Covington Kids Exonerated from Wrong-doing

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

If my initial perception was that the kids stormed up on the old man's face and screamed "build that wall" then I would have said the context changed my perception A LOT.

But that was never my initial perception. You're dealing in straw men.

I am not. You were posting frothing-at-the-mouth pictures of their basketball games where kids would paint themselves all sorts of colors to prove they wore blackface and thus were racist little craps. You routinely called all of them all sorts of epithets, and I didn't see any apologies.

The “F” is wrong with you?

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

If my initial perception was that the kids stormed up on the old man's face and screamed "build that wall" then I would have said the context changed my perception A LOT.

But that was never my initial perception. You're dealing in straw men.

I am not. You were posting frothing-at-the-mouth pictures of their basketball games where kids would paint themselves all sorts of colors to prove they wore blackface and thus were racist little ____. You routinely called all of them all sorts of epithets, and I didn't see any apologies.

The ____ is wrong with you?

- Doc

The student was covered head to toe in black paint with a white smile painted around his lips and white circles around his eyes. This is the traditional blackface look. If you use "black out night" to as a reason to dress up traditional blackface, you are still in the traditional blackface. It's hard to know for sure if the student in question was using theme night to dress in blackface intentionally or is just tremendously ignorant and lacking a single person around him to correct him, but your take on it is *chef's kiss*.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I think EA is mentally not well. Facts follow:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/covin ... ack-paint/

If this is what Liberalism does to people I think we need to re-think aligning with it. Something is deeply disturbing about his kind of worldview. Buyer beware. :/

eta: Let's ignore the Blue Outs, White Outs, and other body paint games. EA clearly doesn't understand minstrel makeup uses red or pink around the mouth to emphasize the racial stereotype, not white.

White makeup around the mouth and eyes has been used in blackout and Halloween makeup to suggest a "skeleton" or "monster" look. Do an image search for "black body paint" and you'll see it. And in the case of the one clear picture of a Covington student, from years ago it should be noted, he has a Chelsea or Cheshire smile with large white circles around his eyes. Looking to equate this with a minstrel look is just bigotry.

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

I think EAllusion is mentally not well. Facts follow:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/covin ... ack-paint/

If this is what Liberalism does to people I think we need to re-think aligning with it. Something is deeply disturbing about his kind of worldview. Buyer beware. :/

- Doc

Your link just demonstrates what I just said. Again, no one is disputing there was a theme night. Just because there is a theme night that encourages being in black that does not mean it is Ok to dress up in blackface. That the kid was in the traditional blackface look is indisputable. He's not just in all black. He's got white painted around his lips and eyes.

https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2019/01/ ... .jpg?w=842

If you surmise that maybe the kid didn't know this is what blackface looks like, and every single peer and adult who came into contact with him also didn't notice or point this out to him, then that's still bad in its own way and serves as a damning commentary on the state of his social circle than it just being a rogue kid.

If you think this is fine, in fact that it would be fine for an entire school to cover themselves up in black and paint white circles around their lips and eyes as part of a black-out theme night, that doesn't speak well of you. If you think the new, dangerous liberalism is that people can't dress up in blackface without being criticized, then get 'ye to a time machine to when George Wallace was still a Democrat.

[_Maksutov]

The irony here is Whataboutism is essentially the foundation for your own position, EAllusion. Turns out everything said about the kid in the viral video turned out to be wrong? Yeah, but whatabout Trump, racism in American, oh, and there were a handful of kids in the group who did a tomahawk chop at some point? Oh, and don't forget they are white, affluent kids attending a private Catholic high school so whataboutthat?

Again, despite you being the avatar of unbiased apprehension of facts, this bizarrely misreads just about everything I've said.

Actually, Honor has it exactly right.

Yes, EA, you can be wrong. Your hubris is noted, however. My God, I remember you not long ago ranting about a female songwriter and how her lyrics were wrong. Check your ego, dude. Doesn't mean you aren't a bright guy and worth reading but, Jesus H.

