Behold the face of a cocky, intimidating bully. Obviously an all-American bigot. A man, err, boy who needed to be summarily condemned by many of the most powerful media organizations in the country. And all this long before the 15-year-old grows his first whisker.
The mainstream media’s portrayal of the incident in Washington, D.C. on Friday, January 18th was far worse than the incident itself. It was deliberately caused by a well-traveled activist, whose background the media conveniently chose to ignore or not even look into. (See tweets at the end of this article.)
News organizations and reporters just didn’t get it wrong, they rapidly jumped to their desired conclusion by overlooking tons of evidence to the contrary right in front of their biased noses. They WANTED this Catholic kid to be a bigot; they NEEDED the kid to be a bigot. He just fit the narrative too perfectly.
Why? Mostly because he had a red MAGA hat on and was coming from an anti-abortion rally. But also because he is white, male, Christian (and Catholic to boot).
These kids from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky were in Washington for the March for Life. They were waiting to be picked up by their buses at the Lincoln Memorial at the conclusion of the event.
The area just down from the steps was also occupied by a Native American gathering and by a very small but highly vocal group called the Black Hebrew Israelites (BHI). This group has apparently existed since the late 19th century. They claim they are the rightful descendants of the ancient Israelites and seem to have nothing but hatred toward whites, Christians and gays.
It appears that both the bigoted BHI and the Native American group had designated videographers who were recording constantly. The BHI video by Shar Yaqataz Banyamyan is nearly two hours long likely intended to capture irate responses or shocked reactions to the BHI speaker(s) who was often times yelling some of the most incendiary and vile comments imaginable. (If the reader has the stomach for it, many of the transcribed comments and their approximate location on the video can be found at the end of this article.)
As the dozens of kids assembled near the steps of the Memorial, the scene became more tension-packed as the BHI group saw them clearly as mortal adversaries and let them know it.
Native American (and Marine Reserves veteran) protester, Nathan Phillips, was part of the group chanting and banging drums at the Memorial when the Covington students began assembling.
Phillips told the media that he walked into the group of students to diffuse what he considered a potentially violent situation. (His walk into the group can be seen at approximately the 1:21:00 point on the BHI video.) But though Phillips doesn’t appear to be visible on the video much before his trek into the students, his fellow Native Americans were on site the entire one hour and forty-six minutes of the video so he was likely there much of the time as well.
Clearly the video contains considerable inflammatory language (e.g., “Christ is comin’ back to kick your crackers’ asses.”) by the BHI group. This produced more of a stunned, fascinated reaction by the Covington students who were seen oftentimes laughing (as adolescents do) to deal with the tension. This means that for over an hour before Phillips marched into the group, there was interaction between the BHI and some of the students. At no time did there appear to be much of a threat of a violent confrontation.
It is clear from another video that at least one of Phillips’ fellow protesters (who was recording with a video camera of his own) confronted another one of the students who was wearing a MAGA hat. Here is the entire exchange on video. Notice Sandmann immediately to the Indian protester’s right.
Protester: (to student standing behind him on the steps of the Memorial): “White people go back to Europe where you came from. This is not your land.”
Student: (Short response but inaudible.)
Protester: “No it’s not! You have been here for two or three generations, compared to us who have been here a million f**king years so get the f**k out of my face with that s**t.
Protester: “Your being white, your being white! You’re being the white man about it because that’s all you need to, all you got to do.”
When Phillips walked into crowd, many of the boys moved aside to let him into their midst. He stopped directly in front of Nick Sandmann who, while wearing a MAGA hat, chose not to move from where he was standing.
Sandmann said he attempted to appear non-confrontational and smile (what he naively thought was) pleasantly at the Indian elder yet hold his ground. His appearance was promptly called an insulting smirk from a cocky, white-privileged teenager. The captured photo and highly edited video footage set off a national media firestorm. Perhaps for the first time in Phillips’ life, this sudden instinctive walk into a crowd gave him immediate national notoriety. Virtually any protester’s dream.
Look at the differences between the media’s treatment of 15-year-old Sandmann and 64-year-old Phillips. This Native American elder is either is untruthful or hugely foolish to believe that walking into a throng of teenage boys and beating a drum directly in front of one of the kids could be construed as diffusing a potentially violent confrontation.
The kids reactions were predictable: goofy laughter that likely masked nervousness as they wondered what the heck this guy was doing.
The rush-to-judgement New York Times headline, “Boys in ‘Make America Great Again’ Hats Mob Native Elder at Indigenous Peoples March,” intentionally made it sound like the Covington kids marched toward this tiny Native American group, surrounded them and then mocked them in classic bully-like fashion. The Times, like most other national media outlets and “journalists” on twitter, completely bought into this description because it fit so nicely with their grand narrative.
