the alt-right

The original narrative was that a mob of white students were harassing and intimidating an elderly vet during the Indigenous People's March, which context doesn't really support. No one was calling for expulsions over a hat or attendance at the March for Life. xp

― Locked in silent monologue, in silent scream (Sund4r), Monday, January 21, 2019 9:47 AM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

are they not harassing and intimidating an indigenous vet?

I don't think it's at all clear that they are, no.

he doesn't look intimidated to me? he looks purposeful; why turn him into a victim?

Their attempts at intimidation failed - so that's fine then, nothing to see here.

Phillips approached them. They didn't approach him at the Indigenous Peoples' March The one kid is literally doing nothing - standing and awkwardly smiling after Phillips went up to him. The others are chanting along, which might or might not be mockery. I don't see an obvious reason to regard their explanations here as less credible than the narrative that they were harassing him.

It matters how the thing started. If Phillips walked up to the kid (which is how it looks from the video) then that's a different situation from the kid going out of his way to plant himself in someone's face. Not that I buy the idea that the kid was trying to defuse the situation either. It looks much more like he's unwilling to back down, and being goaded on.

kind of think busing a bunch of belligerent high school students to support your school religion's political stances is a less than effective idea to begin with

of the people I've met who have experienced that type of thing, half of it was going along with what their school encouraged or a way to fuck around on a trip, maybe even miss a day of class and clown around on a bus (and maybe a hotel, if it was an affluent school)

they probably were briefed on their right-to-life nonsense, if they even paid attention in that school assembly, and defaulted to being confused asshole teens

all evidence points to them being assholes, though

at this point, i have to say i don't think it matters if this kid was being a smug bigoted bully or not, because if he was: a) taking him down via social media or w/e feels like a waste of time, because it wouldn't destroy him or lead to an awakening, he'd be "just fine" b) it's a waste of energy that could and should be used for more positive things, i mean who cares about this kid and studying the tape like it's the zapruder film, c) there's an endless supply of low-level bigots out there and we can shame every single one to death but it would be useless, it will never work, and the reasons for a backlash against the left sometimes comes from the overuse of energy on issues like this.

it feels like clickbait news, just turning a single moment perhaps out of context into a massive national issue, because people want to see others immediately as a villain or a hero. which is not to say that Phillips didn't feel a certain way at that moment, i mean i don't doubt that the crowd he waded into had let's generously say a "weird energy" at the moment, or this kid has *opinions* which are not cool.

I mean every other day there's a new "moment" and energy is evaporated away on these moments and then the next one comes along and everyone is miserable again. my FB feed is filled up with this kind of thing multiple times per week and it's just misery as fuel for action and i think it does not particularly help as much as people think it should.

Their attempts at intimidation failed - so that's fine then, nothing to see here.

i already regret posting anything but since u mentioned it and i don't think what you're saying is totally unreasonable (that how the person reacted is unrelated to the intention): in the absence of compelling evidence about the intention looking to see its result is worthwhile esp when evaluating harm claims.

xp the best case afaict is that this stuff is trivial and a waste of time and not just actively destructive to everyone involved. i think sometimes ppl do get the most heated over the most trivial things bc it's a fake symbolic space to project other more complicated or upsetting emotions. raging on ilx or twitter is basically a zero-cost rant. if it is encouraging social fractures, or hurting the ppl doing the venting, or whatever bad psychological backlash one can imagine, that might just be an unfortunate secondary effect.

the crowd of schoolkids as a whole were being rowdy and obnoxious, this particular kid who ppl are enthusiastically turning into an emblem of everything bad in Trump's America is almost certainly an asshole, but I no-one deserves this

― soref, Monday, January 21, 2019 12:01 PM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's because this particular kid is an emblem of everything bad in Trump's America.

Should his life be destroyed? No. Should we see what he is a product of or what he signifies? Mos def.

Sucks to be you, MAGA-hat kid, but Fred otm.

it's a striking still image (kid standing with a weird look) and you could subject it to all kinds of interpretation, but regardless of intent in the moment it's definitely a kid way the fuck out of his element, and he's wearing a hat that is pretty much the symbol of defining an in-crowd specifically by belittling anyone who doesn't fit a narrow definition. not exactly a way to provide kids with constructive ways of dealing with the world

omar otm

and he's wearing a hat that is pretty much the symbol of defining an in-crowd

MAGA is "in-crowd"?

