This story was from a couple days ago but there have been updates: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/20/us/nathan-phillips-covington.html?action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage...
The blame really belongs 100% on the faculty that watched it happened. The kids are in high school and were already being harassed by the Hebrew Israelites before Phillips approached them. The...
What these children is completely reprehensible, but what bothers me more is the chaperons and teachers that sat on the sidelines and watched and cheered these kids on, and all the right-wing personalities rallying behind them.
The blame really belongs 100% on the faculty that watched it happened. The kids are in high school and were already being harassed by the Hebrew Israelites before Phillips approached them. The full video makes it very apparent they had already been riled up. The kids were being obnoxious but ask any high school teacher, mob mentality is scarily real with kids (black/white/male/female/whatever). It's literally the faculties job to stop them from being a bunch of turds but as far as I had seen in the TWO HOUR video, not a single attempt was made to quell what was going on. Now they are being painted as the face of racism, when you have a bunch of adults watching them doing it, obviously entertained enough to not stop it. It just blows my mind that people can blame a bunch of kids for being edgy and distasteful. These kids aren't inherently bad people, they are a bi-product of a shitty community/education system.
And as a tangent, the worst part is they are probably experiencing extreme levels of cognitive dissonance. The entire country is talking about how awful they are which is only going to serve to reinforce their behavior. They need to understand why what they did was wrong and not "you're a bunch of racist assholes who deserve nothing but the worst." They are kids who had a bunch of adults letting them do dumb shit.
This isn't "letting them" do dumb shit. This isn't "entertained enough to not stop it". This is racist adults too scared to be openly racist enough to take the place of these kids and reinforcing...
you have a bunch of adults watching them doing it, obviously entertained enough to not stop it
They are kids who had a bunch of adults letting them do dumb shit.
This isn't "letting them" do dumb shit. This isn't "entertained enough to not stop it". This is racist adults too scared to be openly racist enough to take the place of these kids and reinforcing this behavior in secret. This is bigotry grooming the next generation to be even more bigoted than they are.
You can call it what you want, but those racist adults were kids once too. OP linked a video from 2011 of kids in blackface at the very same school. Do you know where some of those kids are now?...
You can call it what you want, but those racist adults were kids once too. OP linked a video from 2011 of kids in blackface at the very same school. Do you know where some of those kids are now? Teaching a new generation of kids.
It's easy to throw your hands up and say "this is humanity at it's worst, they're a bunch of bigots" and ignore that we can change stuff like this. Maybe it's too late for the faculty and even those high school kids, but making changes now to faculty and holding them accountable is the difference between this happening again and kids who understand why it's wrong before it happens.
Apologies if I wasn't clear. I was in no way excusing the behavior or stating that "nothing can be done". I was simply pointing out that these adults aren't just "not acting" they are specifically...
Apologies if I wasn't clear. I was in no way excusing the behavior or stating that "nothing can be done". I was simply pointing out that these adults aren't just "not acting" they are specifically being malicious.
I agree that the faculty should be held accountable. The biggest problem here is that it's likely reflective of the society that exists in this location. If the people living in this city are willing to put up with this behavior and not protest, or call for the school to be held responsible, it's very hard to enforce much of anything.
Ideally, I think, a protest organization should organize some folks from outside of the area and start protesting the school. People should be spamming the facebook, instagram, and other social networks these kids are active on to make potential future employers aware (if they stay local this won't help much, but if they try to leave this will follow them). Pull news and national attention to this school and keep at it so that the focus keeps coming back when there's lulls in the cycle. Unfortunately this likely will not hold for long, and the people will go back to their ways (but in secret) with enough time after some sort of appeasatory action is taken.
But, the important point is action. If someone is able to organize people to protest every time something like this happens, eventually it will be expected for this to happen. Eventually it will get ingrained in society as a whole that this isn't acceptable behavior. When a good chunk of the society lets you know this, it helps to break up insular areas where all your neighbors think a particular way.
I can agree action should be taken and like you mentioned, I also agree protests and social media are not a long term solution. You may have a misunderstanding of how the bigotted mind works....
I can agree action should be taken and like you mentioned, I also agree protests and social media are not a long term solution. You may have a misunderstanding of how the bigotted mind works. Please do not get me wrong, there are certainly evil people in the world that have openly racist beliefs. However, most of these people aren't practicing racism "in secret."
You would be surprised with how most of these kinds of people don't know what they are doing is wrong or understand how their views could be seen as wrong. For quick example, the wall. In their world, they see the wall as a way to keep illegal immigrants out, they are completely ignorant to the racist implications such a wall brings with it. It's not something they think about. They aren't taking into consideration any other viewpoint except that of a white person. Is it wrong? Yeah, they even have the internet to look up why it's wrong. I'm not saying they aren't racist but they don't see it that way because they don't have a grasp of other peoples perspective. They weren't raised that way and neither were their parents.
