How the Covington Catholic firestorm reinforced America's divisions

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

When liberals looked at the videos shot near the Lincoln Memorial last Friday, they saw a smirking, entitled son of likely Donald Trump voters. Here was a Catholic school boy who seemed to enjoy a silent but disrespectful faceoff with an older Native American man and his drum, while the boy’s white classmates tomahawk chopped and jeered.

When conservatives looked at the same videos they saw a collection of kids waiting for a bus near the memorial after participating in the March for Life. The boys faced verbal goading by Black Israelites and were confronted by an unusual Native American man with a drum but stayed positive by doing spirit cheers. The Covington Catholic High School kids were the lambs, and the others were wolves circling them.

In the week since, it’s become clear that at least some of each of those perspectives is true, but virtually no one’s mind has been changed about what actually happened and what all of it means.

“It seems everyone wants a simple story,” said Matt Motyl, a political psychologist and assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Motyl, who is also a research fellow at New York University, studies why people have a hard time talking about hot-button issues without conflict or are reticent to engage with those who contradict the views they already hold.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/how-the-covington-catholic-firestorm-reinforced-americas-divisions/ar-BBSJVro?li=BBnb7Kz


Nick Sandmann's family hires a libel attorney

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211729716

I think we all have done stupid shit as teenagers. It would be easy to forgive those kids if there was some remorse shown.

Several thoughts here mostly where were their chaperones? Speaking as one who was raised Catholic there's no way we would have gotten away with that kind of shit.

Instead I'm seeing entitled rich kids whose folks will bail them out whenever they screw up.

Just what this country needs a few more Donald Trump/ Brett Kavanaugh types.

[sharedvalues]

1. This is f'ing BS. All it did is expose conservative gaslighting.

Liberals looked at the video and saw a racist kid wearing a MAGA hat....and they were RIGHT.

[Squinch]

2. This. And Republicans saw the same thing. They are just very good at uniting behind a blatant lie.

They saw what we saw, but they will never admit it.

[KT2000]

5. if there is one thing repubs are -

it is always being the victim. Mommy uses racist code works (black Muslims), daddy hires a rw PR firm, and now they want to sue. Poor Nick Brett Kavanaugh Sandmann's victimhood will grow to match the hoped for settlement.

[JI7]

3. the black Israelites are shit also but nobody is defending them

while they make excuses for the white boys.

you don't see lgbt people behave like assholes to random people when the Westboro trash is spewing hate at them.

[SunSeeker]

7. Exactly. nt

[guillaumeb]

4. If it were only the one incident, I might agree.

But there is a pattern here.

[SCantiGOP]

6. Family hiring a libel attorney?

Yeah, head down that path. Sue a media outlet for purposeful misinformation designed to hurt someone's reputation. That would give the defense the right to look through little Nickie's social media as well as that of his family and to investigate the culture at the school. Really doubt they are going to want to go that route.

[cgralow]

8. Let's be adults here

Goes without saying that I wholly disagree with the boys' politics - the MAGA hats, the anti-choice rally, the history of students in black face. Bad. Bad. Bad. As a teacher of teen boys, I also see minors. And I am willing to be a grown-up and admit that my initial impression of what happened specifically and only during the incident at the Lincoln Memorial was wrong. Completely off.

I wasn't gaslighted by Republicans. I was initially shown just a picture, then just a clip. Then I spent time researching further. Now I can admit that my first impression of that incident and that incident alone was incorrect. It's called being an adult. We need to be able to face facts, even when they go against our ideologies. And don't try to tell me the mother Tweeted about wishing something about more small pox. That came from a fake acct that was purposely spewing divisiveness.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

9. Uh huh