Covington Kids Exonerated from Wrong-doing

[_honorentheos]

Why are they seen as insignificant?

Because they have the capacity to influence nothing of importance and are universally regarded as bad. Hateful street preachers are very common and usually just ignored. They occupy a self-contained bubble.

Whereas HS kids from Kentucky hold all the power and manipulate public opinion with their every move.

Get on board with the new look of spring 2019.



If you aren't wearing a blue sweatshirt and missing your next haircut you probably think HS kids aren't particularly important and universally regarded as, well, something besides influential. Just remember, there's a reason marketers describe the 13-30 demographic as where the money is. Brilliant point, EA. Brilliant.

(some may realize that this argument makes much more sense applied to Trump, reinforcing again what people were really reacting to and what underlies the attempt to justify one's reaction to the viral video)

[_EAllusion]

Does this mean your position no longer includes justification of the national focus on the kids due to the broader national context?

I think the event has symbolic meaning that is a hook to think about. I said so in my very first comment on the story. Specifically, I said the individual act isn’t that big of a deal in the larger scheme of things, but the symbolism is compelling. I also said I hope they don’t face disproportionate social media justice because that gets out of hand quickly. My first comments occurred before coverage really took off. So when you say,

Because it certainly seems like there is a lot of space between aruging the kids did nothing wrong and the kids' actions justify the outrage and national attention that occurred.

I don’t think you’ve ever paid close attention to what I actually said. The kids behaved poorly and have something to be contrite for. That happens all the time. But there is symbolic significance to this story, and sometimes national attention on an ordinary occurrence of bad behavior is an opportunity to reflect on the larger social context.

[_EAllusion]

Teenagers from an affluent private school participating in political rallies do seem like they have the capacity to hold influence. More importantly they are representive of a larger body of people who do. No one agrees with what the Black Israelites we’re doing except mostly them. As the fall out from this story has proven, including in comments on this message board, lots of people agree that the Covington students behavior was fine. That’s plainly the difference.

[_honorentheos]

Does this mean your position no longer includes justification of the national focus on the kids due to the broader national context?

I think the event has symbolic meaning that is a hook to think about. I said so in my very first comment on the story. Specifically, I said the individual act isn’t that big of a deal in the larger scheme of things, but the symbolism is compelling. I also said I hope they don’t face disproportionate social media justice because that gets out of hand quickly. My first comments occurred before coverage really took off. So when you say,

Because it certainly seems like there is a lot of space between aruging the kids did nothing wrong and the kids' actions justify the outrage and national attention that occurred.

I don’t think you’ve ever paid close attention to what I actually said. The kids behaved poorly and have something to be contrite for. That happens all the time. But there is symbolic significance to this story, and sometimes national attention on an ordinary occurrence of bad behavior is an opportunity to reflect on the larger social context.

Personally, I don't think the majority of the kids in the video behaved poorly at all. The ones who did the tomahawk chop aren't reflective the entire group's behavior or demeanor, and at most would benefit from gaining an understanding of why it is considered offensive. The longer videos show this to be a small contingent who did it briefly. The idea the kids were largely mocking Philips rather than engaging with him is a stretch and one likely to come out from an overly simplistic and juvenile sense of how the world should work itself.

Regardless, you seem to want to focus on trying to appear balanced during the early reporting while seeming to feel safe in your views that the kids were in the wrong, but have gone to great lengths to hold that line regardless of what other evidence has come forward. The kids' behavior is not related to Donald Trump. The MAGA hats that some wore were purchased as souvenirs being peddled on the streets of D.C. rather than a message chosen to convey while planning a confrontation with a Native American demonstration.

The reactions to the event, and their absolute misread is the broad, national context worthy of discussion and your last post in the previous thread reinforced where you come down on that. I'm paying attention to what you've said, just including all of it in that rather than the bits and pieces you prefer are remembered.

[Guest]

Teenagers from an affluent private school participating in political rallies do seem like they have the capacity to hold influence. More importantly they are representive of a larger body of people who do. No one agrees with what the Black Israelites we’re doing except mostly them. As the fall out from this story has proven, including in comments on this message board, lots of people agree that the Covington students behavior was fine. That’s plainly the difference.

Again with the self-justifications. They're kids, EA. Excusing the BHI for lacking influence as a deflection from acknowledging the focus on the kids was an overreaction is just another example of your inability to accept you are having a difficult time saying, "Maybe I got this wrong and should have withheld judgment instead of accepting the narrative being sold."

The lesson to take from this is that withholding judgment in the modern information age is essential to maintaining a civil society. If we can't learn that the ability to manipulate our emotions and enforce destructive social narratives exceeds our individual abilities to be above those reactions - and therefore adopt different means of engaging than immediate outrage or acceptance of a narrative as fact - we're not developing the right tool sets for maintaining pluralism as a necessary component of western liberal democracy.

The positive here is I think most people on the board rightly consider you to be highly intelligent and informed, certainly one of the most informed and intelligent posters on the board. It therefore becomes a good example to reflect on that assuming one can immunize themselves from misinformation and being swept up by one's biases is an illusion.

[_EAllusion]

“Trying to appear balanced?” I wrote my initial reaction when it was just starting to snowball on Twitter. I wrote what I did because that was my reaction. It is consistent with everything I said since. At no point did I claim that they bought MAGA hats to initiate a confrontation with a Native American and nothing I have said would require that to be the case. If you have to keep relying on these straw man characterizations to try and seem reasonable, then maybe you don’t have a position worth defending.

Further, I have been rather clear about referencing some of the students behavior rather than every single Covington student that day. That you think you are offering a corrective to me by point out - not every student! - again suggests you either aren’t reading what you are disagreeing with or caring to represent it honestly.

