By Bill Forry
Reporter News Editor

The south South End.

According to the Boston Globe, that's how many new residents in the Jones Hill area view their section of Dorchester. At least, that is what the Globe's lead headline in last Sunday's City Weekly section suggested rather strongly.

The south South End?

Is that really the way it is?

I have no doubt that some in Jones Hill feel that way- and to some degree they have a point. There are a lot of newcomers on Jones Hill and in other parts of Dorchester. Many of them are transplanted from the South End. And, at least one local realtor, who relocated to Stoughton Street a few years ago from the South End, has made a specialty of catering to folks from that increasingly-gentrified part of Boston.

I lived in that part of the neighborhood for a while not long ago and, like everywhere else in Dorchester, everyone had their own way of describing where they lived.

'Two streets over from Strong Cup.'

'Near the old St. Margaret's.'

'Round the corner from the Strand.'

'Round the corner from Patty's.'

'Not far from the Marr Club.'

'Just down the street from the Dublin House, I mean, Yaz's Place.'

'Three doors down from Fiesta.'

'Up the stairs from the salt shed.'

Hey, who can say someone else is wrong about defining where they live. It's all in the eye of the beholder, right?

Why is it, though, that through the Globe's prism, the influx of affluent, white folks always seems to be the defining moment for city communities. Why should Dorchester, collectively, see itself as anything other than what it is- and has been- when it comes to place names? And, above all, why should one group of people in this incredibly diverse place set the parameters for how the media- and, therefore, the rest of the world- sees us.

There are many labels one could give to the Jones Hill-Uphams Corner area if they had nothing better to do. Cape Verde Central. San Juan Hill. Dominican Heights.

The Globe article rightly described Strong Cup of Coffee and Harp & Bard as popular destinations. But there are many others, too.

There's the bodega that everyone uses for a quick grocery stop at the bottom of the hill. What about the Haitian-run bakery on Hancock Street that does a booming business with wedding cakes and beef patties? A new friends group at the Strand is drawing energy from all walks of life in the neighboring streets. How about the barroom on the corner, where the kids line up every weekend night to dance calypso and hip-hop?

Aren't these all part and parcel of what it means, deep down, to live here?

The Globe article expressed a point of view that exists- and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. And, in defense of the Globe reporter, the headline did not do justice to a story that at least tipped its hat to the diversity of Jones Hill.

But the headline- and the attitude behind it- is a problem. And not just a trivial one.

Names mean something around here. What we call things, collectively, makes a statement about our values, our political persuasion, and our community's future. And, we have a bad habit of letting people who don't live here define our identity for us.

A case in point: 'North' Dorchester, a term coined by the Boston Redevelopment Authority back in the 1960s that, thankfully, is slowly being phased out by City Hall. Longtime residents know that city planners came up with the terminology expressly to define where 'the blacks' lived in the city. 'South' Dorchester came to mean the opposite. They are code words for racial divisions, pure and simple. For the most part, the terms have only been used only by a few politicians, academics, and occasionally, by a hapless Globe writer who doesn't know any better. It was misused once again in the Jones Hill article last week.

An innocent word, 'north'. But in the context of this neighborhood, this city, our history, it's a demon that won't go away. Sadly, it seems to have taken new root at the Globe, which has few people left in its newsroom who understand the true meaning and impact of the phrase.

So, why all this fuss over the 'South End' headline? Because Dorchester has an identity problem- and it's getting worse because of careless reporters and editors who don't understand our neighborhood. They don't know our streets. Their frame of reference is the South End and downtown Boston. Just look at last week's Globe Calendar section, a special edition geared towards newly arrived students. It was a guide to all of the cool places to see and do and spend money at in Boston. The only Dorchester reference was the JFK Library. Roxbury and Mattapan suffered similar fates at the hands of the Calendar's culture police. It said a lot of what the folks who work on Morrissey Boulevard think about their city neighbors.

Of course, it's not all the Globe's fault.

Dorchester's conflicted for many reasons: we're much bigger than most neighborhoods. We have multiple political spheres of influence and we still have stubborn racial divisions. And we have a history of balkanizing ourselves by ward, parish, convenience store, park, and street corner. It's a condition that cuts across ethnic lines and has been passed down from generation to generation. In a weird way, it unifies all of us in a way that few other things do.

It's also one of the reasons that many of us reacted so strongly to the formation of a new all-Dorchester Senate seat last year. It had little to do with resentment towards South Boston or its chosen leaders. It had more to do with our own chronic inability to get together as a neighborhood. It was a chance to see if we could and, ultimately, it didn't happen. We weren't ready yet because we're not too sure what 'we' means.

And that brings us back to the Globe's 'south South End'. Jones Hill is Jones Hill, a proud section of Dorchester. People in Jones Hill are proud to call Dorchester home and we here in Dorchester are proud to have 'em. All of them.

No offense to the South End, but we have something different going on here in Dorchester. Not necessarily better or worse, just different.

And we won't let you take that away from us.