Mayor of Boston Accidentally Invites Everyone to “Electeds of Color Holiday Party”

It’s a (not so) white Christmas in Boston this year—at least when it comes to holiday parties, that is.

Mayor Michelle Wu is in hot water after one of her staff members sent an email invite out to city council members for a holiday party. The kicker? The party was only for “electeds of color” and the invite went to everyone.  

Boston 25 reports:

Denise DosSantos, Wu’s director of City Council relations, sent an email to the council’s “honorable members” that read, “On behalf of Mayor Michelle Wu, I cordially invite you and a guest to the Electeds of Color Holiday Party on Wednesday, December 13 at 5:30 p.m. at the Parkman House, 33 Beacon Street.”

About 15 minutes later, however, DosSantos sent out a follow-up email to council members, apologizing for the previous message.

“I wanted to apologize for my previous email regarding the Holiday Party for tomorrow. I did send that to everyone by accident, I apologize if my email may have offended or came across as so,” DosSantos wrote. “Sorry for any confusion this may have caused.”

In other words: “Yeah, sorry you’re the wrong color and all, I’m going to have to uninvite you to our holiday party.”

BUT DON’T WORRY! Mayor Wu completely cleared the air:

“I mean again, this is a group that has been in place for many, many years. We celebrate all kinds of connection and identity and culture and heritage in the city. Just yesterday we hosted in the city our official Hannukah celebration, we have had tree lightings,’ said Wu. “We want to be a city where everyone’s identity is embraced…and there are spaces and communities we can help support.”

See? They’ve been excluding white city council members from this party FOR YEARS, so it’s totally not racist. Don’t you feel silly now for questioning her?

But in all seriousness, Mayor Wu clearly didn’t learn anything from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’s story…or history.

Oh, and one more thing—stop calling it a holiday party.