Fake news is certainly detrimental to our body politic and civil discourse, but it’s apparently also dangerous. On a recent field trip to Washington DC for the “Right To Life” march, Covington Catholic High School students from Kentucky experienced firsthand the hate and weirdness of various activist groups, but they also learned that hatred stoked by fake news is vicious and quite possibly violent. The vulgar insults hurled at them were disturbing, but the death threats resulting from the media feeding frenzy and social media lynch mob were ominous enough that school officials temporarily closed the school for security reasons.
A short video showing 16 year old Nick Sandmann smiling or smirking as Native American activist, Nathan Phillips, beat a drum in his face went viral. The two were surrounded by Sandmann’s classmates who were animated during the encounter, but unsure what to make of it. Sandmann and some of his classmates were wearing red “Make America Great Again” hats, so the mainstream and social media with righteous indignation immediately judged the incident to be white racist kids of privilege mocking Native Americans.
The ensuing media firestorm instantaneously castigated the Covington Catholic High School students as bigoted marauders. The rush to judgement was so overwhelming that the Diocese of Covington apologized before the kids even got home and Covington Catholic High School threatened the students with expulsion.
But what really happened? Turns out ALL the reporting was fake news!
As social media went postal advocating harm for these “kids,” a longer video emerged showing a much different story. While the students were waiting for their bus, there were several activist groups protesting at the Lincoln Memorial. The initial instigators were a vile group known as the “Black Hebrew Israelites;” they believe people of color are the direct descendants of the original 12 tribes of Israel deprived of their heritage by white people who are the embodiment evil and only deserving death or slavery.
As the Covington Catholic students arrived, the Black Hebrew Israelites were arguing with Native Americans there for the Indigenous People’s March and taunting them for idolatry. They chastised them for worshiping the elements and not the Creator and pointedly rebuked them that eagles and buffalos could not save them. The two groups appeared to be at odds.
Then the Black Hebrew Israelites turned their vitriol toward the Covington Catholic students calling them crackers, racists, and homosexuals among other quite colorful insults. Somewhat amused and stunned, the students asked a chaperone if they could perform school cheers to drown out the boorish invective spewed at them.
At this point, the groups were somewhat separated, but as the kids did their cheers, the Indigenous People beating their drums began walking toward the kids putting themselves between the kids and the raucous Black Hebrew Israelites. They marched right up to into the group of kids beating their drums in their faces. Still unclear, but it appeared the Native Americans were coming to the aid of the kids. Unsure, the kids joined in with the Native American chants taking them allies. So the kids approached no one; they were approached by Nathan Phillips and his group. They simply stood wide eyed with fascination at the whole spectacle.
But the truth mattered not. Some of the kids had committed the cardinal sin of wearing the red “MAGA” hats, so they had to be racists deserving of all the loathing the media heaps on Trump daily. No journalist anywhere bothered to verify any facts or find the true story. The short video fit their liberal narrative, so they ran with it.
Faceless cowards across social media piled on these “kids!” A Disney producer tweeted a picture of a bloody wood shipper from the movie, Fargo, implying the kids deserved to be killed! A Saturday Night Live writer posted an offer of oral sex for anyone that punched 16 year old Nick Sandmann in the face. A country music singer also offered his signed albums to anyone that would physically assault the teenager.
My goodness! Leftist adults were demanding harm come to these kids! Even when the truth started seeping out; some backed off a bit, but most still insisted anyone with a red hat was guilty in principle and scorn was justified anyway.
The shocking lessons here are social media is poisoned. The anonymity allows people to abandon reason and decency; the social media mobs are no different than the seething lynch mobs of yesteryear. And, the mainstream media IS the enemy of civilized people. They not only shirk their duty to investigate and present the facts for the people to decide for themselves; they have become like the jeering crowds at the coliseum demanding blood as they incite the people against each other.
The media should be ashamed of this debacle, but they are too biased to even see it.
“The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.” Psalm 11:5
