On Saturday, a rally in Boston was met with controversy and became engulfed in thousands of counter-protestors after its organizers called it a “free speech” rally. The organizers wanted to rally for their right to express their extreme right-wing views, with some calling them “the alt-right movement” that US President Donald Trump has been accused of popularizing.
Alt-right is a nice word for white supremacy or white nationalism, pretty much.
Trump is credited with bringing the white supremacists of America out of their shell to kill people. The recent riots in Charlottesville show that. There was a call to take down a Confederate statue – as in a statue of a guy who fought Abraham Lincoln to keep his slaves – and the white supremacists turned violent. One neo-Nazi drove his car into a crowd of protestors and killed a woman, injuring others. This recent protest in Boston is a new chapter of that same story.
If anyone should be rallying for their right to free speech, it should be the press, who Trump describes as “the enemy of the American people,” Nixon-style.
See, the protestors in Boston (not the counter-protestors, but the original ones) were rallying for their right to “free speech,” but what they meant by that was their right to hate speech. So, of course, a lot of people have taken exception to it.
Rally was dubbed the ‘Boston Free Speech Coalition Rally’
The organizers of the rally, to their merit, went through all the right channels and got all the proper permissions to host what they called the “Boston Free Speech Coalition Rally” on Boston Common. They received a permit under the pretences of approximately 100 attendees. They set up a Facebook page for the event in order to drum up interest, and that page showed that over 300 people were expected to turn out for the rally.
However, the aerial photos taken on Saturday as well as videos taken from the event show a far smaller number hiding under a gazebo on Boston Common while they are surrounded by thousands of angry counter-protestors on every side. This is good. It shows that the majority have their head screwed on right and they’re enough to quash the few who don’t.
Counter-protestors belong to Black Lives Matter movement
The counter-protest against the alt-right “free speech” lovers in Boston was organized by a bunch of left-wing activists and protest groups – one of which being the black lives matter movement, who have become heavily involved in the heated debate over the Confederate statue in Charlottesville – who formed a coalition to fight their bigotry.
The fact that the liberals of all walks of the political arena can stand together against white supremacy and hate speech is a good sign – a sign that we’re moving in the right direction, even if some of us aren’t.
According to the official Facebook page of the rally, the organizers do not want the “Boston Free Speech Coalition Rally” to be associated with the violence going on in Charlottesville. They explicitly stated on the page that they “denounce the politics of supremacy and violence,” and they describe themselves as being a coalition of people from all different political leanings: “libertarians, conservatives, traditionalists, classical liberals, Trump supporters, or anyone else who enjoys their right to free speech.” However, counter-protestors saw through this to see that they were simply right-wingers who wanted their right to say horrible, hateful things.
The Anti-Defamation League said of the planned Boston rally that it would not be a white supremacist event. However, they did add that the organizers are “in step with the alt-right” in terms of “their hatred of feminists and immigrants, among others.” So, they got some left-wingers together to counter their protest, and it worked out nicely for them.