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Post by prozyan on Jan 21, 2019 18:42:38 GMT -5
There is a difference between saying the kids had an excuse and saying the kids actions are pretty much a nothingburger (nothingberder I suppose should be the new term).
The kids acted like assholes. The kids acted like...surprisingly, a group of kids.
They do not represent the fall of the nation. They are not the face of neo-nazism. They do not represent the embodiment of white privilege. These are all claims media and twitter heads have made.
The fact is all the kids represent is the fact that teenagers are assholes.
I find it hilarious the hysterics media outlets are working themselves into over this.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2019 19:04:29 GMT -5
I do agree some in the media and elsewhere are making too much of it.
But I also think the MAGA defenders are going too far in defending the kids -- unlike you, many of them are NOT acknowledging that the kids were disrespectful assholes -- which I think encourages more of this kind of shit.
Scads of people saying "poor MAGA kids were totally justified" when in fact they acted like little baby racist assholes does them and kids like them no favors. It encourages the idea that it's fine to sing mocking war chants at elderly Native Americans.
I can get on board with Shoshana Weissman's take (I cited her tweet earlier in the thread) -- i.e., "yeah, the media blew by some context here, but still, the kids behavior is problematic and WTF chaperones". I can get on board with "Don't dox and harass the kids; let's use this as a teaching moment." But I can't get on board with "pat kids on the head for chanting mocking faux-Indian war chants at elderly native American war veterans."
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Post by prozyan on Jan 21, 2019 19:12:04 GMT -5
I do agree some in the media and elsewhere are making too much of it. B ut I also think the MAGA defenders are going too far in defending the kidsHey, look at that...middle ground and agreement. Now if only the government would follow the example.
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Post by Vince524 on Jan 21, 2019 21:28:38 GMT -5
I don't have an issue blaming the chaperones. All I said was that they may be parents volunteering so you can't really fire them.
As far as some of the kid being assholes? They were somewhat acting like obnoxious teens. But the main kid who has become the face of this, smiled in the face of someone who walked up to him and beat a drum in his face. I don't see how his behavior is beyond reproach.
Beyond that, I agree with most that this shouldn't be much of a big deal. It's the reaction, the deciding that they deserved to be expelled, thrown out of colleges they haven't even applied to, named in public, threatened, their parents jobs called and threatened.
Part of it is because he was the one in the video. Part of it is because he wore the MAGA hat.
I'm just tired of people decided it's okay to treat other people with such disdain.
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Post by haggis on Jan 21, 2019 22:04:30 GMT -5
I don't have an issue blaming the chaperones. All I said was that they may be parents volunteering so you can't really fire them. As far as some of the kid being assholes? They were somewhat acting like obnoxious teens. But the main kid who has become the face of this, smiled in the face of someone who walked up to him and beat a drum in his face. I don't see how his behavior is beyond reproach. Beyond that, I agree with most that this shouldn't be much of a big deal. It's the reaction, the deciding that they deserved to be expelled, thrown out of colleges they haven't even applied to, named in public, threatened, their parents jobs called and threatened. Part of it is because he was the one in the video. Part of it is because he wore the MAGA hat. I'm just tired of people decided it's okay to treat other people with such disdain. The "main kid who has become the face of this" refused to allow an old man to walk by him who was simply trying to walk by him. The kid blocked his way and got up in his face. You could see the teen testosterone oozing from his hairless pores as he stood there snickering and enjoying the adulation of his MAGAt peers. Of course, there we were with an all boy's Catholic school protesting abortion rights (irony anybody?) and about a third of them were wearing Trump gear. How was that even allowed? Seems to me the kids were being dicks and totally disrespected an old man and a veteran. And they didn't give a damn about it. But I'm only an old man so my opinion probably doesn't count.
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Post by Christine on Jan 21, 2019 22:24:55 GMT -5
When I first saw the pic of the smirking teenager, I thought, of course he was clearly mocking the Native American. After I watched the full-length videos, it struck me that a picture is not worth a thousand words. A picture is worth jack shit. That kid's snapshot smirk was false bravado, imo. His feelings leaked out all over the damn place before and after that snapped photo. He was uncertain, insecure, and trying too hard. He's an immature kid who was caught up in a situation he wasn't equipped to deal with. Fuck the media for playing him as evil or angelic.