[_honorentheos]

“Trying to appear balanced?” I wrote my initial reaction when it was just starting to snowball on Twitter. I wrote what I did because that was my reaction. It is consistent with everything I said since. At no point did I claim that they bought MAGA hats to initiate a confrontation with a Native American and nothing I have said would require that to be the case. If you have to keep relying on these straw man characterizations to try and seem reasonable, then maybe you don’t have a position worth defending.

My responses come from how we closed out the last thread where, in response to the evidence coming forward largely absolving the kid in the center of it all from any of the accusations leveled at him, you moved to the argument presented in this last post:
viewtopic.php?p=1166329#p1166329

The single comment you make on the subject that you suggest was misreading the situation was not assuming the kids would become heroes to the Fox News crowd.

But if I'm wrong, please clarify since I've asked this before in this thread. Do you still stand by the content of the article you shared? In particular this bit:

When the missing context came to light—when we learned the boys didn’t seek Phillips out, that they had just been on the receiving end of angry taunting by the abrasive cultists of the Black Israelites—it filled out the story just so, giving the conservative coalition all the cover it needed to close ranks around these students.

But if context is key, we should draw the lens back even further than the events of this past weekend. There’s a reason these boys, their taunts and their MAGA hats, triggered a mass cultural gag reflex. Whether you think liberals botched the Sandmann controversy or not, the widespread revulsion didn’t stem from a misapprehension of anything.

To the contrary, both strong and mild critiques of the Covington Catholic schoolboys place them comfortably within ugly trends that have thrived in certain communities since before Donald Trump won the 2016 election.

Trump supporters, young and old alike, recognized a long time ago that simply chanting “Trump!” at immigrants and minorities is an effective way of letting them know they are not welcome. “Build the wall!” chants serve a similar purpose, as do MAGA hats, which are perhaps less implicitly violent than past symbols of intolerance, but still serve as menacing reminders to everyone not in the MAGA tribe of where they stand in the national pecking order.

Nicholas Sandmann shouldn’t have to bear the weight of this phenomenon alone. He is but one of thousands of kids and adults who have taken part in these rituals, and he may yet mature into someone who feels embarrassed by his youthful antics. The purpose of broadening the discussion is to assess the damage Trump is inflicting on an entire generation, and on all of society, not on the Covington boys per se. He is making more and more Nicholas Sandmanns, fewer and fewer of whom will ever mature into tolerant individuals. Sandmann may outgrow Trumpism, but the harm of Trumpism is that more kids like Sandmann will grow up to be adults like Trump.

In other words, you hold that what transpired that day is a result of Trump's influence on America, and the kids in the middle of it reflect the corrosive influence of Donald Trump on American society?

[_Jersey Girl]

Why are they seen as insignificant?

Because they have the capacity to influence nothing of importance and are universally regarded as bad. Hateful street preachers are very common and usually just ignored. They occupy a self-contained bubble.

How does that make any sense?

Are you saying that high school students and Native American protestors wield more influence?

What type of influence are you thinking about here and on whom or what?

[_EAllusion]

Donald Trump is both reflective of an an accelerant to a sort of right wing troll culture that is intensely tribal and rewards bad behavior when directed towards the goal of establishing superiority over opposition and outgroups. That Covington boys were ultimately lauded rather than shamed for being assholes after the wagons were circled is socially corrosive.

It’s hard to reduce this into Trump because the culture exists apart from him and was getting worse without him. But Trump is the effective leader of it, a particularly bad example of it, and a factor making it worse, so it is easy to make him the symbol of what is going on. MAGA and related expressions are used as taunts against outgroups with everyone knowing what’s going on for a reason.

It’s hard to know to what extent they were just being douchebags snd to what extent right-wing troll culture helped primed them for uncooth behavior. It’s unfair for them to bear the burden of contempt for that, but the symbolism shouldn’t be lost on the observer.

[Guest]

A person can agree with this sentiment -

Donald Trump is both reflective of an an accelerant to a sort of right wing troll culture that is intensely tribal and rewards bad behavior when directed towards the goal of establishing superiority over opposition and outgroups.

And also recognize this has nothing to do with what the boys actually did but is instead about the proxy war aspects of it that you are engaging in, such as is reflected in how you followed the above -

That Covington boys were ultimately lauded rather than shamed for being assholes after the wagons were circled is socially corrosive.

It's all about the war.

It’s hard to reduce this into Trump because the culture exists apart from him and was getting worse without him.

There's nothing to connect to Trump as far as how a bunch of HS kids behaved in a place where a group of adults were acting irresponsibly. Philips has admitted his decision to move into the middle of the two groups and essentially confront the kids was because he saw white males and thought they were a threat to the BHI. Watching the videos that convey what was going on rather than having been edited and selected to illicit the greatest emotional reaction makes that seem absolutely bananas on it's face. But when contextualized into the mind of people who feel they are battling with a great evil and saw MAGA hats, one can see why he engaged this fantasy reframing of what was taking place in front of his eyes.

But Trump is the effective leader of it, a particularly bad example of it, and a factor making it worse, so it is easy to make him the symbol of what is going on. MAGA and related expressions are used as taunts against outgroups with everyone knowing what’s going on for a reason.

It’s hard to know to what extent they were just being douchebags snd to what extent right-wing troll culture helped primed them for uncooth behavior. It’s unfair for them to bear the burden of contempt for that, but the symbolism shouldn’t be lost on the observer.

Thank you. It's helpful to make it clear this is a reframing on your part motivated by a broader anti-Trump sentiment than it is about what actually happened.