During the South Boston St. Patrick's Day Parade, a bunch of Neo-Nazi buffoons from a group called National Socialist Club 131 showed up with a dog-whistle banner that said "Keep Boston Irish." Despite the fact that these hateful morons included a white supremacist cross of Odin on a god damn banner about Irishness, they still managed to sneak in behind a photo of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu — an Asian woman — that was published in the Boston Globe.
A pair of local activists confronted the Neo-Nazis on their way out. They tweeted out some information about the racist cowards behind the balaclavas, and also brought attention to a promo code that the Neo-Nazis made, which was underscored by the Dropkick Murphys song "The Boys Are Back" (and featured some gross IRA-wannabe posturing around some of South Boston's Irish Nationalist murals).
Despite the leftist leanings of the band's many pro-union and anti-war songs (and their tendency towards oddly centrist political endorsements), white supremacists have occasionally been drawn to the bro-y power-violence-esque energy of street punk groups like the Dropkick Murphys. In fact, the band's frontman Ken Casey has a history of literally dropkicking Nazis (and/or encouraging fans to do the same).
So when Casey found out about NSC-131 using his song, he immediately got his lawyers on the case. Then he took to Twitter and threatened to do some smashing. A member of the Nazi group replied to Casey with some more faux tough guy bullshit. So Casey — who is also a professional boxing promoter when he's not making music — called him and challenged him to a fight:
And indeed, Ken Casey took his dog out to the M Street Park shortly after noon on Saturday, and even tweeted the evidence.
In fact, a whole crew of people showed up to watch the big fight go down:
The only people who didn't show up … were the cowardly Neo-Nazis. (That being said, the Boston Police Department did show up and detain a few protestors after someone allegedly told them that "Antifa" was there with weapons.
This last development, though perhaps not surprising, is certainly disappointing. The Dropkick Murphys have typically been chummy with the Boston Police; to be fair, they are Boston Irish-Americans, and presumably have plenty of family who have benefitted from police work. But apparently that support wasn't enough to get them off the backs of the protestors who were there on Ken Casey's side.
Image via Lauren Pespisa