Like Cass said, this was a teachable moment. Every potential goddammed teacher seems to have dropped the ball here.
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Post by haggis on Jan 21, 2019 22:35:41 GMT -5
When I first saw the pic of the smirking teenager, I thought, of course he was clearly mocking the Native American. After I watched the full-length videos, it struck me that a picture is not worth a thousand words. A picture is worth jack shit. That kid's snapshot smirk was false bravado, imo. His feelings leaked out all over the damn place before and after that snapped photo. He was uncertain, insecure, and trying too hard. He's an immature kid who was caught up in a situation he wasn't equipped to deal with. Fuck the media for playing him as evil or angelic. Like Cass said, this was a teachable moment. Every potential goddammed teacher seems to have dropped the ball here. What have we become as a country when a fifteen or sixteen year old kid can get up in the face of an old man because Trump?
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Post by Christine on Jan 21, 2019 22:42:33 GMT -5
When I first saw the pic of the smirking teenager, I thought, of course he was clearly mocking the Native American. After I watched the full-length videos, it struck me that a picture is not worth a thousand words. A picture is worth jack shit. That kid's snapshot smirk was false bravado, imo. His feelings leaked out all over the damn place before and after that snapped photo. He was uncertain, insecure, and trying too hard. He's an immature kid who was caught up in a situation he wasn't equipped to deal with. Fuck the media for playing him as evil or angelic. Like Cass said, this was a teachable moment. Every potential goddammed teacher seems to have dropped the ball here. What have we become as a country when a fifteen or sixteen year old kid can get up in the face of an old man because Trump? I don't know that it was "because Trump" in the kid's mind. Do you? I saw it as false bravado. The silly man-boy idea that when someone approaches you, gets "in your face," you can't back down. I reckon it's happened millions of times under previous administrations.
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Post by Optimus on Jan 21, 2019 23:03:08 GMT -5
The "main kid who has become the face of this" refused to allow an old man to walk by him who was simply trying to walk by him. The kid blocked his way and got up in his face. You could see the teen testosterone oozing from his hairless pores as he stood there snickering and enjoying the adulation of his MAGAt peers. No, sorry but that is absolutely false. It's clear from all of the longer videos that Phillips walked right up to the kid and got in his face. It's clear from the longer video that he was not trying to go up the stairs, he intentionally walked up to the crowd of kids. And, if he really had been trying to go up the stairs, he could've walked to any of the dozens of feet of open stairs to both sides of that crowd of kids and totally avoided the entire situation. But, he didn't because he chose to confront them. Video evidence unequivocally proves this: Seriously, Phillips intentionally walked up and got right up in the kid's face. The drum he's banging is mere inches away from the kid's face here (better angle in the 2nd vid): That's a grown man confronting a child and in a public space in pretty much the most annoying way possible without ever bothering to explain what the hell he's doing or why the hell he's doing it. In any other situation, that might be considered an aggressive act. He's also delusionally misinformed, at best, or a total liar, at worst: Yes, the "one point of view" that the kids had was that they didn't like being called racial slurs, homophobic slurs, incest babies, and being told to go shoot up schools and kill themselves. But, sure, Phillips. Maybe there was something "educational," "worthwhile," and "truth" and "history about religious views and ideologies" in those hateful slurs from the Black Hebrews somewhere. Here's the kids providing some "educational, worthwhile truth" to the Black Hebrews yelling homophobic slurs, to which the kids yell out in disapproval and one of them retorts with, "they're humans too!" Starts at 1:05 in the 2nd vid (for some reason it's not separating them): But back to Phillips' delusions... Sweet christ this is such race-baiting bullshit hysteria. The kids looked like they were about to go lynch the racist pieces of shit yelling slurs at them? Are you fucking kidding me? This guy is so far up his own ass it's not even funny. They were literally roughly 10 to 20 feet away from the Black Hebrew group, though some of the Black Hebrews did occasionally walk over to them. You can even see in the Black Hebrews own video (got taken down earlier today