Last night I slept very poorly, thinking too much about the recent incident in Charlottesville and the upcoming "Freedom of speech" rally in Boston. It took me 3 days to finally read a whole article on it, and watch the infamous Vice news video. It was so disturbing and I knew it would be this thing that I then would have to deconstruct and work through, so yesterday I had some time and I did just that.
When my friends and I participated in the Women's March, we knew we were part of something big. It was so big and so energetically charged that we felt a slight sense of danger in it all, and as a precaution- we each wrote our emergency contact information on our arms in permanent marker (just in case). Luckily that amazing day ended without any kind of violence and turned out to be one of the best days of my entire life. The whole world showed up to stand in solidarity to say that we were opposed to inequality, misogyny, racism, and homophobia. Those who would seek to destroy progress in feminism and human rights. Those who would elect that awful man and all that he stands for. We knew it was only the first step, but we definitely made a statement, one that needed to be made. One that we knew we would be making again and again for the next four years. The rally today will be one of many scheduled around the country. According to "the organizers" they are calling it the "Freedom of Speech Rally". It comes to us just one week after the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville which ended in 3 deaths and many left injured. All I knew at first was that a similar demonstration was scheduled for Boston and that everyone was freaking the eff out about it. After reading a few news articles and watching the news clips I was left with so many questions... such as "who is actually behind the rally, like what are they called?" and "why do they keep saying they are not the 'same' as the Charlottesville group? What makes them different?" and "who is even speaking at this rally?". If you are going to one of the counter protests you should probably know who you're dealing with. I don't understand how this stuff was not addressed in all of the news coverage for this thing. One of the first things I did was pick a random person from their FB flier speaker list and google'd him. I came up with a black man from Dorchester who recently ran for city council. His name is Donnie Parsons. I was surprised because "Unite the Right" was from what I understood; a white nationalist rally. So, okay this is not that...but that doesn't mean that those assholes won't ride in on the coattails of their fellow Right wing-nuts just to start some shit. After some time scouring more stuff online I found some answers. According to a blog post by the Anti Defamation League: "The alt lite, sometimes referred to as the New Right, is a loosely-connected movement whose adherents generally shun white supremacist thinking, but who are in step wth the alt right in their hatred of feminists and immigrants, among others. Many within the alt lite sphere are virulently anti-Muslim; the group abhors everyone on “the left” and traffics in conspiracy theories." So today we are dealing with a diet cola version of extremism. They draw the line at white nationalism. Aren't they swell? I am worried about my friends today. https://www.adl.org/blog/free-speech-rally-planned-for-boston Here are two other articles you should read if you want to be well informed that don't have to do with the rally but are more about how these people get to this point and beyond. https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/11/15/13595508/racism-trump-research-study https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/8/18/16151924/radicalization-white-supremacists-nazis Understanding stuff makes me feel more in control and less anxious. Even if that control is not really anything more than a firm mental handle on what the fuck is going on. One of the worst things about all this is that we read the headlines and think "HOW THE FUCK IS THIS A THING" and that makes us anxious and depressed.
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When my friends and I participated in the Women's March, we knew we were part of something big. It was so big and so energetically charged that we felt a slight sense of danger in it all, and as a precaution- we each wrote our emergency contact information on our arms in permanent marker (just in case). Luckily that amazing day ended without any kind of violence and turned out to be one of the best days of my entire life. The whole world showed up to stand in solidarity to say that we were opposed to inequality, misogyny, racism, and homophobia. Those who would seek to destroy progress in feminism and human rights. Those who would elect that awful man and all that he stands for. We knew it was only the first step, but we definitely made a statement, one that needed to be made. One that we knew we would be making again and again for the next four years. The rally today will be one of many scheduled around the country. According to "the organizers" they are calling it the "Freedom of Speech Rally". It comes to us just one week after the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville which ended in 3 deaths and many left injured. All I knew at first was that a similar demonstration was scheduled for Boston and that everyone was freaking the eff out about it. After reading a few news articles and watching the news clips I was left with so many questions... such as "who is actually behind the rally, like what are they called?" and "why do they keep saying they are not the 'same' as the Charlottesville group? What makes them different?" and "who is even speaking at this rally?". If you are going to one of the counter protests you should probably know who you're dealing with. I don't understand how this stuff was not addressed in all of the news coverage for this thing. One of the first things I did was pick a random person from their FB flier speaker list and google'd him. I came up with a black man from Dorchester who recently ran for city council. His name is Donnie Parsons. I was surprised because "Unite the Right" was from what I understood; a white nationalist rally. So, okay this is not that...but that doesn't mean that those assholes won't ride in on the coattails of their fellow Right wing-nuts just to start some shit. After some time scouring more stuff online I found some answers. According to a blog post by the Anti Defamation League: "The alt lite, sometimes referred to as the New Right, is a loosely-connected movement whose adherents generally shun white supremacist thinking, but who are in step wth the alt right in their hatred of feminists and immigrants, among others. Many within the alt lite sphere are virulently anti-Muslim; the group abhors everyone on “the left” and traffics in conspiracy theories." So today we are dealing with a diet cola version of extremism. They draw the line at white nationalism. Aren't they swell? I am worried about my friends today. https://www.adl.org/blog/free-speech-rally-planned-for-boston Here are two other articles you should read if you want to be well informed that don't have to do with the rally but are more about how these people get to this point and beyond. https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/11/15/13595508/racism-trump-research-study https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/8/18/16151924/radicalization-white-supremacists-nazis Understanding stuff makes me feel more in control and less anxious. Even if that control is not really anything more than a firm mental handle on what the fuck is going on. One of the worst things about all this is that we read the headlines and think "HOW THE FUCK IS THIS A THING" and that makes us anxious and depressed.
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