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Ok, I just destroyed my brain by watching an hour plus video of the incident so I'm gonna lay down some play by play commentary on the whole #CovingtonCatholic thing and Nick's statement.
I've seen two longer videos of the incident. One seemed to be the POV/filmed by one of the students. I can't find that vid on Youtube anymore. The other, taken by the cameraman with the black preacher, can be viewed here:
(I've seen multiple names for the group with the preacher and don't know what name they actually go by. No insult meant by me not saying it, it's purely my own ignorance.)
In multiple vids, the black preacher's group is basically any loudly speaking preacher in a public space. I've seen folks like them in Times Square and the like. For the most part their rhetoric is the same: These are our Bible-based beliefs, all y'all need to repent.
These guys both before, during, and after the incident REPEATEDLY shouted slurs at pretty much anybody they saw. F word, N word, "Uncle Tomahawk" (which they clearly thought was the wittiest insult EVER invented), insulting everyone's religious beliefs, you name it.
I feel safe in saying that there are very few people outside of the group itself who WOULDN'T have found what they were saying offensive. They aimed far and wide in trying to get people's attention. For the most part people ignored them, as you do with street preachers.
A few people from different groups (passers by, March for Life people, Natives) did try to engage, and it always went nowhere. You can see this in the video linked above. The group was pretty much equal opportunity offense, be it to the Natives or the MAGA hat wearers.
In the video above, the MAGA kids start entering the picture around 30 min in. The preacher likewise starts calling them out for being racist.
Around 45 min in you get "cracker" and pointing out all school shooters are white, and calling one MAGA hatted kid out for trying to subtly hide his hat under his hoodie. The preacher also starts saying that Trump is a f-word, which is a point he circles back to several times.
Around 55min in a non-school affiliated guy on what I'm going to call a skateboard b/c @#$% if I know what that thing is, starts to circle around the preacher's group while playing music loudly. Preacher's group says they'll "tear his ass up" if he gets too close.
1 hour in and the steps now have large groups of kids on them due to the schools all meeting up to get to their buses. Preacher starts engaging with the kids, calling them incest babies and "May the Lord strike your mother and father down."
1:07 in and the kids start shouting back. They start chanting. One kid deliberately rolls a bottle of water at the preacher's group but then runs and picks it up a few moments later.
(The bottles of water are shown off by the kids a few times, like showing the label made a point. My guess is the label had some kind of slogan on it? Couldn't see to say what it was though.)
At 1:10, to the cheer of the crowd, a boy runs downstairs, strips down to his bare chest, and leads the group in a chant with jumping and arm movements. The crowd at this point is getting rowdy and dumbass in the way that hyped up teen boys tend to do.
The cameraman points out there's only 5 of them with the preacher group, and they are now surrounded by the kids. He bravados that the kids won't do a damn thing.
1:11: Kids are still shouting and chanting at the preacher. Some of the kids mug to one of the cameramen who's been filming this for a while. Their overall attitude is mocking.
1:12 is when Nathan Phillips and his group show up with the drums. They walk calmly in between the preacher's group and the kids. Someone in the preacher's group mocks someone in Nathan's group for having a red hat and that person responds.
Upon seeing Nathan's group, the kids increase their jumping and chanting. They move further down the stairs as a crowd and stand in front of Nathan, again still jumping and chanting.
Nathan WAS moving in the direction of the group but the kids came down from the steps to meet him. Nathan was also walking slowly and calmly while singing and playing his drum. Kids in front of him are jumping up and down and chanting while making tomahawk chop gestures.
Kids in front of Nathan also get in his face as they jump and make grinning faces at him. Nathan just stands there and sings and plays. The kids start making mocking dance moves and laugh at Nathan. Nathan stands and sings and plays.
1:13: Cameraman filming says "Y'all better not touch him" as the kids surround Nathan and his group. Kids are chanting "Hey ho hey ho" in a mockery of what Nathan is singing.
Nathan slowly starts to walk forward. The kids start jumping and chanting again in response to this. Nathan stops walking and sings and plays. The kids sing the Tomahawk Chop song. The cameraman and person next to him comment on how serious and calm Nathan is.