Phillips said the group swarmed around him and that he felt threatened. This is absurd. He saw the cameras and provoked the situation. The Times just could not perceive that Phillips, a Native American, could possibly be the aggressor. They could not believe that this man could be a professional protester.
According to the Catholic News Agency, Phillips led a group of about 50 protesters just a day later at the Basilica of the National Shrine in D.C. trying to get into mass while chanting and beating drums.
Ironically, likely the most honest interpretation of the media’s rush to judgement was by ABC’s “The View” co-host, Joy Behar. When co-host, Whoopi Goldberg wondered why the media were so quick to trash the teenage boy, Behar replied, “Because we’re desperate to get Trump out of office.” The audience of course laughed but her candor was refreshing. The MAGA hat indeed is a nationally accepted magnet for attracting deep hatred against everything Trump and his supporters stand for.
Perhaps the most egregious article was found in the publication, Rolling Stone. It is an appalling opinion piece that likely conveys much of what the mainstream media actually believes about the incident. The “article” is entitled, “Nathan Phillips Says He Was Playing Peacemaker When MAGA Students Taunted Him. “There was that moment when I realized I’ve put myself between beast and prey,” Phillips says” by Peter Wade.
Here is the article along with my comments:
“Nathan Phillips, a Vietnam veteran and member of the Omaha Nation who was visiting Washington, D.C., to attend the Indigenous Peoples March, got into a confrontation with a group of white, male teenagers attending the March for Life protest against abortion rights happening that same day. Video of the incident quickly went viral, and the teenagers from Covington Catholic High School, an all-male school in Kentucky, were harshly criticized.”
Does Peter Wade truly consider himself a journalist? He couldn’t wait to even find out the truth in this story. In his very first sentence he gets it wrong. Phillips never served in Vietnam. And if any serious confrontation even existed, he instigated it by walking directly into the middle of the group. He then picked out one student, stood right in front of him and banged a drum literally inches from his ear. An adult would have/ should have knocked it out of his hands.
“The video is a disturbing and eerie echo of angry white mobs yelling at Black Americans for protesting Jim Crow-era discrimination, but now streaming in full color on social media in the year 2019.”
Wade is obviously ignorant of the Democratic Party-inspired Jim Crow-era discrimination. He was also too lazy to actually watch the videos publicly posted and too cowardly to even comment on the vile comments made by the members of the Black Hebrew Israelites.
“The incident appeared to begin when a small group of Black Hebrews were making anti-Trump remarks on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The Covington students, many wearing “Make America Great Again” memorabilia, crowded around the group and started yelling at them. Although it’s tough to make out what the students were saying in the video, it’s clear they are taunting the Hebrews.”
Wade was deaf to the militant, despicable comments made by this group to many people who were walking by the Lincoln Memorial before the Covington boys assembled there. He apparently doesn’t have a problem with some bigots calling others “faggots” as long as they’re coming from a protected minority.
“Then, as tension appeared to escalate, Nathan Phillips and other Indigenous people stepped in between the two groups in what Phillips says was an attempt to de-escalate the conflict. As Phillips beat his drum and sang “Raymond Yellow Thunder Song,” which is about “resistance and remembrance,” the students chanted around him and one smugly smiled directly in Phillips’ face.”
Wade and Phillips are two peas in a pod: both liars. Phillips absolutely escalated the situation. And the Rolling Stone propagandist characterizes the student that Phillips accosted as smiling “smugly.” The lesson for the students then is: appear friendly but without smiling. That sounds easy enough.
“Phillips explained the reasoning behind his actions in an interview with the Indian Country Today, saying he felt an obligation as an Indigenous person to intervene.”
“But this is the commitment when I picked up the pipe 27 years ago. It’s for the next generation. It’s when that moment comes and you got to stand your ground. That commitment that you made to either fulfill that or you don’t. I mean, I was scared and I didn’t want to. I really, I really didn’t want to, but nobody else was,” Phillips said, adding, “We’re indigenous. We’re different than that. When we see our youth going the wrong way, we will go up and say, ‘You are doing the wrong thing there nephew, or grandson. This is just the wrong way.’ I tell them, ‘This is the way you have to behave. This wrong, this is right.'”
“Conservatives, however, have begun circulating a video clip showing Phillips approach the group of students, claiming this exonerates the teens, since they did not confront him first. But it’s clear from the full video that the students were engaged in a shouting match with and had surrounded the Black Hebrews before Phillips walked between them. At one point, you can even see one student lead the others in a loud chant to intimidate the men before Phillips got involved.”
