nathan phillips Archives

Wednesday

January 23, 2019

Smirking, the infamous facial expression of the far-right

The students of Covington High School, Ky., were the subject of a recent viral video which shocked me to my very core. Everything about this encounter triggered me. Their obvious disrespect of a proud Native American as he bravely made his way towards this group of vile, contemptuous MAGA hat-wearing teenage boys, banging his Ceremonial Drum of Peace and chanting a mystical tribal incantation (presumably in order to ward off the sickening Aura of Trumpism) disturbed me so greatly that I actually did a small vomiting. The final straw came when the courageous Native American Vietnam veteran came to a stop and peacefully hammered on his drum directly into a young boy’s disgustingly smug face. What did this hateful Apostle of Trump do?

Tuesday

January 22, 2019

Daniella Greenbaum Davis

How the Covington kids gave us our latest lesson on the ills of public shaming

It’s always darkest before the dawn, or so the optimists would have us believe. The darkness this past week came, as so often, in fast and furious character assassinations on Twitter. A short video clip showed a confrontation between white Catholic MAGA-hat-wearing teenagers and a Native American elder. The Twittersphere leapt to condemn the Covington students, and to exalt Nathan Phillips, the Native American elder who was beating a drum inches away from Nick Sandmann’s face. Sandmann, a junior at Covington had a face that many were quick to characterize as smug. His smirk framed the way critics responded to the clip. As with most things, however, the interaction between Phillips and the Covington boys was not as clear cut as it first seemed.

Cockburn

Who is the real Nathan Phillips?

The Native American man with the drum who – now so infamously – approached a group of high schoolers from Covington, Ky., on Friday has been widely identified as a Vietnam veteran. But he isn’t one. The man is called Nathan Phillips, and he identifies with the American Indian Movement, an extremist separatist organization tied to at least one murder. He was singing their song when he approached the kids. He told the Washington Post that he was ‘blocked’ by the students, though later video evidence suggests that that was an exaggeration, to put it mildly. Phillips remains adamant that the boys should be punished for what they did to him, and has refused to meet with them.

Sunday

January 20, 2019

Roger Kimball

Radical evil, and the online lynching of a kid from Kentucky

I have bad news for you. Somewhere in the this country, right now, teenage boys are acting like jerks. Yes, it’s true. Some are taunting their little sisters. Others are picking on a funny looking kid in their class. Still others are grandstanding for the benefit of the cute girl who happens to be part of their clique. It’s not new. Mitt Romney, the Grecian-formula candidate, was bullied by The New York Times and other subsidiaries of the Democratic party for bullying a kid in high school who, the Times reported, later turned out to be gay. Fine doubled, Mr Romney: you should have known. The episode might have sunk Romney’s Presidential bid but, with the customary bureaucratic efficiency of the 53 percent, he saw to that himself.

Daniel McCarthy

What makes a liberal want to punch a child?

If someone walks up to you and bangs a drum in your face, are you guilty of harassing the drummer? You might be if you’re white and wearing a MAGA hat. Just a day after rushing to judgment about a BuzzFeed story that claimed President Trump had instructed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress — a story Robert Mueller’s own office subsequently debunked, the blue-checkmark media elite had a new instant narrative to promote. It was a tale perfectly tailored to liberal biases: white Catholic teenagers in MAGA hats had harassed an old and frail Indian veteran during the March for Life, which was also the date of an Indigenous People’s March.