Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

Background: last month, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court [which is the highest court in the state] ruled that Massachusetts police have no legal authority to hold people based on ICE civil detention orders. (It's not clear whether doing so would inherently be against the state constitution, on due process grounds, as distinct from them not being allowed to do it because there's no law saying they can.)

Governor Baker's response was to file a bill saying that they can do that. (His press release says it would "authorize but not require" the police to do so in certain cases; the proposed bill leaves the decision to individual police forces.)

The ACLU and a couple of other groups organized rallies against Baker's bill, and for the Safe Communities Act, which explicitly says they can't do that and has some other protections. cattitude and I heard about the one in Boston because we're signed up for ACLU text messages, and we decided this was important enough to make time for even while planning a move.

The rally drew a couple of hundred people; there were speeches, and chants, in Spanish as well as English. (There was one chant I hadn't heard before, which I translated for Cattitude: "Baker, escucha, estamos en la lucha," which in English is "Baker, listen, we are in the fight.")

Various organizers brought extra signs for people to hold: we both started with "ACLU freedom agenda" signs, and I replaced mine with an SEIU bilingual "here to stay" sign and then with an SEIU one reading "America united to protect immigrants and refugees." (It felt more appropriate, since I'm not an immigrant.)

The last speaker said we would end with a song from the Civil Rights movement. My first thought was "We Shall Overcome," and then she started singing "We Shall Not Be Moved." I joined in almost immediately, thinking "thank you Pete Seeger."

After the rally Cattitude and I took the T to Hynes Convention Center to have lunch at the Cornish Pasty Co., because it sounded good from sovay's recent post. The pasties were indeed good, though I was disappointed by the tea. Thence to Toscanini's, because I seem to have decided that I should stop for ice cream on my way home from rallies and protest marches.

When I spoke to my mother last week, I mentioned (among many other things) that when I want to see papersky, rysmiel, and zorinth, I have to visit Montreal, because they don't feel safe coming to the United States to visit me.

Mom asked why, and I explained. This involved me giving a three-sentence summary of what happened to Maher Arar. Her response was that they had nothing to worry about because "They don't look Arab."

Right. I'm sure that's a great reassurance to them.