The Boston alt-right’s “straight pride parade” just fizzled into a complete disaster
What better use of your Labor Day weekend than to hold a parade — not in honor of the working class laborers whom the holiday is meant to celebrate, but to celebrate the pride of that supposedly horrendously recipient of universal discrimination — the straight white male? (Full disclosure: the writer of this article counts himself within that category.)
Never mind that heterosexuals have already added nearly 53 million additional people to the earth’s population this year, form the vast majority of the population worldwide, and face no discernible discrimination for their sexual orientation, right-wing snowflakes seem to feel that any recognition of aggrieved minorities of any type deserves an equal and opposite reaction on their part — as if human rights were a zero-sum game wherein if someone gains rights and respect it must surely come at their expense.
Hence the Boston Straight Pride Parade today, courtesy of The Proud Boys and Milo Yiannopoulos, the latter an odd choice for addressing the crowd at straight pride parade that includes a group of white supremacists, given his own sexual orientation and marriage to an African-American man.
Reporter Ryan Broderick covered the event today for BuzzFeed News and provided plenty of photographic and video documentation of the parade and the considerably larger counterprotest that it engendered on his Twitter feed.
The start of the event was marked by low turnout and organizational confusion according to Broderick.
Lots of confusion at the parade start. John Hugo, one of the main organizers, (in the hat next to the shark) keeps yelling “don’t worry Milo is coming.”
Looks like Boston PD is trying to limit parade size. Blocking folks from coming in. pic.twitter.com/l9s7SLjClw
— Ryan Broderick (@broderick) August 31, 2019
As the day progressed, the parade, with its right-wing slant plainly manifest, began to grow, as did the counter-protest.
In case you were wondering how pro-Trump this whole thing is pic.twitter.com/3GuTwzVKzE
— Ryan Broderick (@broderick) August 31, 2019
Counterprotester snuck in and got ahold of their megaphone pic.twitter.com/NnbXPLidXK
— Ryan Broderick (@broderick) August 31, 2019
The formerly famous Yiannopoulos finally did make an appearance, swelling the parade’s size to an embarrassing estimate of about 300 people.
Parade has started. I’d estimate it’s about 300 people. It marches from Copley to City Hall plaza.
Local antifascists told me earlier this month they plan to throw a bloc party. Unclear where. pic.twitter.com/n0NwMW45zV
— Ryan Broderick (@broderick) August 31, 2019
Protestors gave the parade a Boston version of a royal welcome.
Lol p sure that’s vermin supreme
— Ryan Broderick (@broderick) August 31, 2019
With two combustible and opposing crowds fighting for dominance, it wasn’t long before conflict emerged.
First arrest. Batons out. pic.twitter.com/gg9Rqc5rNk
— Ryan Broderick (@broderick) August 31, 2019
Paradegoer ejected for attacking female counterprotester pic.twitter.com/ah26KJTq4H
— Ryan Broderick (@broderick) August 31, 2019
Despite the violence, Yiannopoulos managed to exercise his free speech rights to endorse pride for the group of which he is not a sterling example.
Pretty sure Milo is giving a speech to no one pic.twitter.com/a1h8agwbaY
— Ryan Broderick (@broderick) August 31, 2019
Still, conflicts between police, paradegoers, and protestors continued with the Straight Pride speechifiers being drowned out by the crowd of protestors more than double their size.
Can’t hear the Straight Pride speeches over the crowd outside chanting “bottoms and tops, we all hate cops” pic.twitter.com/KpHAqow45D
— Ryan Broderick (@broderick) August 31, 2019
An attendee among the counterprotesters also posted her account of the less than well-attended parade and its attending conflicts.
https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/1167837910109962245?s=20
https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/1167875089942990848?s=20
While it’s heartening to see the counterprotesters far outnumber the aggrieved right-wing testosterone bearers, that fact that they had to spend their holiday weekend expressing their opposition to a bunch of crybabies whose sense of entitlement has been threatened by the granting of basic human rights to formerly persecuted minorities is a sad commentary on America in the Donald Trump era.
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Original reporting by Ryan Broderick at BuzzFeed News.
