BOSTON — Modern woke Boston in one frame.
The smiling woman on stage with Mayor Michelle Wu at the Pride Kick-Off at Boston City Hall yesterday — the one in dark blue, on the left — is Daunasia Yancey, deputy director of Wu's Office of LGBTQIA2S+ Advancement and founder of Black Lives Matter Boston.
The mugshot is also her.
In April 2025, she was arrested at a Roxbury home after a woman told police Yancey had slammed her against a wall, hit her in the throat, and walked out with a locked safe. The felony A&B-with-a-dangerous-weapon charge — the weapon, per the complaint, was the wall — was tossed by a judge last summer.
Tossed by a judge. Convenient.
The misdemeanor was continued without a finding.
And there she was yesterday afternoon at City Hall, on the stage, smiling.
Daunasia Yancey (left, in dark blue) on stage with Mayor Michelle Wu at the Pride Kick-Off at Boston City Hall yesterday.
A booking photo of Daunasia Yancey.
Now imagine the inverse
Imagine the same allegations against a City Hall staffer who was not part of the administration's political project. Imagine the police report, the felony charge, the same conduct, the same paperwork. Now imagine the Wu administration putting him on the stage next to Mayor Wu yesterday afternoon, smiling for the cameras at the Pride flag raising.
You cannot. That is the point.
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In February, Mass Daily News reported on what happened to Chulan Huang — a City Hall staffer who served as the Wu administration's Chinatown liaison before being arrested in May 2025 for a less serious domestic incident with his then-girlfriend. The Wu administration fired Huang within days, citing police reports that he had referenced his City Hall job during the incident. A judge later dismissed his case outright. He was never reinstated. To the Wu administration's calculus, Huang was not politically useful.
Chulan Huang, the City Hall staffer the Wu administration fired within days of his arrest. A judge later dismissed the case outright. He was never reinstated.
Mass Daily News heard from City Hall insiders after the arrest broke. By their account, he was a hard-working young staffer who cared about his neighborhood — the kind of City Hall hire who showed up for the constituent-services work that does not make headlines.
The pattern is not unique to the Yancey case. Segun Idowu, until recently the Wu administration's Chief of Economic Opportunity & Inclusion, faced a separate allegation last year of having made an inappropriate proposition to a City Hall colleague. The Wu administration commissioned a fast "internal review," cleared Idowu of wrongdoing, and moved on. He kept his six-figure job, never had to explain himself in public, and announced his own resignation in January on his own terms.
Segun Idowu, the Wu administration's former Chief of Economic Opportunity & Inclusion — cleared by internal review of an inappropriate-proposition allegation and allowed to resign on his own timeline.
And there is one more, for an encore. In August 2025, Mass Daily News first reported on Samantha Peracchi, a North End political operative caught on video allegedly attacking a female bartender at L'Osteria in May 2024.
She went behind the bar — and didn't order a drink. Surveillance footage appears to show Samantha Peracchi attacking a bartender at L'Osteria.
Peracchi was charged with assault and battery, pleaded not guilty, and was placed on pretrial probation with a no-contact order and a court-ordered ban from L'Osteria. In April 2025, with the criminal case still open, District 1 City Councilor Gabriela Coletta — a Wu ally — hired Peracchi to her staff. The Boston City Council formally approved the hire on May 24, 2025 — exactly one year to the day after the alleged attack on the bartender. Peracchi is barred from L'Osteria by court order. She is not barred from City Hall.
Idowu was useful. He was protected. Peracchi was connected. She was hired anyway, with a court case open. Yancey is the right kind of activist. She has been quietly restored. Huang was not part of that protected class. He was fired.
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The actual rule
The rule that governs modern progressive Boston is not equal treatment under the law. It is not zero tolerance for violence against women. It is: if you are the right kind of person, with the right kind of politics, you will be protected.
Daunasia Yancey is the right kind of person. She is black. She is queer. She founded the Boston chapter of Black Lives Matter. Mayor Wu's Office of LGBTQIA2S+ Advancement is, more or less, designed for her résumé.
The felony quietly disappeared. The misdemeanor quietly became a CWOF. Yancey quietly came off unpaid leave. And yesterday, on the most visible Pride Month moment of the year, she was right back where she started — at the elbow of the Mayor of Boston, as the public face of a $920,702-a-year taxpayer-funded city office.
Where Mass Daily News stands
Mass Daily News believes in innocent until proven guilty, and despises cancel culture — the practice of weaponizing the past to destroy the present, where any old statement becomes grounds for losing your job, your platform, and your reputation. That practice was built and perfected by the same progressive political movement now running Boston City Hall.
What this commentary is pointing out is the moral asymmetry. The same political movement that spent the last fifteen years burning people's careers for old jokes and off-message podcast clips has decided that being arrested in a domestic-violence call and charged with a felony for slamming another woman against a wall does not rise to disqualifying — provided you are the right kind of person, with the right kind of politics.
That is not innocent-until-proven-guilty. That is consequences for thee, not for me.
Welcome to woke Boston. The rules really are different here.
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