If you watched the two minutes of video footage from the Lincoln Memorial steps on Saturday ,January 19th , or saw the resulting memes on Facebook you saw something appalling occur there. Native American activist Nathan Phillips beating a drum and singing for peace in his tribal tongue was being menaced by a rowdy group of boys wearing red MAGA caps ,shouting racial epithets, shouting " build that wall! ", jostling, and laughing, ready to riot in the manner of lynch mobs . It was a disturbing picture. One boy was seen facing down the 64 year old Phillps , smirking. That smirking expression brought him in for particular criticism by a host of celebrities and journalists on Twitter. It was said to be the smirk of white privilege, hateful ,intolerant ,and self satisfied. All of this was clear on Saturday, unless you were there at the time or waited around for the dust to clear and the truth to be revealed. Longer, less carefully edited tapes were posted and other voices were heard. When the truth was revealed it completely overturned Saturday's tailored narrative. Journalists and pundits were forced to admit jumping to conclusions too early. They were had. We all were had.
According to Phillips account he was peacefully proceeding up the steps of the memorial during the Native American march on Washington when he was suddenly set upon and surrounded by dozens of young men who were howling at him, mocking him and threatening violence. He saw two groups facing off and growing tension. One was made up of black men and the other a large group of white teenagers. " These young men were beastly and these old Black individuals was their prey, and I stood between them... " he told the Detroit Free Press on Saturday. He added , " It was ugly what I saw these kids were involved in. It was racism. It was hatred. It was scary. "
It turns out the children were a Catholic high school group from Kentucky who had been on the Mall to participate in the annual March for Life. They were at the monument waiting for the buses that would take them home. Before the buses arrived they had been noticed by four members of the the Black Hebrew Israelites who are known for the confrontational tactics they employed against them, calling the white teenagers " crackers " and a black member of the group by the " n " word, and homophobic slurs for good measure. The Southern Poverty Law Center lists them as a hate group. The SPLC throws that designation around far to freely, but in the case of some congregations of the Black Hebrew Israelites, it is well deserved. The boys did not know why they were being assaulted ,nor how to react. One boy asked a teacher if it would be alright if they were to respond with the cheers they shouted at sports events at school and was given permission. At least cheering would drown out the insults being hurled at them.
This is the scene Phillips walked into after falsely interpreting it. Video released after the original posting shows him walking deliberately into the boys assembled there and stopping in front of Nick Sandmann. Sandmann claims not to have intended to threaten Phillips ,or to have smirked. He believed his actions, or lack of action ,were necessary to diffuse a situation that was getting out of control and growing more bizarre by the moment. His smile, was a nervous smile, widly misinterpreted as a smirk. Proof of his true intentions is available in longer versions of video where he's seen gesturing to another student not to engage in an argument with one of Phillips group of protesters who tries to goad him. Proof of Phillips lack of sincerity is also there. Why not walk up to the aggressors in this unfortunate fracas to calm them down and not confront it's victims instead? How does beating a drum inches from someone's face have the pacifying effect Phillips claims he was after?
Covington high school students are not without blame in all this. They are often seen acting just like boys do. They're not angels. Chants of build that wall and derogatory remarks hurled at Phillips group are not in evidence and are likely figments of his imagination. He has an active imagination and an axe to grind.
Change the respective races of the participants and you have an entirely different picture. Imagine white men in Make America Great Again hats shouting invective and profanities at a group of predominantly native or African American boys without provocation. Imagine a white man in Nathan Phillips place. Imagine any of those who so quickly went to Twitter to condemn the children taking the word of the perpetrators over the testimony of the students or later video evidence. That's not imaginable because in the universe of social justice advocates like these politics ,power, and race are paramount, truth is irrelevant.
According to Phillips account he was peacefully proceeding up the steps of the memorial during the Native American march on Washington when he was suddenly set upon and surrounded by dozens of young men who were howling at him, mocking him and threatening violence. He saw two groups facing off and growing tension. One was made up of black men and the other a large group of white teenagers. " These young men were beastly and these old Black individuals was their prey, and I stood between them... " he told the Detroit Free Press on Saturday. He added , " It was ugly what I saw these kids were involved in. It was racism. It was hatred. It was scary. "
It turns out the children were a Catholic high school group from Kentucky who had been on the Mall to participate in the annual March for Life. They were at the monument waiting for the buses that would take them home. Before the buses arrived they had been noticed by four members of the the Black Hebrew Israelites who are known for the confrontational tactics they employed against them, calling the white teenagers " crackers " and a black member of the group by the " n " word, and homophobic slurs for good measure. The Southern Poverty Law Center lists them as a hate group. The SPLC throws that designation around far to freely, but in the case of some congregations of the Black Hebrew Israelites, it is well deserved. The boys did not know why they were being assaulted ,nor how to react. One boy asked a teacher if it would be alright if they were to respond with the cheers they shouted at sports events at school and was given permission. At least cheering would drown out the insults being hurled at them.
This is the scene Phillips walked into after falsely interpreting it. Video released after the original posting shows him walking deliberately into the boys assembled there and stopping in front of Nick Sandmann. Sandmann claims not to have intended to threaten Phillips ,or to have smirked. He believed his actions, or lack of action ,were necessary to diffuse a situation that was getting out of control and growing more bizarre by the moment. His smile, was a nervous smile, widly misinterpreted as a smirk. Proof of his true intentions is available in longer versions of video where he's seen gesturing to another student not to engage in an argument with one of Phillips group of protesters who tries to goad him. Proof of Phillips lack of sincerity is also there. Why not walk up to the aggressors in this unfortunate fracas to calm them down and not confront it's victims instead? How does beating a drum inches from someone's face have the pacifying effect Phillips claims he was after?
Covington high school students are not without blame in all this. They are often seen acting just like boys do. They're not angels. Chants of build that wall and derogatory remarks hurled at Phillips group are not in evidence and are likely figments of his imagination. He has an active imagination and an axe to grind.
Change the respective races of the participants and you have an entirely different picture. Imagine white men in Make America Great Again hats shouting invective and profanities at a group of predominantly native or African American boys without provocation. Imagine a white man in Nathan Phillips place. Imagine any of those who so quickly went to Twitter to condemn the children taking the word of the perpetrators over the testimony of the students or later video evidence. That's not imaginable because in the universe of social justice advocates like these politics ,power, and race are paramount, truth is irrelevant.
