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News Features

The Chuck Turner conspiracy?

Sure, some news outlets have competently covered City Councilor Chuck Turner's recent arrest for allegedly accepting a cash bribe in exchange for a liquor license — and then lying about it. But sentiments around Dudley Square suggest that a large segment of Turner's constituency has been ignored by the media since former state senator Dianne Wilkerson's scandal unfolded. Reporters are not necessarily to blame; many Generation X minorities are reluctant to allow attribution. But their common concerns — cobbled together below from anonymous interviews with young Roxbury residents on the morning after Turner's arrest — should not be ignored.

We see what's going on here. We see how South End gentrification gets closer to our neighborhood every day. First Dianne goes down, then Chuck, and next it will be Gloria Fox. If they move one more, then they have Roxbury in their hand. It was the job of our black representatives in government to keep that line from being crossed. All we want is this neighborhood right here, but it's closing in on every side — from Jamaica Plain and Dorchester, too.

• Chuck Turner
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• Salvatore DiMasi
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• Dianne Wilkerson
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• more >>

People our age don't care about Chuck. He has no power base — all his supporters are old black folks. But so what if he did take some money? It's not like him and Dianne don't work for someone higher up who got a share of the paper. Just watch — if she keeps her mouth shut she won't do any time, but if she opens it she'll go to jail. How do you expect us to see this when Sal DiMasi is about to walk for doing the same thing?

We're being systematically run out of our neighborhood and there's nothing we can do about it. At the same time, police officers and FBI agents are orchestrating political theater. Any doubt about that was eliminated by the slide shows of ambiguous pictures and their allowing Chuck to sweat for a month before they bagged him. All we wanted were a few liquor licenses. Have you ever tried to find dinner and a beer in Dudley Square? I didn't think so.

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