Wade can’t be this ignorant, it has to be dishonesty. It must be intentional to mislead the reader by claiming that a goofy teenage boy taking off his shirt in D.C. in January to lead a school cheer is initiating a provocative “chant” to intimidate the BHI group. Watch the video at about the 1:10:00 mark and when Banyamyan turns the camera around to himself, see if he sounds intimidated.
“Your children was mocking us while we were teaching… running their mouth with their little MAGA hats on,” Shar Yaqataz Banyamyan, one of the Black Hebrews involved in the encounter, said in a video posted to his Facebook page after the incident.
I guess Wade didn’t think it was newsworthy to convey some of the vile things Banyamyan said during his video.
“There was that moment when I realized I’ve put myself between beast and prey,” Phillips told the Detroit Free-Press. “These young men were beastly and these old black individuals was their prey, and I stood in between them and so they needed their pounds of flesh and they were looking at me for that.”
Yeah, right. The black individuals were their prey? Come on. If the BHI men thought of themselves as prey, they certainly were not intimidated as it didn’t moderate their rhetoric.
“These teens did not get this way on their own. They were taught to hate like this, to believe in white supremacy. Plus, making an annual, school-sponsored trip specifically to protest women’s reproductive autonomy surely contributed to their attitudes of superiority and aggression. And they were also fueled by the words of President Donald Trump, who has embraced white supremacy and racism on the campaign trail and in the White House.”
Wade brands the students as 21st century Klansmen; full of hate yet there to march for life. This author is an intolerant, hate-filled man and/or too lazy to even partially investigate. He just “knew” what actually occurred because his mind just can’t think outside the narrow confines of the media’s grand narrative: that because America was founded by white males who conquered some and enslaved others, its very foundation is illegitimate and inferior to most other cultures, other economic and legal systems and other moral codes.
“The boys’ school has issued an apology for their students’ behavior and said it would investigate and take disciplinary action “up to and including expulsion.”
This is unfortunately true. The school and diocese should also be regretful for jumping to the same conclusions as the biased media.
“But Phillips has not given up hope on the MAGA-hat-wearing youths: “I see a future though. I do see a future. I see a bright, beautiful future if we want it, if we’re willing to pray for it, it’s there for us. It’s ours to pass on to the next generation, but we got to be willing for it,” Phillips said.
Finally we have something to agree about. Amen to that brother!
Today’s national media is the 21st century’s version of the big bully on the street corner. If you don’t think, believe or vote like they do, then they won’t just give you a black-eye, they’ll try to destroy you or at least permanently damage your reputation.
Adulterers used to have to wear the scarlet letter, “A” in the 17th century in Puritan Massachusetts. Today the media and cultural elite will digitally brand those who oppose their ideology with a white letter “B” for bigot. To them such low-lifes are cultural pariahs, unworthy of even free-speech rights. If you don’t believe this see if uncensored free speech exists today on college campuses, media outlets or even on Facebook and Twitter.
Should this group of kids have behaved differently? Arguably, yes. They should have been better prepared for the trip — into the heart of the adversarial Deep State and all its defenders. Once they left the larger March for Life crowd and ventured into the periphery in smaller groups, they should have been acutely aware that their every move would be scrutinized and potentially recorded to be used to attack their Christianity, their Catholicism, their politics and their perceived racial privilege.
Many in the media subsequently retracted their initial (anti-Sandmann) conclusions though few, if any, have blamed Phillips. Others though still cling to their original delusion: that this was a mini-Charlottesville proving that virtually all white, Christian, Make America Great Again -hat wearers are true bigots. Actress Alissa Milano has apparently doubled-down on this delusion and disgustingly tweeted, “The red MAGA hat is the new white hood.”
After the incident, Nick Sandmann issued a written statement. Here are excerpts:
“To be honest, I was startled and confused as to why he had approached me. We had already been yelled at by another group of protestors, and when the second group approached I was worried that a situation was getting out of control.
“I believed that by remaining motionless and calm, I was helping to diffuse the situation. I realized everyone had cameras and that perhaps a group of adults was trying to provoke a group of teenagers into a larger conflict…
“I never felt like I was blocking the Native American protestor. He did not make any attempt to go around me….
“I was not intentionally making faces at the protestor. I did smile at one point because I wanted him to know that I was not going to become angry, intimidated or be provoked into a larger confrontation. I am a faithful Christian and practicing Catholic, and I always try to live up to the ideals my faith teaches me – to remain respectful of others, and to take no action that would lead to conflict or violence….
“I have received physical and death threats via social media, as well as hateful insults. One person threatened to harm me at school, and one person claims to live in my neighborhood. My parents are receiving death and professional threats because of the social media mob that has formed over this issue.
