The Truth about the Lincoln Memorial Incident

[Frank Apisa]

Gosh, it must be so difficult to be as perfect as you.

I'm not perfect at all.

But I don't pretend to be...like that asshole Donald Trump does.

[Gotcha68]

Other than in a drum line competition I'm not sure how anyone can drum threateningly in your face and when you want to diffuse a situation and keep the peace, as that young boy indicated, you don't stand there with a smirk on your face while your classmates whoop and holler behind you chanting and making chopping actions. He was daring Nathan to do something, anything, but knew he wouldn't because the kid knows he is a privileged private Catholic school white boy and therefore untouchable.

[countryboy]

The boy should have walked away.

Instead he stood there with that idiotic smirk that the morons who support Donald Trump seem given to.

I'm just mentioning how brave he was. He stared that old geezer down.

Hell, I'm sure if some big, muscular guy were beating that drum, he would have done the same thing.

You too, probably. I'm sure both you and he are very brave.

Here ya go Gramps. It's amazing, every lib seems to be Kreskin, with the ability to read minds and interpret a nervous smile. I enlarged the type for you and everything.

In the midst of this interaction, Sandmann said, he noticed that a Native American protester - since identified as Phillips - "began playing his drum as he waded into the crowd, which parted for him."

"He locked eyes with me and approached me, coming within inches of my face. He played his drum the entire time he was in my face," Sandmann recalled.

"I never interacted with this protester. I did not speak to him. I did not make any hand gestures or other aggressive moves," Sandmann wrote, adding that he was "startled and confused" as to why Phillips approached him.

Sandmann said he reasoned that by remaining "motionless and calm" he hoped to defuse the situation.

His account was reinforced, at least in part, by a New York Times report on Sunday quoting Phillips, 64, as acknowledging he had approached the crowd of students in a bid to ease racial tensions that had flared between the mostly white teens and the African American protesters.

So let me see if i've got this right. Chief Beating Drum hoped to "ease racial tensions", by getting in the kid's face and placing his drum on the kid's shoulder? Riiiight.

[Micawber]

Fuck off you don't represent us, racist piece of shit.

[countryboy]

Other than in a drum line competition I'm not sure how anyone can drum threateningly in your face and when you want to diffuse a situation and keep the peace, as that young boy indicated, you don't stand there with a smirk on your face while your classmates whoop and holler behind you chanting and making chopping actions. He was daring Nathan to do something, anything, but knew he wouldn't because the kid knows he is a privileged private Catholic school white boy and therefore untouchable.

See what I mean? Kreskins, the lot of ya.

[countryboy]

Fuck off you don't represent us racist pieces of shit.

I never claimed to.

[Getin the ring]

never ever be on the side of Alyssa Milano on an issue

word

[Darth Omar]

Of course he was.

And he went straight to the kid with the red MAGA ball cap lol.

Go figure.

[Darth Omar]

I haven't followed the story that closely but I think I owe this kid an apology. I said yesterday the older gentleman should go speak at the high school and teach these kids a lesson on dignity and respect. In retrospect that may be uncalled for.

Kudos.

[USFREEDOM911]

Other than in a drum line competition I'm not sure how anyone can drum threateningly in your face and when you want to diffuse a situation and keep the peace, as that young boy indicated, you don't stand there with a smirk on your face while your classmates whoop and holler behind you chanting and making chopping actions. He was daring Nathan to do something, anything, but knew he wouldn't because the kid knows he is a privileged private Catholic school white boy and therefore untouchable.

Then why didn't he defuse it then, by going and drumming in front of the group that was insulting everyone??

[Gotcha68]

Then why didn't he defuse it then, by going and drumming in front of the group that was insulting everyone??

How is that an insult? And if the kid was trying to diffuse the situation as he said why didn't he encourage his classmates to pipe down and stop with the chanting and chopping actions?

Both sides could have handled it better but neither side is innocent.

[countryboy]

Rut-Roh, even hardcore libs are coming around. This is from The Atlantic, not Fox.