People in charge at that school need to be replaced with people who bring a multi-cultural perspective to their students. It's not a quick, romantic answer, but to me it's the only thing that is proven to work. Of course then you have to take into account that most states educational systems are completely broken but that's a rabbit hole I am not trying to go down. This whole culture of condemnation is insane and just strengthens the cognitive dissonance these people are experiencing.
(note I'm an optimist and am only speaking from my personal experiences with far-right conservatives, it's very possible it's a town full of evil, hateful people.)
Oh no I'm well aware that this is the issue. The problem is that their societies are very insular and we've been de-funding education in America for nearly half a century. We do not have diversity...
Exemplary
You would be surprised with how most of these kinds of people don't know what they are doing is wrong or understand how their views could be seen as wrong.
Oh no I'm well aware that this is the issue. The problem is that their societies are very insular and we've been de-funding education in America for nearly half a century. We do not have diversity programs, either, to help deal with areas of America which have extremely high densities of single ethnicities. We do not have educational programs to address how to function in a global society let alone programs to teach why diversity is both important and useful.
People in charge at that school need to be replaced with people who bring a multi-cultural perspective to their students.
Absolutely, although I think this won't help too much. A large portion of society in this location has adopted a particular style of thinking. A single individual, or even a few individuals only present in a school are not going to change their minds anytime soon.
This whole culture of condemnation is insane and just strengthens the cognitive dissonance these people are experiencing.
To an extent I agree. Punishing them for holding their beliefs will strengthen their cognitive dissonance. There's a difference between publicly protesting and demanding action, however. Setting the tone of "this is what society thinks is okay" while minimizing who gets punished and how (such as replacing figureheads in the school) will net a benefit for society as a whole. It's really a balancing act and it's tough to implement. For example, these kids should not be expelled for their actions, but instead forced to attend diversity training sessions - the punishment needs to be indirect and not focused on telling them they are bad, but helping them to understand that they hurt others. However, at the end of the day, any action to these kids may increase their cognitive dissonance (and the cognitive dissonance of those who are replaced/fired in the school), but the true goal is for the rest of the kids (especially those who may not feel empowered to voice their opinion) to be nudged in the right direction. It's a slow and painful process.
I'm not disagreeing with you, what I'm saying is we need to hold the faculty accountable and stop condemning a bunch of kids who were literally raised to think this behavior is okay.
I'm not disagreeing with you, what I'm saying is we need to hold the faculty accountable and stop condemning a bunch of kids who were literally raised to think this behavior is okay.
I think we need to do both. If we don't hold the kids accountable, they won't even try to change their behavior. These adult faculty members likely didn't hit 21 and say "Well, I'm an adult now....
I think we need to do both. If we don't hold the kids accountable, they won't even try to change their behavior. These adult faculty members likely didn't hit 21 and say "Well, I'm an adult now. Time to get a decent job, get an apartment, and become horribly racist."
How can you hold a kid accountable for something they don't understand? Your'e going to suspend them for copying what they see adults in their community do? That solves nothing and will make even...
How can you hold a kid accountable for something they don't understand? Your'e going to suspend them for copying what they see adults in their community do? That solves nothing and will make even less sense to them. They need to understand why what they were doing was not okay and see what happens when adults are held responsible for being shitty. If you suspend someone for chanting "build the wall" and being obnoxious it will only serve to make them more bitter.
You can't teach them that what they did was bad, and then give them a pat on the wrist and say "and don't let it happen again". I'm not saying they have to be held as accountable as the adults,...
You can't teach them that what they did was bad, and then give them a pat on the wrist and say "and don't let it happen again". I'm not saying they have to be held as accountable as the adults, but there still must be accountability.
This story was from a couple days ago but there have been updates:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/20/us/nathan-phillips-covington.html?action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/01/viral-clash-students-and-native-americans-explained/580906/
The blame really belongs 100% on the faculty that watched it happened. The kids are in high school and were already being harassed by the Hebrew Israelites before Phillips approached them. The full video makes it very apparent they had already been riled up. The kids were being obnoxious but ask any high school teacher, mob mentality is scarily real with kids (black/white/male/female/whatever). It's literally the faculties job to stop them from being a bunch of turds but as far as I had seen in the TWO HOUR video, not a single attempt was made to quell what was going on. Now they are being painted as the face of racism, when you have a bunch of adults watching them doing it, obviously entertained enough to not stop it. It just blows my mind that people can blame a bunch of kids for being edgy and distasteful. These kids aren't inherently bad people, they are a bi-product of a shitty community/education system.
And as a tangent, the worst part is they are probably experiencing extreme levels of cognitive dissonance. The entire country is talking about how awful they are which is only going to serve to reinforce their behavior. They need to understand why what they did was wrong and not "you're a bunch of racist assholes who deserve nothing but the worst." They are kids who had a bunch of adults letting them do dumb shit.
This isn't "letting them" do dumb shit. This isn't "entertained enough to not stop it". This is racist adults too scared to be openly racist enough to take the place of these kids and reinforcing this behavior in secret. This is bigotry grooming the next generation to be even more bigoted than they are.
This is humanity at its worst.
You can call it what you want, but those racist adults were kids once too. OP linked a video from 2011 of kids in blackface at the very same school. Do you know where some of those kids are now? Teaching a new generation of kids.
It's easy to throw your hands up and say "this is humanity at it's worst, they're a bunch of bigots" and ignore that we can change stuff like this. Maybe it's too late for the faculty and even those high school kids, but making changes now to faculty and holding them accountable is the difference between this happening again and kids who understand why it's wrong before it happens.
Apologies if I wasn't clear. I was in no way excusing the behavior or stating that "nothing can be done". I was simply pointing out that these adults aren't just "not acting" they are specifically being malicious.
I agree that the faculty should be held accountable. The biggest problem here is that it's likely reflective of the society that exists in this location. If the people living in this city are willing to put up with this behavior and not protest, or call for the school to be held responsible, it's very hard to enforce much of anything.
Ideally, I think, a protest organization should organize some folks from outside of the area and start protesting the school. People should be spamming the facebook, instagram, and other social networks these kids are active on to make potential future employers aware (if they stay local this won't help much, but if they try to leave this will follow them). Pull news and national attention to this school and keep at it so that the focus keeps coming back when there's lulls in the cycle. Unfortunately this likely will not hold for long, and the people will go back to their ways (but in secret) with enough time after some sort of appeasatory action is taken.
But, the important point is action. If someone is able to organize people to protest every time something like this happens, eventually it will be expected for this to happen. Eventually it will get ingrained in society as a whole that this isn't acceptable behavior. When a good chunk of the society lets you know this, it helps to break up insular areas where all your neighbors think a particular way.
I can agree action should be taken and like you mentioned, I also agree protests and social media are not a long term solution. You may have a misunderstanding of how the bigotted mind works. Please do not get me wrong, there are certainly evil people in the world that have openly racist beliefs. However, most of these people aren't practicing racism "in secret."
You would be surprised with how most of these kinds of people don't know what they are doing is wrong or understand how their views could be seen as wrong. For quick example, the wall. In their world, they see the wall as a way to keep illegal immigrants out, they are completely ignorant to the racist implications such a wall brings with it. It's not something they think about. They aren't taking into consideration any other viewpoint except that of a white person. Is it wrong? Yeah, they even have the internet to look up why it's wrong. I'm not saying they aren't racist but they don't see it that way because they don't have a grasp of other peoples perspective. They weren't raised that way and neither were their parents.
People in charge at that school need to be replaced with people who bring a multi-cultural perspective to their students. It's not a quick, romantic answer, but to me it's the only thing that is proven to work. Of course then you have to take into account that most states educational systems are completely broken but that's a rabbit hole I am not trying to go down. This whole culture of condemnation is insane and just strengthens the cognitive dissonance these people are experiencing.
(note I'm an optimist and am only speaking from my personal experiences with far-right conservatives, it's very possible it's a town full of evil, hateful people.)
Oh no I'm well aware that this is the issue. The problem is that their societies are very insular and we've been de-funding education in America for nearly half a century. We do not have diversity programs, either, to help deal with areas of America which have extremely high densities of single ethnicities. We do not have educational programs to address how to function in a global society let alone programs to teach why diversity is both important and useful.
Absolutely, although I think this won't help too much. A large portion of society in this location has adopted a particular style of thinking. A single individual, or even a few individuals only present in a school are not going to change their minds anytime soon.
To an extent I agree. Punishing them for holding their beliefs will strengthen their cognitive dissonance. There's a difference between publicly protesting and demanding action, however. Setting the tone of "this is what society thinks is okay" while minimizing who gets punished and how (such as replacing figureheads in the school) will net a benefit for society as a whole. It's really a balancing act and it's tough to implement. For example, these kids should not be expelled for their actions, but instead forced to attend diversity training sessions - the punishment needs to be indirect and not focused on telling them they are bad, but helping them to understand that they hurt others. However, at the end of the day, any action to these kids may increase their cognitive dissonance (and the cognitive dissonance of those who are replaced/fired in the school), but the true goal is for the rest of the kids (especially those who may not feel empowered to voice their opinion) to be nudged in the right direction. It's a slow and painful process.
I'm not disagreeing with you, what I'm saying is we need to hold the faculty accountable and stop condemning a bunch of kids who were literally raised to think this behavior is okay.
I think we need to do both. If we don't hold the kids accountable, they won't even try to change their behavior. These adult faculty members likely didn't hit 21 and say "Well, I'm an adult now. Time to get a decent job, get an apartment, and become horribly racist."
How can you hold a kid accountable for something they don't understand? Your'e going to suspend them for copying what they see adults in their community do? That solves nothing and will make even less sense to them. They need to understand why what they were doing was not okay and see what happens when adults are held responsible for being shitty. If you suspend someone for chanting "build the wall" and being obnoxious it will only serve to make them more bitter.
You can't teach them that what they did was bad, and then give them a pat on the wrist and say "and don't let it happen again". I'm not saying they have to be held as accountable as the adults, but there still must be accountability.