but it might be back up now) that they were standing at least 10 feet away from the kids when Phillips and his entourage walked up while beating the drum and confronted the kids. Starting at 1:11:00. The kids are doing a school cheer/chant to mock the racists across from them. That's just kids being kids. Phillips walks up at about 1:12:00 beating his drum, and the drum beat is pretty close to the cadence of their yells/cheers, so they start jumping around to the drum beat. Some people interpret that as them mocking Phillips. I see it as kids just jumping around, hyped up, and not really knowing what the fuck is going on yet. Then they quiet down a little and he keeps beating his drum. And, yeah, some of them do act like assholes when the start doing the Atlanta Braves tomahawk chop and chant. That was distasteful and disrespectful. However, at the same time, from the perspective of the kids, some crazy old man has just walked up to confront them, after they've been harrassed by racist clowns, and is yelling an unintelligible chant at them while banging on a drum. Yeah, the tomahawk chop reaction was a bad one, but they're kids and kids are often dumb and disrespectful. Doesn't excuse it, but does explain it. How else would a group of high school kids react to that? It's an absurd situation all around. From other vids, you can even hear one of the kids exclaim, "What is happening right now?" or something to that effect. And, despite the way the media narrative has portrayed it, the incident with Phillips only lasted about 3 minutes and then he and his group left. The kids and the Black Hebrews were there for several more minutes until the chaperones announced that the buses were there, to which the kids responded by cheering, clapping, and quickly leaving. Phillips and his crew were long gone at that point: So yeah, the kids briefly acted shitty and absolutely shouldn't have done the stupid tomahawk chant and chop motion at Phillips, so I agree they acted like assholes in that instance. But the overwhelming majority of the video evidence support their version of the events and not the propaganda in the media or the opportunistic revolving door of confabulations and story editing that Phillips has spun in his interviews since. So many of the hot takes I've seen on social media and this thread seem so divorced from the actual evidence, it's mind-boggling. I can't see how any reasonable, rational person motivated by a desire for the truth can watch all of the video evidence and still agree with the majority of the negative "alternative facts" being spread about the kids and what happened in this situation. The kids are absolutely not without fault here, but they should be criticized for what they actually did, not all of these bullshit fabrications from the far-left fantastical story-telling smear campaign.
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Post by haggis on Jan 21, 2019 23:03:43 GMT -5
What have we become as a country when a fifteen or sixteen year old kid can get up in the face of an old man because Trump? I don't know that it was "because Trump" in the kid's mind. Do you? I saw it as false bravado. The silly man-boy idea that when someone approaches you, gets "in your face," you can't back down. I reckon it's happened millions of times under previous administrations. What do you think the caps and shirts and other Trump gear mean, Christine? Back in the day they were white hoods.
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Post by nighttimer on Jan 21, 2019 23:05:58 GMT -5
When I first saw the pic of the smirking teenager, I thought, of course he was clearly mocking the Native American. After I watched the full-length videos, it struck me that a picture is not worth a thousand words. A picture is worth jack shit. That kid's snapshot smirk was false bravado, imo. His feelings leaked out all over the damn place before and after that snapped photo. He was uncertain, insecure, and trying too hard. He's an immature kid who was caught up in a situation he wasn't equipped to deal with. Fuck the media for playing him as evil or angelic. Like Cass said, this was a teachable moment. Every potential goddammed teacher seems to have dropped the ball here. What have we become as a country when a fifteen or sixteen year old kid can get up in the face of an old man because Trump? A pretty damned sorry one. But it's not just a fifteen-or-sixteen-year old kid. It's also guys like Optimus who said it was "the dude," Mr. Phillips who got in the face of one Mr. Sandmann. The funny thing is how quickly he pivots to blast the "left-wing media" for rushing to judgment while doing exactly the same thing.
From this angle, I don't see Phillips spoiling for a fight. I see him trying to prevent one between the hyped-up White kids and the smack-talking Black Israelites.
