On Saturday, a short video rocketed across social media
that appeared to show a group of male students from Covington Catholic High
School in Kentucky mocking and intimidating an elderly Native American man as
he peacefully beat his drum amid the nasty din.
Many of the students, who
were visiting Washington, DC for the annual March for Life, were wearing red
'Make America Great Again' baseball caps, and were alleged to have chanted things
like "build the wall' at their target -- who also turned
out to be a US military veteran.
Based on the early evidence and
claims, it looked like an ugly display of youthful intolerance and bullying.
Many who saw the initial tweets condemned the boys' conduct, including
myself.
In the hours and days since those first snapshots of the
encounter made the rounds, however, it has become crystal clear that the
original narrative was hugely misleading.
Additional videos from
different angles began to emerge, proving that the students did not swarm
or try to block the drum-toting man; rather, he proactively approached them.
We also learned that
a small group of African-American men were hurling racial and homophobic insults at the boys, singling out the small
number of non-white students in the group for especially grotesque abuse
(including creepily telling a black student that his classmates would harvest
his organs).
The drum-beating Native American 'victim' was accompanied by
someone who screamed at the students to "go back to Europe," profanely hectoring them over
'stolen' land.
And the drummer himself acted strangely, choosing to
approach one of the students wearing a red hat to play his instrument within
inches of the boy's face.
Having viewed more videos and read statements published
by several of the students (who have become Internet hate objects, some getting
harassed and doxxed -- including a number who weren't even in DC for the incident -- by unhinged
strangers), it is now beyond dispute that the first impression of his
controversy was wrong.
If anything, most of the teenagers behaved
better than any of the adults who tried to provoke them, whether intentionally
(the overtly hateful trolls) or unintentionally (it's unclear exactly what the
Native American man was trying to do).
Reason's Robby Soave
has published the most evenhanded and definitive account of the incident
that I've read.
After sharing others' revulsion over what he believed had
happened, Soave went on to follow the evidence that started to trickle in,
largely exonerating the students and directly contradicting the victimhood tale spun by the Native American man:
The rest of the video—nearly two
hours of additional footage showing what happened before and after the
encounter—adds important context that strongly contradicts the media's
narrative...
Far from engaging in racially motivated harassment, the
group of mostly white, MAGA-hat-wearing male teenagers remained relatively calm
and restrained despite being subjected to incessant racist, homophobic, and
bigoted verbal abuse by members of the bizarre religious sect Black Hebrew
Israelites, who were lurking nearby...
Phillips put himself between the
teens and the black nationalists, chanting and drumming as he marched straight
into the middle of the group of young people.
What followed was several minutes
of confusion: The teens couldn't quite decide whether Phillips was on their
side or not, but tentatively joined in his chanting. It's not at all clear this
was intended as an act of mockery rather than solidarity.
One student did not get out of Phillips way as he marched, and gave the man a hard stare and a smile that many have described as creepy.
One student did not get out of Phillips way as he marched, and gave the man a hard stare and a smile that many have described as creepy.
This moment received
the most media coverage: The teen has been called the product of a "hate
factory" and likened to a school shooter, segregation-era racist, and
member of the Ku Klux Klan.
I have no idea what he was thinking, but portraying
this as an example of obvious, racially-motivated hate is a stretch.
Maybe
he simply had no idea why this man was drumming in his face, and couldn't quite
figure out the best response?
It bears repeating that Phillips approached him, not the other way around...
Mr. Phillips has gone
on television and accused the students of being vessels of violent
hatred, claiming that they were somehow attacking the black
men who were, in reality, the true aggressors, tormenting the teens with vile
insults.
As Soave writes, "all the evidence suggests that Phillips
got it backward."
Furthermore, Phillips' version of events -- which has
changed dramatically as more evidence has come to light -- "is at best
flawed, and arguably deliberately misleading."
After viewing the
available video, and reading statements from two of the boys (including the
teenager who became "the face" of the episode), it seems quite
obvious that the students' detailed accounts are at least much
closer to the truth than the media storyline that first circulated.
And
it is now beyond dispute that the worst actors of the whole lot, by far, were
the members of the "Black Hebrew Israelites," whose cartoonishly
bigoted invective was appalling.
