Dexter Van Zile
Middle East Forum, May 3, 2024
“As Bala exuded privilege from her ersatz throne, a slightly older-looking man with long curly black hair sat next to her. He wore sunglasses, a creepy mustache, and mom jeans with elastic ankle cuffs.”
I walked up to a young man wearing a balaclava and sunglasses that obscured most of his face. When I got close to him, I discerned that he was a blond, white kid in his early twenties. He wore a dark hoody and an upside down cross on a chain around his neck as he stood in the corner of an alley doing his best to look tough and mean.
He stood watch over the dozen or so pro-Hamas activists who had taken up unlawful residence in Boylston Place, a public alley that feeds into the sidewalk alongside Boylston Street, a major thoroughfare in downtown Boston. It was the fourth day of the encampment organized by Emerson College’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which took possession of the alley on Sunday, April 21, 2024. The graphic on his hoody, which showed a camera with a line through it, indicated he didn’t want anyone to take his photo, but I took one anyway. He was making a spectacle of himself in a public alley.
“Who are the organizers here?” I asked him. “I want to know who’s paying for all of this. By “all of this” I meant a picnic table covered with food and the dozen or so tents strewn about the alley that, in addition to serving as the hub for Emerson College, also serves as entrance to the Massachusetts Transportation Building. I also wanted to know who — if anyone — was giving these folks media training.
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