I Failed the Covington Catholic Test
Next time there’s a viral story, I’ll wait for more facts to emerge.

By Sunday morning, more videos had surfaced, and I started looking for the clip that showed them chanting support for the wall. I couldn’t find it, but I did find a confrontation more complicated than I’d first believed. I saw a few people yelling terrible insults at the students before Phillips approached, which cast an ugly pall over the scene. I saw Phillips approach the students; I had believed him when he said he’d intended his drumming to defuse the tension, but I also wondered how a group of high-school students could have gleaned that when he didn’t articulate it in a language they might understand.

I hated the maga hats some of the kids were wearing, their listless tomahawk chops, the way some of their chanting mocked Phillips’s. But I also saw someone with Phillips yelling at a few of the kids that his people had been here first, that Europeans had stolen their land. While I wouldn’t disagree, the scene was at odds with the reports that Phillips and those with him were attempting to calm a tense situation.

As I watched the longer videos, I began to see the smirking kid in a different light. It seemed to me that a wave of emotions rolled over his face as Phillips approached him: confusion, fear, resolve. He finally, I thought, settled on an expression designed to mimic respect while signaling to his friends that he had this under control. Observing it, I wondered what different reaction I could have reasonably hoped a high-school junior to have in such an unfamiliar and bewildering situation. I came up empty.

Let’s assume the worst, and agree that the boy was being disrespectful. That still would not justify the death threats he’s been receiving. It would not justify the harassment of the other Covington Catholic student who wasn’t even in Washington, D.C., but who was falsely identified as the smirker by some social-media users. Online vigilantes unearthed his parents’ address and peppered his family with threats all weekend long, even as they were trying to celebrate a family wedding, accusing them of raising a racist and promising to harm their family business.

The story is a Rorschach test—tell me how you first reacted, and I can probably tell where you live, who you voted for in 2016, and your general take on a list of other issues—but it shouldn’t be. Take away the video and tell me why millions of people care so much about an obnoxious group of high-school students protesting legalized abortion and a small circle of American Indians protesting centuries of mistreatment who were briefly locked in a tense standoff. Take away Twitter and Facebook and explain why total strangers care so much about people they don’t know in a confrontation they didn’t witness. Why are we all so primed for outrage, and what if the thousands of words and countless hours spent on this had been directed toward something consequential?

If the Covington Catholic incident was a test, it’s one I failed—along with most others. Will we learn from it, or will we continue to roam social media, looking for the next outrage fix? Next time a story like this surfaces, I’ll try to sit it out until more facts have emerged. I’ll remind myself that the truth is sometimes unknowable, and I’ll stick to discussing the news with people I know in real life, instead of with strangers whom I’ve never met. I’ll get my news from legitimate journalists instead of from an online mob for whom Saturday-morning indignation is just another form of entertainment. And above all, I’ll try to take the advice I give my kids daily: Put the phone down and go do something productive.

[Frank Apisa]

Here ya go Gramps. It's amazing, every lib seems to be Kreskin, with the ability to read minds and interpret a nervous smile. I enlarged the type for you and everything.



So let me see if i've got this right. Chief Beating Drum hoped to "ease racial tensions", by getting in the kid's face and placing his drum on the kid's shoulder? Riiiight.

If that looked like the kid was just startled and confused to you...

...go have your fucking eyes checked.

The kid...and all the kids there...were provocative.

You poor bastards are having to defend more and more bullshit with each passing day.

Time to come to your senses...and regain some self-respect, if you've ever had any.

[countryboy]

How is that an insult? And if the kid was trying to diffuse the situation as he said why didn't he encourage his classmates to pipe down and stop with the chanting and chopping actions?

Both sides could have handled it better but neither side is innocent.

You think beating a drum in someone's face, while literally resting it on that person's shoulder without their permission, is a polite gesture? Is it more polite than smiling with your hands at your side?

[Enlightened One]

I never defend the wrong side. Mostly, I defend the side with which I am most in agreement.

Do you think that kid would have faced Mike Tyson with that smirk?

The Indian walked up to him, liar.