MY SIGNS ARE READY
The sheriff Of Bristol County Massachusetts, Thomas Hodgson, who is one of the three sheriffs in the state out of fourteen to sign a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) so he can play Junior Agent, whose comments about immigrants and the local community of New Bedford rival those of the president about Baltimore, who attends and speaks at white supremacist meetings, who is involved with the Federation for American Immigration Reform (fair) an anti-immigration organization, who had volunteered his county jail inmates to help build Trump’s wall, who takes every opportunity to go to Washington DC to be seen with the president, who has proposed that any elected official in the state who supports Sanctuary Cities or Safe Communities should be arrested, is going to be in the August 4 parade at the Portuguese Festival in New Bedford, a festival that celebrates the city’s immigrant community.
Obviously he wants to appear supportive of the residents of the city while having and expressing the most negative attitudes and opinions about those who live here, creating fear within the immigrant community and promoting hatred toward it in the larger community.
While he waves at the crowd as he passes and shows the public face of support, his mind is filled with extreme dislike for those to whom he waves.
It is hypocrisy at its worse.
Because of this insulting act of hypocrisy on the part of Sheriff Tom Hodgson and his extremely negative attitude toward immigrants, Brown people, and people of color in general, Bristol County for Correctional Justice (BCCJ) is inviting people to participate in a sign-holding event on the parade route for the Portuguese Feast. The Parade begins at 2 pm from Brooklawn Park and proceeds to Madeira Ave.
The meeting place is at Earle St. and Acushnet Ave. between 12:30 -1:00 where the parade makes its turn toward the festival grounds.
If there are enough people to do so, participants will fan out along the route so that as Sheriff Hodgson marches along, sign-holders would march with him, so that by the end, our full contingent of people will be right where the sheriff will be unable to avoid seeing them. Otherwise all participants will greet him as the parade turns into the Festa area.
Also, because the Governor might be there, participants will be on the sidewalk armed with flyers as well to let people know of the sheriff’s many abuses in his jails, the many types of the mistreatment of the inmates under his care in his jails, a situation that has him the reigning king of inmate suicides in county jails, and how we are trying to get Governor Baker to investigate him.
So come join in the demonstration, and then go in and enjoy the festival.