Episode 001: Commons

What this episode covers

On August 19th, 2017, the Boston Free Speech Coalition and anti-racist counter-protestors clashed at the Boston Commons. The attendees of the Free Speech Rally were vastly outnumbered, and video footage that circulated on conservative news after the event seemed to show counter-protesters using aggressive intimidation tactics to turn their adversaries away from the event. Yet the counter-protestors claim that their hostility was justified. They say that Free Speech was really a stand-in for White Supremacy, a way to cover a roster of speakers who promote xenophobia, fascism and eugenics. In the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, do those who take a stand for a political movement become a proxy for its most extreme factions? Or is there room for civic-minded individuals to distinguish themselves from radicals with whom they share a single cause or orientation? On this episode, we talk with John Connolly, a Constitutionalist and advocate for Free Speech, Tom Aibara, an activist for COMBAT (the Coalition to Organize & Mobilize Boston Against Trump), and Angie Camacho, a community organizer, about the challenges of public protest in an age of political polarization.

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