“I have read that Mr. Phillips is a veteran of the United States Marines. I thank him for his service and am grateful to anyone who puts on the uniform to defend our nation. If anyone has earned the right to speak freely, it is a U.S. Marine veteran.”
If you have the stomach for it, below is a transcription of some of the vile comments made by the Black Hebrew Israelites mostly toward the Covington teens.
Here is the entire 1:46 long video as recorded by BHI member, Shar Yaqataz Banyamyan:
httpsss://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3EC1_gcr34&feature=youtu.be
11:25
SYB: (to about 8 students standing quietly nearby the BHI group) Why don’t you come up and ask a question, Billy? Don’t stand to the side and mock, why don’t you get your cracker-ass over here and made a statement. … Tell them to come over here in the lion’s den instead of mocking over there. You little dirty ass crackers, your day comin…. (as they are seen walking away). Yeah, I would stick my foot in your little ass.
31:40
BHI Speaker: …’cause America’s goin’ down. …America never been great. When has America been great for colored people? When has America ever been great for the North American Indian? When has America ever been great for the so-called black man? America ain’t never been great. It only been great for you damn pecker-woods.
BHI Speaker: And you simple Kanye Wests over there don’t wanna hang with your brother, your wickedness will not go unpunished. Understand that.
37:00
BHI Speaker: (Toward unknown person(s) but the Native American group was still at the site) You’re nothin’ but uncle tomahawks. … You think there are just Uncle Tom’s? There are uncle tomahawks. You got your head up the white man’s ass.
SYB: That’s right.
BHI Speaker: Talk about peace. Ain’t gonna be no peace. You’re gonna be whupped in pieces…
…
46:50
BHI Speaker: (Pointing at the Covington group) That’s what’s gonna make America great again, a bunch of child molesting faggots. Just like your Donald Trump. Go on YouTube and you’ll see your faggot president kissin Guliani when Guliani dressed like a drag queen. A damn faggot.
SYB: That’s right.
BHI Speaker: That’s all he is. A bunch of pedophiles.
BHI Speaker: Why don’t we talk about the Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church. An especially you so-called Hispanics and Negroes you got no business callin’ yourselves a Roman Catholic. When’s the last time you been in Rome?
(A black man yells at the group)
SYB: This nigger scoffin’ now. Now he bein’ an Uncle Tom. (Crosstalk) Look at that dumb-ass nigger man. Stupid ass nigger man.
BHI Speaker: I’m warning you, nigger. Shut your big ass mouth.
SYB: Let me ass you somethin’. You got all these dirty ass crackers behind you with a Make America Great Again hat on and you coon ass wanna fight your brother. You got all these racist bastards with … You nigger, you nigger. You got all these racist crackers and you wanna get violent with us? Get your ole Uncle Tom ass outa here. Get your super Sambo ass outa here.
…
49:57
BHI: Look at all these pecker-woods with Make America Great Again hats. (Walks close to the students with his camera) Look at all these dusty ass crackers with that racist garbage on. Look at all these dirty ass crackers. Can’t stand in the damn sun for five minutes.
BHI Speaker: You’re all a bunch of future school shooters.
(Students walk away from the BHI group)
SYB: Look at ’em go. Look at the mob of these dirty animals. They’re scum.
…
BHI Speaker: Look they’re comin’ back without their hats.
SYB: You crackers are some slippery ass bastards.
…
57:20
BHI Speaker: (to a skate boarder going around these guys with a helmet on). You’re a damn bozo. I’ll bet you’re a dumb-ass Puerto Rican.
(The group of Covington students didn’t really grow until about the hour mark on the video).
1:10:00
(One of the students strips off his shirt and does an school cheer drowning out the BHI)
SYB: (Looks into the camera) You understand who the real cave man is now? And guess what. We’re surrounded and they won’t do a damn thing…. ‘Cause you know what? You dirty bastards better be ready.
1:13:00
(Nathan Phillips walks into the crowd of Covington students and stops directly in front of Nick Sandmann).
1:21:00
BHI Speaker: (Bus loads of students are now waiting on the steps and within a few feet of the BHI group.) Jesus Christ was not a white man.
Student: It doesn’t matter.
BHI Speaker: It does matter. This (likely pointing to the traditional portrait of Christ) is a faggot child molester. … And guess what? Christ is comin’ back to kick your white asses. Christ is comin’ back to kick your crackers’ asses.
Various tweets (Omar and Haaland are Congresswomen, Gillum was the Democrat nominee for Governor of Florida and the rest of members of the media). Click on each to improve its readability:
