Brandon Navom - Fired Over Speech

Several months ago, a friend of mine casually mentioned that my role model on the Shiva Ayyadurai, and Indian American who is currently running for US Senate, was speaking at an event where the general topic was freedom of speech.  I very quickly verbally accepted this opportunity to speak in support of the man I admire.  When I agreed to what I thought it would benign event filled with boring speeches, there was no way I could have foreseen that the tragic and horrific events that occurred over this past weekend in Charlottesville Virginia would occur.  I, of course, immediately condemned those horrific attacks.  Yet I immediately found myself at the center of a maelstrom of hate. 

I never could have imagined that my efforts to bring more diversity to the US Senate by supporting a person of color and bring more diversity to the US Senate would have me branded as a white supremacist. 

This upcoming “Boston Free Speech Rally” scheduled for Saturday is in no way connected to event in Charlottesville. Even though they are different events with different titles, organized by different organizers, and have a different subject matter, CNN  falsely reported that  these two events were organized by the same hateful people.  The only two things that these events have in common is that they had the unfortunate circumstance of being scheduled a week apart and a few hundred miles removed from one another. 

Mayor Walsh repeated the false CNN rumor, which sent a torrent of hate in my direction. 

I was clothes shopping with my daughter on a Sunday afternoon when my employee or called me.   They said they were made aware that I was a listed speaker on a free-speech rally that was to occur on the next weekend, and that this action was why they were firing me.  I tried to tell them that this was a big misunderstanding, and that I was only speaking for the right of free expression for all peoples.