1:14: the cameraman and his companion comment on how Nathan's group put themselves in between them and the kids and how the kids are mocking Nathan and his group. The kids have spilled off the steps and surrounded Nathan and his group several people deep.
It's around here I spotted what could have been Nick standing in front of Nathan. Unclear if Nick was there earlier. The kids are completely focused on Nathan and his group, the preacher's group now several feet away.
Here is where the above video becomes slightly less useful, as it (understandably) focuses on the preacher's group. But of note when the kids turn their attention back to the preacher, a chaperone DOES step in several times to tell the kids to back up.
The kids are also very mocking towards the preacher, joking how one of them is here to "take a shit" and one shouting "HELL YEAH!" when the preacher says everything the boys have is from the bloodshed of [black] people. (con't as I've hit thread limit)
Now TO BE CLEAR: the preacher was saying offensive stuff, as per the entire vid. He goes back on Trump being a f-word and all sorts of other dumb and offensive shit. There's nothing coming out of his group that makes you want to be on his side.
That being said, the kids are ALSO acting like assholes. They're engaging with the guy, surrounding him and his group as a crowd, and getting in his face enough that several adults (I assume chaperones) tell the kids to back away.
This is the same attitude the kids had towards Nathan and his group. And, of note, NO chaperones stepped in then, even though arguably the chanting and tomahawk chopping was more offensive, and less deserved.
I'll get back to Nathan in a sec but I have to pause to give a shout-out to the moment when the preacher asks the kids if they have ANY black students with them and a student smugly answers "We have TWO"
The students then only produce one black student (Preacher: "Aw, c'mon shawty!") while another student admits their second black student is at home.
YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP.
Anyway, what's sadly not in this vid but in the other vid which I can't find, is how, yes, somebody with Nathan did engage with the students. He was standing by Nathan while Nathan played and got into debate with the students about whose land it was.
Did that guy get angry and rude? Yeah. But his group had been dealing with the preacher trying to talk over the Indigenous march, then these kids aggressively mocking them when they tried to diffuse the situation.
I can't fault the guy whatsoever if he dropped some swear words. He was also dealing with a smug white kid who countered his "we were on this land first" argument with "Well if you consider PANGEA ..."
I mean c'mon. Nobody should have to deal with that, least of all a Native facing down a dumbass white boy and his MAGA pals. You'd have to be a saint not to go off. Or, apparently, Nathan Phillips.
Once the kids were done mocking Nathan and his group, they collectively surrounded the preacher (here's were the two vids match up) and joined in mocking and engaging with the preacher until the buses were there.
And hey, if you want fairness, at least SOME of the kids seemed to speak up in defense of gay people, such as it was. (Preacher: "So-and-so is gay!" Kid: "So what?" kind of a thing.)
The kids then head off to their buses and there we go. Which is very long but I'm trying to be detailed as possible for 1) Accuracy and 2) So you don't have to numb your mind watching this bullshit like I did.
The key takeaways though are: 1) The preacher and his group were jerks, but could've easily been ignored. The Indigenous March managed it pretty well, and their EVENT was being challenged as well as them personally.
2) THE KIDS WERE ACTING LIKE ASSHOLES. They were being loud, mocking, and obnoxious. There were a lot of them, they VASTLY outnumbered the people they were making fun of, and they were laughing and mugging to cameras and in no way trying to be respectful to anyone.
3) Nathan and his group did NOTHING to provoke anyone. They walked slowly, calmly, and stopped when people got in their way. The only person who interacted with a kid did so when the kid was obnoxious to them first.
4) The kids did NOT get out of Nathan's way. They very deliberately got IN his way and SURROUNDED him and his group while making fun of them.
5) Whatever excuse Nick and his pals try to make out of the preacher is BS because the entire crowd collectively stopped giving a shit about the preacher to surround Nathan and make fun of him. They only went back to the preacher after they were done with Nathan.
6) I want whatever phone and battery the preacher's cameraman was using 'cause damn.
7) Seriously. "We have TWO!" Said with pride. Can't make this shit up.
Aaaaaaaaaaaand done.
I've added some comments and replies in this new thread:
