Over the weekend, there was an unusual incident occurred in Washington.
I know, I know, it seems that every weekend - in fact, every single day - has ushered in some unusual incidents since January 20, 2017.
And in fact, this incident did have something to do with what happened on that fateful day nearly two years ago, when the nation changed dramatically.
There was a video that went viral, and at least at first, it appeared to show a bunch of kids wearing MAGA hats taunting Native Americans protesting peacefully by the Lincoln Memorial. One kid in particular stood smirking, his face mere inches away from a drumming Native American protester, who also happened to be a former Vietnam veteran. The kids were from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky. The kids were there protesting
Initially, the impression that many who viewed the video had was that this was a blatant example of racism and intolerance. Viewed from this context, the smirking kid looks like an obnoxious, overly entitled white brat harassing a peaceful Native American protester. The fact that the kid's mother then turned around and blamed the whole thing on "Black Muslims" did not help matters, clearly, and seemed only to confirm the seemingly undeniable racism on display.
As it turns out, there was a bit more to the story than that. The kids themselves were being taunted by a group of idiots. The people harassing them were black males - although I cannot say for sure whether they were Muslims or not - and these guys indeed were probably taking things too far. For the most part, the kids reacted the way that you might expect high school kids to act. They were essentially clowning around, and reacting in an understandably shocked manner when the morons yelling at them were predicting that these teenagers would start shooting up schools in the near future.
Clearly, they were trying to get a reaction out of the high schoolers. To their credit, the high school kids did not really take the bait.
Then, a group of Native American protesters entered the picture. They were, as I understand it, marching to the Lincoln Memorial, and for the most part, nobody was in their way, until they reached Nick Sandmann, the junior from Covington Catholic who was featured in all of those videos, and came across looking like a racist teenage brat wearing a MAGA hat.
Now, why Sandmann did not simply move away is a serious question. Other people moved out of his way when it became clear that he was trying to make his way forward towards the Lincoln Memorial. But we need to keep in mind that Sandmann is a teenager. And I guess that you could also make the argument that the Native Americans could have gone around the crowded pack of teenagers.
One way or the other, however, it was a little odd, and not a little depressing, to see so many teenagers wearing MAGA hats and clothing. Also, let's face it: MAGA hats and clothing has become a symbol of polarization and incitement. There have indeed been plenty of racial incidents caught on camera by people wearing these hats, and Trump himself has been guilty of expressing some blatantly racist and hateful sentiments. So, lending your unconditional love and support of such a man, and his philosophy, will rightly be seen by many as being provocative and largely negative.
So, it seems that there is blame to go around here, although the least blame would go to the Native American, who hardly seemed threatening at all, and who was in fact participating in a peaceful protest.
Still, despite Sandmann and his classmates being Trump supporters (which I reject wholeheartedly myself), they have their own version of what happened. And in fairness, I believe that this incident was not nearly as horrific as it appeared at first glance. So, in fairness, I am publishing Sandmann's own account of the events that transpired on Friday here, as they were published by CNN:
“I am providing this factual account of what happened on Friday afternoon at the Lincoln Memorial to correct misinformation and outright lies being spread about my family and me.
I am the student in the video who was confronted by the Native American protestor. I arrived at the Lincoln Memorial at 4:30 p.m. I was told to be there by 5:30 p.m., when our busses were due to leave Washington for the trip back to Kentucky. We had been attending the March for Life rally, and then had split up into small groups to do sightseeing.
When we arrived, we noticed four African American protestors who were also on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. I am not sure what they were protesting, and I did not interact with them. I did hear them direct derogatory insults at our school group.
The protestors said hateful things. They called us “racists,” “bigots,” “white crackers,” “faggots,” and “incest kids.” They also taunted an African American student from my school by telling him that we would “harvest his organs.” I have no idea what that insult means, but it was startling to hear.
Because we were being loudly attacked and taunted in public, a student in our group asked one of our teacher chaperones for permission to begin our school spirit chants to counter the hateful things that were being shouted at our group. The chants are commonly used at sporting events. They are all positive in nature and sound like what you would hear at any high school. Our chaperone gave us permission to use our school chants. We would not have done that without obtaining permission from the adults in charge of our group.
At no time did I hear any student chant anything other than the school spirit chants. I did not witness or hear any students chant “build that wall” or anything hateful or racist at any time. Assertions to the contrary are simply false. Our chants were loud because we wanted to drown out the hateful comments that were being shouted at us by the protestors.
After a few minutes of chanting, the Native American protestors, who I hadn’t previously noticed, approached our group. The Native American protestors had drums and were accompanied by at least one person with a camera.
The protestor everyone has seen in the video began playing his drum as he waded into the crowd, which parted for him. I did not see anyone try to block his path. He locked eyes with me and approached me, coming within inches of my face. He played his drum the entire time he was in my face.