Instead of putting Nathan Phillips, a Native American elder who defended a country that invaded his forefathers' land and nearly decimated his race, maybe we should be giving him the benefit of a doubt in his attempt to defuse a toxic situation bubbling up to a bunch of MAGA slurping asshole kids waiting to see if any of the crazy, shit-talking Black cultists were going to back up the big talk with some real action. I don't think they were really gonna be ready for that kind of drama, and particularly not the weirdo kid dying of testosterone poisoning who ripped off his shirt and flashed his moobs to the Black Israelites. Yeah, that might be all it would take to get into some serious and heavy-hitting arguments delivered by force of fist to shit-talking mouth. Despite being crazy outnumbered, I like the odds of the Black Israelites giving out more ass-whuppings than ass-whuppings they take. Break a few noses and black a few eyes of the biggest barking dogs in the pack and the rest of them will scatter like scared puppies. Everybody's brave at a safe distance until a punch in the jaw makes up that difference.
Had that occurred, we'd be having an entirely different discussion here. We probably wouldn't because it would still be a case of the Left-Wing Wackos baiting the Right-Wing Wackos and Optimus is all upset about it because someone might think he's a Left-Wing Wacko too instead of this guy who is so reasonable and logical and unemotional and rational and moderate and pretty uncommitted and useless when it comes to fighting for the principles he proclaims loud and long he believes in.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2019 23:10:30 GMT -5
don't see how anyone watches that video and just sees kids doing school cheers.
And uh, it looks like Covington has some history of turning a blind eye to racist, obnoxious behavior:
ETA:
See this tweet commenting on the blacface video...
My dad was a high school teacher and he on occasion chaperoned kids on trips. He was an easy-going guy with a long tolerance for youthful hijinks and obnoxiousness. No way he would've regarded the behavior at the Native American elder or the blackface shit in that light.
Teens can be obnoxious. But we don't all do this shit. I sure didn't. I says a lot that the chaperones, parents, and other adults around them don't seem to be bothered by it. Maybe it would do them some good to see that a large chunk of the world outside their little white enclave thinks it's awful. If the adults around them won't provide a teaching moment, that might be the only way they get one, sad to say.
ETA:
See also this:
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Post by Optimus on Jan 21, 2019 23:18:27 GMT -5
don't see how anyone watches that video and just sees kids doing school cheers. Because at 0:21 of the very first vid I posted in my last post, that's exactly what they're doing and it's quite clear that's what they're doing to anyone viewing it without an agenda. Because, yet again something that is posted possibly out of context can lead to impulsive conclusions that satisfy people's biases...if they let it: www.snopes.com/fact-check/covington-catholic-black-paint/EDITED: However... I can totally see why people might interpret it as "blackface" and in the current zeitgeist the school should stop the kids from painting themselves in that way, even if it is claimed to be related to a school theme and the supposed intent is not racial in nature. In 2019 people should know better. But, from reading the tweet Cass linked above, sounds like there might really be a racial problem there and the school needs to nip that shit in the bud. I don't know for sure what the atmosphere at the school is like. I don't go there and am not from there. But despite the tradition maybe starting as something non-racial, it sounds like perhaps it's taken on a nefarious and grotesque turn. That isn't looking good for the school and they need to stop that stuff immediately and give those kids a few more courses on race history and relations.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2019 23:21:54 GMT -5
I have no agenda.
The kids are being asshats. I don't want to see them crucified. I would like to see them do better.
I think giving them some context that blackface is not a harmless fun custom to most of us might be good for when they get out of Kentucky, for example, and that doing Indian war chants at Native American elders might be construed as racist.
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Post by Christine on Jan 21, 2019 23:36:05 GMT -5
I don't know that it was "because Trump" in the kid's mind. Do you? I saw it as false bravado. The silly man-boy idea that when someone approaches you, gets "in your face," you can't back down. I reckon it's happened millions of times under previous administrations. What do you think the caps and shirts and other Trump gear mean, Christine? Back in the day they were white hoods. I don't think a red MAGA hat or shirt or other Trump gear is the equivalent of a white hood, no. I do agree with something you said upthread - how ironic it is that a group of Catholic school boys were attending a right to life march. I see ignorance, and bad religion, and indoctrination. But I don't see white supremacy or the like here. JMO
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