[_EAllusion]

Whataboutism is tu quoque fallacy. It responds to criticism that something is wrong by saying "what about this wrong thing you are guilty of?" For example, responding to a complaint that some of the Covington teen's behavior was racist by saying, "Why don't you talk about the Black Isrealites' racist behavior?"

Nothing I said did this Mak. My arguments don't take that form at all.

[_EAllusion]

eta: Let's ignore the Blue Outs, White Outs, and other body paint games. EAllusion clearly doesn't understand minstrel makeup uses red or pink around the mouth to emphasize the racial stereotype, not white.

Red, pink, white, and just making sure there is an exaggerated unpainted spot around the lips and eyes have all been used in traditional minstrel looks.

In your link that you used to prove I'm "mentally ill" it notes when it was discussed locally on a message board comments saw it as blackface then:

http://archive.fo/fZRj1#selection-1727.15-1727.459

Whether it was intentional or accidental, that it made it out into the wild isn't great. You think it is fine. That's that.

[_honorentheos]

Whataboutism is tu quoque fallacy. It responds to criticism that something is wrong by saying "what about this wrong thing you are guilty of?" For example, responding to a complaint that some of the Covington teen's behavior was racist by saying, "Why don't you talk about the Black Isrealites' racist behavior?"

Nothing I said did this Mak. My arguments don't take that form at all.

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.

"The media messed up and failed to apply common journalistic practices in reporting on this story that resulted in kids being smeared for behaving in "uncooth" behavior that they really didn't demonstrate? Well, the right did stuff first that justifies the national "gag reflex" the viral video caused so Context."

[_honorentheos]

I should also say that in watching the angle Kevin's video shows, I'm even more bothered that people failed to report there was a second drummer that came up on Philips' right and is clearly drumming AT the kid's face. Turn the drumming into a different form of audible expression such as talking or shouting, and that video is essentially showing two adults verbally assaulting a teenage boy - and one who is being made out to be the villain in the story because people jumped to the wrong conclusions about what was happening but can't admit it.

Why does Philips get a free pass for using a drum as a tool for getting into people's faces including the kid in the video? That's even more bananas.

[_EAllusion]

"The media messed up and failed to apply common journalistic practices in reporting on this story that resulted in kids being smeared for behaving in "uncooth" behavior that they really didn't demonstrate? Well, the right did stuff first that justifies the national "gag reflex" the viral video caused so Context."

I'm not "the media." The media isn't even "the media" as it is a collection of journalists who did better and worse at reporting the story. I am not in any way, shape, or form arguing that even though "the media" got it wrong, it's Ok to criticize the Covington students because of Donald Trump. That also is not the argument in anything I've quoted.

I'm arguing, like I did initially, that students behaved poorly and it is fair to point this out. You insisting they've been exonerated, but also being offended when it is claimed that you are saying they've been exonerated, does not mean we agree on this point. Assuming this is just begging the question. You dismiss my complaints, but the aren't related to anything any member of the media objectively got wrong. I think there is symbolic significance to their behavior, but this thought isn't used to justify criticizing them specifically. I've been careful to distinguish between what we think about the meaning of the story and what we think the teens are personally responsible for.

The argument you are quoting is that correction of facts that some members of the media misreported is what gave the right the wiggle-room to close ranks and defend the students' behavior in totality. What made people so upset in the video in the first place was its symbolic significance, and that remains. You appear to really misunderstand this argument badly. It's not saying, "Because this story allows us to talk about how bad Donald Trump is, it's Ok to gloss over misreporting of facts about it." It's saying, "What was bad about this video and why it affected people in the first place is untouched by any false assumptions some people added to it."

It's easy for me to forget that I'm largely interacting with people who hail from a culture that is notorious for extreme racism towards Native Americans. I can see how comparatively mild forms might not seem like a big deal at all. This is just a point of contention. I think mock chanting and tomahawk chops to a Native American is actually quite over-the-top in how racist it is. To someone who may have been enlightened in their culture for rejecting donating blood to Native Americans to make them more white, it might not seem so bad. But whatever you think about this, I could not possibly be more clear about what my arguments actually are and you weren't ballpark representing them accurately.