I never interacted with this protestor. I did not speak to him. I did not make any hand gestures or other aggressive moves. To be honest, I was startled and confused as to why he had approached me. We had already been yelled at by another group of protestors, and when the second group approached I was worried that a situation was getting out of control where adults were attempting to provoke teenagers.
I believed that by remaining motionless and calm, I was helping to diffuse the situation. I realized everyone had cameras and that perhaps a group of adults was trying to provoke a group of teenagers into a larger conflict. I said a silent prayer that the situation would not get out of hand.
During the period of the drumming, a member of the protestor’s entourage began yelling at a fellow student that we “stole our land” and that we should “go back to Europe.” I heard one of my fellow students begin to respond. I motioned to my classmate and tried to get him to stop engaging with the protestor, as I was still in the mindset that we needed to calm down tensions.
I never felt like I was blocking the Native American protestor. He did not make any attempt to go around me. It was clear to me that he had singled me out for a confrontation, although I am not sure why.
The engagement ended when one of our teachers told me the busses had arrived and it was time to go. I obeyed my teacher and simply walked to the busses. At that moment, I thought I had diffused the situation by remaining calm, and I was thankful nothing physical had occurred.
I never understood why either of the two groups of protestors were engaging with us, or exactly what they were protesting at the Lincoln Memorial. We were simply there to meet a bus, not become central players in a media spectacle. This is the first time in my life I’ve ever encountered any sort of public protest, let alone this kind of confrontation or demonstration.
I was not intentionally making faces at the protestor. I did smile at one point because I wanted him to know that I was not going to become angry, intimidated or be provoked into a larger confrontation. I am a faithful Christian and practicing Catholic, and I always try to live up to the ideals my faith teaches me – to remain respectful of others, and to take no action that would lead to conflict or violence.
I harbor no ill will for this person. I respect this person’s right to protest and engage in free speech activities, and I support his chanting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial any day of the week. I believe he should re-think his tactics of invading the personal space of others, but that is his choice to make.
I am being called every name in the book, including a racist, and I will not stand for this mob-like character assassination of my family’s name. My parents were not on the trip, and I strive to represent my family in a respectful way in all public settings. I have received physical and death threats via social media, as well as hateful insults. One person threatened to harm me at school, and one person claims to live in my neighborhood. My parents are receiving death and professional threats because of the social media mob that has formed over this issue.
I love my school, my teachers and my classmates. I work hard to achieve good grades and to participate in several extracurricular activities. I am mortified that so many people have come to believe something that did not happen – that students from my school were chanting or acting in a racist fashion toward African Americans or Native Americans. I did not do that, do not have hateful feelings in my heart, and did not witness any of my classmates doing that.
I cannot speak for everyone, only for myself. But I can tell you my experience with Covington Catholic is that students are respectful of all races and cultures. We also support everyone’s right to free speech.
I am not going to comment on the words or account of Mr. Phillips, as I don’t know him and would not presume to know what is in his heart or mind. Nor am I going to comment further on the other protestors, as I don’t know their hearts or minds, either.
I have read that Mr. Phillips is a veteran of the United States Marines. I thank him for his service and am grateful to anyone who puts on the uniform to defend our nation. If anyone has earned the right to speak freely, it is a U.S. Marine veteran.
I can only speak for myself and what I observed and felt at the time. But I would caution everyone passing judgement based on a few seconds of video to watch the longer video clips that are on the internet, as they show a much different story than is being portrayed by people with agendas.
I provided this account of events to the Diocese of Covington so they may know exactly what happened, and I stand ready and willing to cooperate with any investigation they are conducting.”
