The Catholic Kids and the Mob

The first accounts were terrible - a bunch of teenagers from a Catholic school who were in DC for the Right to Life March and were wearing MAGA hats surrounded a Native American elder who was also a Viet Nam vet and shouted insults at him. Saturday was full of people condemning the kids,

Then further videos came out showing that the the NA elder, Nathan Philips walked into the group of high schoolers. These videos had sound proving that none of the kids were yelling insults, and no one yelled "Build the wall". Conservatives who had condemned the kids fell all over themselves apologizing for believing initial reports. More liberal sources have doubled down. They say that Phillips was trying to defuse a confrontation between the kids and a hostile group known as the Black Hebrew Israelites. Phillips has even given an interview about how he walked between a beast and it's prey. People on the left who had doubts have been quite happy to accept this explanation.

I've watched the video (actually, only the part starting where Phillips arrived). Here's what happened.

After the parade the kids were told they could look around DC but to gather at the Lincoln Memorial by 5:30 to meet the buses. The Black Hebrew group happened to be in the area. They are a black-separatist group and couldn't resist yelling insults at a group of white kids, some of them wearing MAGA hats. Some of the kids responded by doing school cheers.

While this was going on, a third group arrived. This was a Native American protest lead by Phillips. It's possible that Phillips thought he was helping but he didn't waste a second deciding who was right or who started things or trying to separate the groups. He walked straight into the kids, banging on a drum and chanting.

Who in their right minds thinks that's how to resolve a conflict?

At first the kids thought that Phillips was joining them and doing a Washington Redskins "Tomahawk Chop" so they joined in with the chanting for a minute. Yes, this is clueless but these are teenagers and they are usually clueless. Phillips got in the face of one kid who was initially smiling but his expression changed as he realized that something different was going on than he had assumed. That's where the "smirk" came from. The kid stood his ground while Phillips continued to chant and beat a drum in his face. Then things broke up. No one was harmed. Most of the insults were hurled at the kids and they did an excellent job of not throwing insults back.

The incident boils down to a bunch of adults taunted a group of white teenagers, just because they were white teenagers and because some had MAGA hats but the teenagers refused to retaliate in kind. If anyone in the media had bothered to check this then there would have been no story.

Why didn't they check? Because it was too juicy a story. It had everything. It discredited the March For Life, it reflects badly on Catholics (WaPo followed up with a story on the Catholic Church's historic treatment of Indians), It paints anyone in a MAGA hat as an ignorant racist and it allowed pundits and celebrities to insist that Trump himself is directly to blame. People in the media might have known that eventually the full facts would get out but it doesn't matter. Most people will never hear the full story. The MSM continues to report it as if the kids did something terrible. I know people who watched the video and still insist that the kids are somehow to blame.

And there's so much blame. Celebrities are calling for the names of the kids and suggesting violent attacks on them. People are bragging about wanting to punch them. They are being held up as an example of white who are breath in white supremacy and misogyny daily. Not a soul on the left seems to think it's wrong for a black separatist group to start insulting a group of white guys fr being white and no one complains about Phillips assuming the white guys must be the problem.

Lists are being circulated of officials to call to have the kids expelled. Their lives may be ruined because of fake news. And the left will celebrate because it causes people to be wary about wearing MAGA hats in public or attending the Right to Life march. And it gives the left something else to attack President Trump over. This is already being used as evidence that Trump is a racist and encourages racists. Who cares if some innocent kids' lives are ruined when so much "good" can come from it? And they're just white kids, they deserve to have their lives ruined because of Bret Kavanaugh.