But her condemnation doesn’t answer some critical questions that need to be asked. Did the marchers ask the city for permits for their demonstration ahead of time or nah? If so, it’d be super interesting to see whether those applications included the group’s name and purpose, as in, “Hey, City That Doesn’t Want To Be Labeled As Racist, mind if our Anti-Defamation League-recognized white supremacist group throws on these masks and walks through downtown right quick?”

Also, how many of those marchers were actually from the Boston area and how many traveled there? The Boston Globe (full disclosure: my former employer circa 2003-2007), reported that after the racists hopped a quick subway ride out of town, they piled into cars at a park-and-ride that had plates from Massachusetts, Texas and elsewhere. It also reported that the ADL “documented more than 600 incidents in Massachusetts involving Patriot Front, including distribution of Patriot Front propaganda and acts of vandalism,” since 2017

Advertisement

If at least some of the white supremacists were locals, why didn’t Boston police or the Massachusetts State Police have any intel on what they were planning beforehand?

If Wu and the rest of Boston want the rest of us to accept that it’s not what we think it is, they may want to come up with some good answers to those questions in today’s meeting.