I'm disgusted with this president," ACLU executive director Anthony Romero said a little more than a year ago.

Not that the Obama administration is alone in its contempt for the First Amendment. To the surprise of few, Joe Lieberman, the unctuous independent senator from Connecticut, suggested at one point that not only should WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange be charged with violating espionage laws, but so, too, should the Times, for the offense of publishing documents obtained by WikiLeaks.

"To me the New York Times has committed at least an act of, at best, bad citizenship, but whether they have committed a crime is a matter of discussion for the Justice Department," Lieberman told Fox News.

The Muzzle Awards were inspired by noted civil-liberties lawyer and Phoenix contributor Harvey Silverglate, who wrote the sidebar accompanying this article. They are named after similar awards given by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Freedom of Expression.

This year's edition, as always, was compiled by tracking the previous year's free-speech stories in New England, and is based on reporting by the Phoenix newspapers in Boston, Providence, and Portland, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and various news organizations and Web sites — including the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, the Providence Journal, the Portland Press Herald, the Associated Press, the New York Times, Politico, the Atlantic, cnn.com, the Narragansett Times, the Barrington Times, the Salem News, the Swampscott Reporter, and wbur.org.

The envelopes, please.

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Dope smackdown
Boston Mayor Tom Menino doesn't like anyone sending bad messages to the impressionable children of his city — you may recall his outrage over the sale of STOP SNITCHING T-shirts a couple of years ago. Last week, he discovered another sordid example: T-shirts on display at Niketown on Newbury Street, with skate-culture lingo that could be interpreted as pro-drug use.  

Boston Mayor Tom Menino doesn't like anyone sending bad messages to the impressionable children of his city — you may recall his outrage over the sale of STOP SNITCHING T-shirts a couple of years ago. Last week, he discovered another sordid example: T-shirts on display at Niketown on Newbury Street, with skate-culture lingo that could be interpreted as pro-drug use.

The mayor demanded removal of the DOPE, GET HIGH, and F**K GRAVITY shirts. Niketown initially balked, but by this week the offending garments had vanished — although store management insisted that the move had nothing to do with mayoral pressure.

It's debatable whether the T-shirt crackdown will lead to young Bostonians eschewing drugs and leading wholesome, positive lives. But surely it will spur Menino to search even more fervently for potentially negative or vaguely offensive material to banish from Boston. Like the Beanpot Tournament? Joint legislative committees? High Street?

But he's only one man — so the Phoenix turned to Twitter and enlisted help. We asked for ban-worthy items to bring to Menino's attention, using the hashtag #MeninoMonitors. Unfortunately, we soon realized that hashtags themselves — you know, hashtags? — are among the offenders. Below are some of the other suggestions — and please add your own to the list!

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