Nobody needs further proof of just how divided America is along political lines, but this weekend another incident took place which will only deepen the anger between the left and the right.

As is usually the case, people were quick to rush to conclusions and social media was awash with people wanting heads to roll, so let’s start with how this incident was first perceived.

Mashable spoke about how “a group of young Donald Trump supporters has come under fire after ambushing and taunting a group of Native Americans at the Indigenous Peoples March on Friday”:

On Jan. 18, Washington, D.C. hosted both the Indigenous Peoples March and the anti-abortion March For Life. It was apparently a group from the latter gathering that set off the appalling scene, based on evidence in videos captured at the time.

Footage shows dozens of teenage boys — proudly decked out in Make America Great Again apparel — closely surrounding and mocking a Native American protester. The protester, an older man, is singing the “AIM Song,” an intertribal song of honor associated with the American Indian Movement…

The striking moment when a gang of teens surrounded Phillips was captured from several different angles and shared on social media to show just how large and overpowering the mob of chanting and laughing teens was.

This footage, in various lengths, was amongst the most widely shared:

There’s no denying that the smug-looking chap in the video above comes across as a disrespectful little twat, and he looks like the kind of teenager that grows up to be a Brett Kavanaugh-type.

When you hear that Native American elder, who has now been identified as Vietnam War veteran and former director of the Native Youth Alliance Nathan Phillips, speak about the experience, it’s pretty heartbreaking:

 

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A post shared by KC (@ka_ya11) on Jan 18, 2019 at 4:42pm PST

Since those first videos did the rounds, other footage has emerged, challenging the narrative that the boys, from Covington Catholic School in Park Hills, Kentucky, surrounded Phillips.

The Daily Beast details what those other videos show:

The Covington Catholic student at the center of the firestorm issued a statement that claimed he was only trying to defuse a tense and confusing situation when he stood eye-to-eye with tribal elder Nathan Phillips, a smile plastered on his face and a Make America Great Again hat on his head, while schoolmates cheered…

Phillips, meanwhile, said he was also trying to calm tensions—between the teens and a cluster of Black Hebrew Israelite protesters—when he approached the group while singing and drumming. He said he saw “hatred” in the eyes of the “beastly young men.”

…[In one video] a small group of Black Israelite protesters is shown hurling insults at the students as they are standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. At one point, they can be heard calling the teenagers “incest babies.”

This video is a pretty good summation of the arguments from everyone involved:

In my eyes, if you’re wearing MAGA hats and attending marches that aim to take away a woman’s right to choose what to do with her own body, then you’re a pretty shitty human.

Those protesters who hurled abuse at the teenagers wearing the hats, including calling them “incest babies”, aren’t covering themselves in glory, either.

At the end of all of this, it seems like Nathan Phillips was the only person who wanted to prevent a media circus, but he inadvertently became the central figure in what is just a bad look for America as a whole.

[sources:mashable&dailybeast]