The Narrative Of the Drumming Indian and Catholic High School Kid Is Changing

I think the nation owes Reason’s Robbie Soave a vote of thanks. He took the time to review about two hours of video covering the harassment of a group of Catholic high school students by a group called “Black Hebrew Israelites,” and the subsequent wading into a non-event by a geriatric American Indian activist whacking on a tom-tom. In a post titled: The Media Wildly Mischaracterized That Video of Covington Catholic Students Confronting a Native American Veteran, he points out that the media narrative is absolutely nothing at all like the way the left and its fellow-travelers in the media portrayed it.

These are some of the major shifts.

The Latest: Marcus Frejo, a member of the Pawnee and Seminole tribes says students wound up singing with him. https://t.co/oLaLtstkPZ

— The Associated Press (@AP) January 20, 2019

While this guy says he felt like he was being mocked at first, the students ended up singing with him. This, quite honestly, dovetails with what we know of the students being under verbal assault and perhaps mistaking the drummer-guy for someone who was trying to provoke them.

It is possible that the Catholic boys were complete asses. My initial judgment was that they certainly were that. You don’t treat a peaceful elderly person like this. Even if they thought he was wrong, those boys owed him respect. Yes, the old man approached them, but they could and should have handled him with respect. They come off as bullies.

But then I watched more clips, showing the greater context of the incident. It is not as simple as it has been portrayed. Below is a more complete video account of what happened. In it, one of the Catholic boys is overheard asking, “Does anybody know what he’s doing? Does anybody know what’s going on here.”

And, in it, one of the Indians with Phillips shouts: “White people, go back to Europe. This is not your land.” He curses the students with f-bombs (video is NSFW). He goes on: “You’re being a white man about it. That’s all you know how to do.”

You didn’t see that in the news reporting, did you?

I’d also like to note that respect is a two-way street. You can’t walk up to an unoffending individual, beat your little drum in their face, and claim offense when they stand their ground. Phillips was a rude, ill-mannered old geezer who was treated with a lot more respect than he earned.

National Review ran an article accusing the students of spitting on the cross

That story has now been taken down. While you have to wonder what the hell any organization that would run that was thinking at the time, you have to give them credit for taking it down.

Two CNN anchors, Saint Jake Tapper and Don Lemon have tweeted out the Reason article. This is pretty significant as neither are noted for bucking the latest media narrative if it hurts a group they oppose.

Different narrative emerging in student incident as more video is released. https://t.co/Aka7mxK8nK https://t.co/kOdiSrOUrv

— Don Lemon (@donlemon) January 20, 2019

.@reason: “Video footage strongly contradicts Native American veteran Nathan Phillips’ claim that Covington Catholic High School boys harassed him. The media got this one completely wrong,” writes @robbysoave https://t.co/9Ki4iiTkQ9

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) January 20, 2019

And these from people who piled on and now have had the courage and integrity to admit that they got it wrong:

Yesterday I had one impression of the maga kids from Kentucky. Now after seeing more videos I have a different more complicated impression. Makes all the hot takes seem silly.

— David Brooks (@nytdavidbrooks) January 20, 2019

I fell for the first edited video too. It’s #FakNews and these kids are owed a big apology https://t.co/e1ZZSSl2x9

— MeganFox (@MeganFoxWriter) January 20, 2019

I apologize to the Covington Catholic boys. What Rod Dreher says of himself goes double for me. I jumped the gun and that was stupid and unjust. It is I, not the boys, who needs to take a lesson from this.

The Catholic Bonfire At The Stake https://t.co/uhYcgiLVWI via @amconmag

— Robert P. George (@McCormickProf) January 20, 2019

Scott Adams apologizes for believing @CNN about the Covington Catholic Boys fake news. With coffee. https://t.co/Izg0tq4YkB

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) January 20, 2019

This is the whole event:

https://youtu.be/t3EC1_gcr34

There’s really no great lesson to be learned here. The left plays by Alinsky’s rules which relies upon the personal destruction of individuals. The young man who was featured in this and doxxed by the left has had his life changed forever. Unfortunately, many on the right are much more interested in signalling their virtue to the left or trying to “police their own ranks” to do anything but follow the lead of activist groups seeking to destroy people who might (in the case of this kid, we need to add “one day”) be political opponents.

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