Covington Kids Exonerated from Wrong-doing

[_EAllusion]

Or, you know, how you go about it is important and should be scalable accordingly. That might be part of this you're missing. But somehow I doubt you disagree in most instances so much as you still can't just say, "Yeah, I should have been more careful before I spoke out on the original video."

Here's what I said in response to the original video:

Yeah, this was one of the worst "feel bad" videos I've seen in some time. It's not objectively the worst story out there, but the symbolism is appalling on a level that is difficult to take in.

followed immediately by:

Well, I hope his life isn't destroyed because he made some very poor choices when he was a teenager. Social media infamy justice can get disproportionate very quickly.

In an ideal world, I'd hope something would click in his head to make him feel tremendous shame, followed by some soul-searching, and eventual contrition.

Yeah, I think that still holds just fine. The symbolism of a bunch of white teens joyously racially taunting an older Native American while one stares him down, in Washington D.C. of all places, is pretty ugly. Again, what was bad about the original video release still exists in all the added context. That's what is bananas about the narrative some people have developed that they were completely exonerated simply because the teens also didn't do other bad things that people assumed and/or claimed they did.

If I didn't know any better, it would appear you lumped me in with some amorphous group of over-reactors while not reading the content of what I said. The only consequence I felt was proportionate to the offense was shame and contrition.

[_honorentheos]

What do you believe the kid in the video should be ashamed of? Given the context, I don't see that at all

[_EAllusion]

Come on, EAllusion. You do realize you have argued in the other thread that it is right to paint the kid in the video with the same level of racist intent as if he had chosen to wear a Confederate Flag and got in the native American's face with the same hostility as a MMA fighter at a weigh in might display.

The MMA fighter comparsion was simply to refute the idea that because he was standing their smiling, that proves he was just politely listening. Some people, in their autistic-like inability to read body language, could not understand what a passive aggressive stare down looks like or that it often involves a a smile.

I did make a comparison between wearing a MAGA hat and waving a Confederate flag when engaged in racial taunting, though, yes. By your own defense, that would not have been that big of a deal because people who wave Confederate flags around often don't intend to communicate racial contempt with that act. I don't even know how you are making the distinction in your mind here. Your own argument contends that Confederate flag waving is generally fine. Your argument contends that most racist expression is fine, because most people express racism through channels that don't intend to communicate racial contempt. Casual prejudices generally aren't contemptuous. It's more insidious than that.

The argument against the Confederate flag is that it is a historical symbol of racist suppression both in its original use and when it was later revived in the South in response to the civil rights movement. Simply because people also see it as a symbol of Southern or "redneck" pride doesn't erase that meaning for others who encounter it. Your, "it only counts if you intend to be racist with it" reasoning would defend the use of it though, so I'm not sure why you take umbrage at the comparison.

[_EAllusion]

What do you believe the kid in the video should be ashamed of? Given the context, I don't see that at all

Engaging someone in a passive-aggressive stare down while his peers racially taunt him in the background? Pro-tip: Don't do that.

[_honorentheos]

What do you believe the kid in the video should be ashamed of? Given the context, I don't see that at all

Engaging someone in a passive-aggressive stare down while his peers racially taunt him in the background? Pro-tip: Don't do that.

He isn't guilty of that, EA. He was standing on the stairs when the guy was confronting the group of high school students. He kept his cool in the face of very stupid adults behaving quite badly on the whole. Pro tip: quit being so quick to judge. It makes it easier in the long run.

[_EAllusion]

He isn't guilty of that, EAllusion. He was standing on the stairs when the guy was confronting the group of high school students. He kept his cool in the face of very stupid adults behaving quite badly on the whole. Pro tip: quit being so quick to judge. It makes it easier in the long run.

He wasn't "keeping his cool." He was puffing up and standing his ground. This is where I'm reminded that you refuse to watch the video(s), and your confident pronouncements of what's going on in them is based on gleaming the zeitgeist of both-sides journalism. He was quite clearly engaged in a classic passive-aggressive stare down. It's not subtle. His classmates quite clearly were cocky and bemused in their jeering and taunting of the Native American. That's not subtle either. That happened.

So, in the end, your criticism of me rests on you adopting a wildly implausible reading of their behavior and defending most racist expressions as OK. I don't look at this state of affairs and think the problem is with me being too quick to judge.

I 100% cop to the fact that I was wrong for thinking that doing mock Tomahawk chops to a Native American's face would be the sort of thing that most people would recognize as so over the top racist that few could think it Ok to do. I should have known better. Rather overt racism towards Native Americans is still widely seen as acceptable. I knew this. You think it wouldn't be what with the genocide and all, but here we are.

[Guest]

I know this much. Had the chaperones done their job, none of this likely would have happened for they would have moved the student group away from and out of the fray.

I don't know that much myself. Having been to D.C. and made the steps at the Lincoln Memorial the place our group selected to meet up because it works well for that as a place people can find and cars can get to, it's pretty reasonable that the chaperones both made that the meet up location and didn't just move kids away from it while waiting for the bus.

Check out this part of the video where it does a panorama around the BHI group. The kids are a good 50 feet away on the steps. And that's largely where they were during most of this incident.
https://youtu.be/3-pFMZaw5f0?t=3450

Here's another one. Notice the guy on the monoskate zipping around who has someone video taping him doing laps around the BHI. There's a lot going on in that space. Kids are going to be looking in on it from up on the stairs because what else would someone expect them to do?
https://youtu.be/3-pFMZaw5f0?t=4053

The adults who were participants in this incident were the BHI and the Native American group. And frankly the more you learn about what both groups were doing and their motivation, the more apparent it is that they were out classed by a group of high school boys. By a long ways, too.

Here's where the the Native American group enters between the two parties:
https://youtu.be/3-pFMZaw5f0?t=4332

See where the kids are? See where the BHI's are? See what Philips does? He stops between the two groups and drums, at which point the kids start bouncing, clapping, chanting along. Is it overt racism? Jesus, I hope that's not the standard. That would be damned insane if it is.

You'll see some of the tomahawk chopping at this point. Also notice the number of kids doing that thing with their arms that people do at hip hop shows that's the "bounce with me" move or whatever it's called. You know, palms down at about head level, bouncing with the rhythm.
https://youtu.be/3-pFMZaw5f0?t=4412

So, yeah. BHI? Major damned racist "F"s. Native Americans? Made a bad call in seeing the kids as a threat to the BHI and judging from this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSkpPai ... u.be&t=393

- not exactly great intentions on their part either.

Given all of that, the kids seems to have behaved pretty well and were easily the least offensive thing going on there. And the kid at the center of it all? Wow did he get crap on unjustly.

Anyone who thinks otherwise should admit - it was the hat. They don't like his hat and that's about it.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

He isn't guilty of that, EAllusion. He was standing on the stairs when the guy was confronting the group of high school students. He kept his cool in the face of very stupid adults behaving quite badly on the whole. Pro tip: quit being so quick to judge. It makes it easier in the long run.

He wasn't "keeping his cool." He was puffing up and standing his ground. This is where I'm reminded that you refuse to watch the video(s), and your confident pronouncements of what's going on in them is based on gleaming the zeitgeist of both-sides journalism. He was quite clearly engaged in a classic passive-aggressive stare down. It's not subtle. His classmates quite clearly were cocky and bemused in their jeering and taunting of the Native American. That's not subtle either. That happened.

So, in the end, your criticism of me rests on you adopting a wildly implausible reading of their behavior and defending most racist expressions as OK. I don't look at this state of affairs and think the problem is with me being too quick to judge.

I 100% cop to the fact that I was wrong for thinking that doing mock Tomahawk chops to a Native American's face would be the sort of thing that most people would recognize as so over the top racist that few could think it Ok to do. I should have known better. Rather overt racism towards Native Americans is still widely seen as acceptable. I knew this. You think it wouldn't be what with the genocide and all, but here we are.

It's hilarious EA follows the DARVO model almost to a 't':

The perpetrator or offender may Deny the behavior, Attack the individual doing the confronting, and Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender such that the perpetrator assumes the victim role and turns the true victim -- or the whistle blower -- into an alleged offender.

This is pathetic. Keep doubling down, Looney Tunes.

- Doc

[_honorentheos]

He isn't guilty of that, EAllusion. He was standing on the stairs when the guy was confronting the group of high school students. He kept his cool in the face of very stupid adults behaving quite badly on the whole. Pro tip: quit being so quick to judge. It makes it easier in the long run.

He wasn't "keeping his cool." He was puffing up and standing his ground. This is where I'm reminded that you refuse to watch the video(s), and your confident pronouncements of what's going on in them is based on gleaming the zeitgeist of both-sides journalism. He was quite clearly engaged in a classic passive-aggressive stare down. It's not subtle. His classmates quite clearly were cocky and bemused in their jeering and taunting of the Native American. That's not subtle either. That happened.

So, in the end, your criticism of me rests on you adopting a wildly implausible reading of their behavior and defending most racist expressions as OK. I don't look at this state of affairs and think the problem is with me being too quick to judge.

I 100% cop to the fact that I was wrong for thinking that doing mock Tomahawk chops to a Native American's face would be the sort of thing that most people would recognize as so over the top racist that few could think it Ok to do. I should have known better. Rather overt racism towards Native Americans is still widely seen as acceptable. I knew this. You think it wouldn't be what with the genocide and all, but here we are.

I've watched the other videos. I made the point I didn't watch the viral video that weekend that got people all riled up. And clearly it had an effect on your judgement having done so. My argument was there was good cause to not focus on it but instead sort through the journalism reporting on it from multiple sources. That's advice I'd recommend when judging any incident. You'll note I've been sharing links to videos in other replies because context, brother EA. Context. And my criticism of you is that you previous said the reactions were justified because history will judge the MAGA hat as somewhere on par with a Confederate Flag which allows for the media circus that swirled up and condemned a group of kids and labeled them as racists. You're still trying to paint them as racists. The most blatant racisim on display in those videos barely gets acknowledged. You basically say, "Anyone who's spent time on a college campus learns to ignore stuff like that." Because that makes sense when talking about high school kids...coming from a guy jumping down a kid's throat because you don't like the look on his face or the hat he wore. And so, SYSTEMIC RACISM!

[_Ceeboo]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/national/diocese-reverses-course-clears-covington-catholic-high-school-students-of-wrongdoing-after-investigation-of-viral-incident-on-mall/2019/02/13/c11195f8-2fa7-11e9-8ad3-9a5b113ecd3c_story.html

Does anyone here believe those who were quick to judge should be offering apologies to these young men or believe biased beliefs, emotions and disgusting insults should just be accepted?

Seriously interested.

Unfortunately, being on the radical left you are forced to see everything, I mean literally everything through racial/oppression/victim lenses. While apologies are not in the DNA of these leftists, nor is ruth, reason or basic wisdom. Everything event is seen, first and foremost, by the Color/gender/economic statues of individuals involved in any event and they are literally never viewed by the actual facts or circumstances involved.

So no, while apologies should be abundant, you will not see them from those who used this event for personal political gains, just like they use every other event.