21 January 2019 - Student in MAGA Hat Mocks Native American Elder
A tribal elder and a high school junior stood face to face, and the world reacted
Michael E. Miller (The Washington Post, 20/01/2019)
The three groups that met Friday in the cold shadow of the Lincoln Memorial could hardly have been more different. They were indigenous rights activists from Michigan, Catholic schoolboys from Kentucky — some wearing Make America Great Again hats — and Hebrew Israelites from the nation’s capital.
They were Native American, Caucasian and African American; old, young and middle-aged.
And there, beneath the fallen president’s promise to work “with malice toward none, with charity for all,” they came together in an incident that would echo nationwide for its ugliness.
Nathan Phillips Says He Was Playing Peacemaker When MAGA Students Taunted Him
Peter Wade (Rolling Stone, 20/01/2019)
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.
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.
We have a long history of disrespecting Native Americans and denying their humanity
Ezra Rosser (The Hill, 20/01/2019)
The viral video of a group of teenage boys appearing to taunt Nathan Phillips, a Native American veteran, as he played a drum during the Indigenous Peoples March is another reminder of the racism and intolerance that plague the country.
Some observers and some news accounts now insist that the video was edited, that a longer version shows a different version of the episode. Yet, if the original version of events proves to be true, it will be a chilling continuation of the long history of disrespecting Indians and denying them their basic rights.
Since many of the boys shown in the video wore “Make American Great Again” caps, it is not surprising that President Trump is receiving much of the blame for their apparent behavior.
New Video Complicates Uproar Over Incident Between Student And Native American Man
Nick Visser (The Huffington Post, 21/01/2019)
More video emerged on Sunday of the viral moment between a Native American man and a student wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat, complicating an incident that has already been cast as yet another parable of the nation’s heavily divided politics and growing racial tension.
More than an hour of footage shot before the encounter was uploaded on YouTube on Sunday, and appeared to show a confrontation between a large group of Catholic students instigated by black men who identified themselves as Hebrew Israelites. In the clip, the men can be heard shouting at anyone on scene at the Lincoln Memorial, including other black visitors and Native Americans.
The camera then turns to the students, who were in Washington for an anti-abortion rally, some of whom were wearing hats with President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan.