Were the MAGA hat teens at the Lincoln Memorial victims of the Trump effect?
For example, the report notes that some students performed a "tomahawk chop" gesture to the beat of Phillips' drumming. The arm-swinging celebration gesture, popular among fans of the Atlanta Braves, the Kansas City Chiefs and some other teams, is considered by many Native Americans to be as offensive as the Washington Redskins' name.
Some of the boys' defenders have said the chopping gesture, timed to Phillips' drumbeat, actually was cheering him on. Phillips felt the opposite, he later told The Washington Post. "It was getting ugly," he said.
Trump would step in with a Tuesday morning tweet that seemed to be trying to echo the Martin Luther King Jr., a day after his holiday. "Nick Sandmann and the students of Covington have become symbols of Fake News and how evil it can be," he tweeted. "They have captivated the attention of the world, and I know they will use it for the good -- maybe even to bring people together. It started off unpleasant, but can end in a dream!"
Sweet. For a change, I mostly agree with the president. But there's "fake news," which is deliberately made up, and simply wrong news, which results from honest mistakes that should be corrected quickly. The case of the red hat kids from Covington shows us all how the power of compelling video can lead to wrong or wildly incomplete conclusions.
In this case, the national attention put a spotlight on another Covington controversy on the web: videos (now deleted) and photos of Covington basketball cheering sections in which some white students can be seen in blackface. Asked about it by Fox News' Steve Doocy, one student defended the practice by saying, "the kids meant nothing by it, it's just showing school spirit."
Sure. "Black-out days," in which boosters are encouraged to wear all black clothing, are not uncommon in school or professional sports. The wearing of blackface, however, is not to be encouraged in this day and age. Just ask Virginia's governor, for starters.
It may not be meant by the wearer to offend, but remember Rashomon. What you mean to say may not be what others hear -- or see.
(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)
(c) 2019 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