— Statement of Nick Sandmann, Covington Catholic High School Junior, Regarding Incident at the Lincoln Memorial
The statement by Nick Sandmann, the student involved in this incident, was taken from CNN, which released his statement. Here is the link:
Statement of Nick Sandmann, Covington Catholic High School junior, regarding incident at the Lincoln Memorial Updated 10:27 PM ET, Sun January 20, 2019:
Here are some articles relating to the incident by the Washington Monument over the weekend:
Fuller video casts new light on Covington Catholic students' encounter with Nathan Phillips Jorge L. Ortiz, USA TODAY, Jan. 20, 2019:
The Diocese of Covington and Covington
Catholic High in Kentucky rebuked the students' actions. By Julia Reinstein and
Stephanie K. Baer, BuzzFeed News Reporters, January 19, 2019:
'Black Muslims' to blame for high school students' confrontation with Native American man, mother claims by Adam Forrest, January 20, 2019:
The video link you provided didn't seem to work. I did however go on YouTube, and managed to find more than the several seconds of footage being shown on the news. While I agree that the kids are performing school chants as opposed to shouting incendiary political slogans such as "Build that wall", I didn't see footage of Nathan Phillips walking up to them. I'm not saying that didn't happen; only that I didn't see it in the footage I watched. As for the black guys in the video – from what I gather their group calls itself the "Black Israelites" – I will certainly concede that they lapsed into asshole-ism with their harassment and baiting. On the other hand, here are some issues I have with junior's story, which I somehow doubt he even wrote himself but that's another matter. His statement says "I was not intentionally making faces at the protestor. I did smile at one point because I wanted him to know that I was not going to become angry [or] intimidated". The word that stands out to me is "intimidated". In other words, rather than walk away from Nathan Phillips' alleged aggressive behavior, tough guy made it clear that wasn't going to happen. It seems to me that walking away would have been more consistent with his religious teachings, and his attempt to cast himself as the voice of reason. Now, if the kids had walked away only to be followed by Nathan Phillips and/or the Black Israelites, I would certainly have found his account of the situation far more compelling. Also, he wasn't "smiling". He was smirking. There's a difference. I don't doubt that he and his family are indeed receiving death threats, and I'm certainly not going to condone or defend that. But patience and sympathy for smirking little wise asses who wear MAGA hats, protest a woman's right to an abortion (even if I unequivocally support their right to do so), and feel the need to "stand their ground" rather than step aside is, shall we euphemistically say, in short supply.
ReplyDeleteI generally agree with you. My own feeling is that he was not nearly as innocent as he portrays. That smirk, and standing there inches from the guy's face and, as you said, the refusal to simply move aside and let an obvious march pass by him - and in front of the Lincoln Memorial, no less - is telling.
ReplyDeleteSorry, it was not allowing me to type more, so I had to publish this separately, for some unknown reason. Anyway, what I was saying is that there are apparently pictures coming out that show that Covington Catholic High - the school where this little brat was from - has a serious problem with racism. There is one picture where a black kid from an opposing high school basketball team is literally surrounded by idiots wearing black, including one kid in blackface, all yelling at him. And there is another one showing some white basketball players from that school apparently making the "white power" symbol with their hand. Plus, let's face it: the MAGA hats basically label people as assholes, to be blunt. To have listened to Trump for this many years, and to still be fully in support of him, you kind of have to be a jackass, even if (perhaps especially if) you are young and should be a little more idealistic than that.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.snopes.com/fact-check/covington-catholic-black-paint/
For all intents and purposes, the school seems like a white nationalist bastion deep in the heart of the reddest of the red states - Kentucky.It's pathetic, and frankly, my suspicion is that they deserve the negative attention that they are getting. You want to put on blackface and taunt black athletes from other schools and then pretend that there was nothing suspicious about that little brat standing in front of a Native American, then you deserve the negative publicity. All I was saying in posting this is that some of the story was greatly exaggerated. They were not acting admirably, to be sure, but they were nonetheless not making a point of yelling out racist taunts, at least not in the Lincoln Memorial video. But the video on the Snopes page, however, shows some idiotic behavior from overly privileged kids deep in the heart of Trumo country.
ReplyDeleteExactly. I actually have slightly – that's the key word, here – SLIGHTLY – less contempt for white supremacists who unapologetically own their hopelessly backwards and ignorant world view, then for little pissants whose bravado and conviction vanishes the second there are actual consequences for their "good-natured fun". I watched the Snopes footage. The kids in blackface at that basketball game, surrounding and intimidating that black kid, possess the courage of bullies, which is to say absolutely no courage at all. Like I said, the moment they're faced with consequences their demeanor changes dramatically. They try to pass it off as "just some kids having fun", clearly failing to grasp that this isn't like burping over the intercom or mooning an unpopular teacher. And can you imagine the backlash had the roles been reversed – a handful of white kids in a room full of black kids making a point of humiliating and intimidating them? You'd never hear the end of it, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a single white person describing it as "just some kids having fun". As for MAGA, I saw something funny online yesterday, and I'm surprised I didn't see it much earlier: Manipulating America's Gullible Assholes merch.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, and this is of course completely unrelated to the behavior of these kids, but didn't you and Sébastien go to Cincinnati a few years ago, and briefly cross into Covington, Kentucky?
ReplyDeleteWe did go to Cincinnati, and actually stayed at the Kentucky town across the river. Covington was not the town, though. Would have to remember what town it was. Something tells me it was called Florence, if memory serves me correctly.
ReplyDeleteI checked out a map, and as far as I can tell Florence is a few miles farther from Cincinnati than Covington. Not that it much matters, you were very close. I was looking for that Cincinnati photo of the two of you by that fountain actually, but when I searched for "Cincinnati" it just turned up some old articles about Bengals games.
ReplyDelete