Good luck USA.

honestly I don't know if I'd share this opinion "publicly" but them wearing MAGA hats en masse is practically enough for me; at this point that in itself is an act of hostility and intimidation. I think even, or especially, Trump supporters know this. which is why, even here in what's mostly Trump country, I don't really see that many MAGA hats, because it's sort of an aggressive move that most beautiful aren't comfortable with in their daily lives.

in this case you have dozens of students purposely wearing them in coordination (do we think that they all chose to wear them separately, just by coincidence? no, they coordinated it, knowing it might cause a stir. i used to live in DC and would see this sometimes from tourists—they'd wear a bunch of "right-wing" gear, often by families in coordination--probably orchestrated by the dad, i'd guess-- I guess hoping to get noticed and maybe get a rise out of people.)

as for the one kid, i recognize that invasion of personal space and that smug "test me, c'mon, test me" expression. I don't actually think it's generally an expression of "white privilege" as many on social media are saying — though it may be undergirded by white privilege in this case. it's just the expression of a bully, which I recognize from plenty of encounters in middle and high school.

er, i don't know how i typed "most beautiful" instead of "most people"

i must be very very tired

(and FWIW the "kid's" statement, as plainly written by a lawyer as any piece of prose ever, can be thoroughly discounted.)

his explanation for his expression since totally reasonable to me. he was approached by this guy there was a hostile crowd around (two in fact, his own and the black israelites), he was uncomfortable and made a fake smile to try to disarm the situation without having to say or do anything. ppl online who think they can read ppl's minds by their facial expressions are afaict not criminal profilers in their day jobs and should likely have a bit more humility about their ability to read the human soul.

seems*

in-crowd doesn't mean country-wide, or even being in a majority. it's a term I'm applying to a *group* and the student populace at that school, according to a lot of people who *didn't* fit that definition, encountered a lot of bullying and belittling

I get the impression you're not a social outcast for wearing a maga hat at that particular kentucky catholic school

mordy, i wouldn't sit as an expert witness in a courtroom, but i don't think that's a "disarming" smile. it's an exaggerated smile meant to express machismo. that the kid pointedly doesn't step back out of the older man's personal space is another clue as to the intent behind it.

whatever it is, it's certainly not the "silent prayer" (lol) suggested in the kid's lawyer's statement.

did we notice the part where the priest from the same diocese (who says he wasn't an official chaperone of these young men but /was/ among their group at various points during/after the march) retweeted stuff from alt-right accounts minimizing or endorsing slavery?

in my life ppl often think i am thinking things or feeling things bc they misread an expression on my face so maybe that has primed me to be more generous about ppl's accounting for how their facial expressions look

that the kid pointedly doesn't step back out of the older man's personal space is another clue as to the intent behind it.

also it has been mentioned but the guy engaged the kid not vice-versa. why do you think the older man wanted him to duck away if he approached him? it looked to me like they were having an exchange.

that is completely understandable, and like i said, i wouldn't swear on anything in court. it's just an expression and a context i recognize, or think i recognize.

and i think the decision of the teens to wear those hats en masse is itself suggestive of their "intent." that provides a key context for their behavior. if not the only context.

the older man wandered into the crowd. the kid made a pointed decision to stand right in front of him and not move an inch. in some angles it looks as though the kid steps forward-- i didn't get the sense the native american man moved up into the kid's personal space that aggressively. but that's the kind of stuff that's hard to judge unless you are applying zapruder-like analysis and i just don't have the time.

also i really don't think this context called for a "disarming" smile at all or that this explanation even makes much sense. (also again, lol, "silent prayer.") i sometimes smile when i'm in uncomfortable situations, but it's a very different sort of smile. that rimbus grin is something i do when i'm being sarcastic or trying to signal my contempt. i used to wear that smile when i'd pass, say, anti-abortion protestors holding up pictures of fetuses, or dumb frat boys yelling shit from bars, or whatever. it's a "fuck you" smile.

but again, eyes/beholder/etc.

er, rictus grin

again, i am so very tired

I see a lot of liberal handwringing on my social media feeds over the Covington kids being dragged unfairly, and all I can think is like an Onion headline: Teenagers at Anti-Woman March Surprised at Being Called Racist

Sorry for not giving a bunch of private school white dudes in MAGA hats at an anti-abortion rally the benefit of the doubt, my bad.

xpost

Teenagers Wearing MAGA Hats at Anti-Woman March Surprised at Being Called Racist

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRIm3HKIwUk0iNvSMn832Bqkq0GP1SuTYIPvtx_Z8NObwB5GBTQPw

"oh, this old thing? i don't mean anything by it. my best sweater was in the wash."

no one cares what u think of them tbh. it's just interesting how these events occur and spiral on social media and to me it does seem pathological for the participants in the event itself as well as all its participants online - what they get out of it, what it means about political discourse, whether it's good or bad. but the more i think on it the less those questions seem to reveal either and the whole thing just becomes a toxic sludge of idiocy and anger so what can u do. completely withdraw i guess which is what i've been doing more and more of over the last decade. oue culture is just dumb there's nothing to be gotten out of it.

like being angry at a kid on a video you say on the internet on ilx idk maybe the optimistic reading is that the affects you're inserting into the social media atmosphere are building up and creating a new climate where blah blah but more likely you're doing it bc you're scared of our politics and where our country is going and it's a way to let off some steam but again that's to no one's credit really. righteous anger isn't really righteous or angry it turns out.

The others are chanting along, which might or might not be mockery

I mean, I'll grant that they probably don't speak Phillilps's language and don't share the spiritual beliefs the chant probably expressed, so it was unlikely that this was "solidarity", as Reason suggests. The context of who approached whom still does make a difference imo.

the "solidarity" thing was laughable

Idgi. The emergence of what the Israelites said to the white kids shouldn't be moving the needle that much. It was always stipulated that there was a dispute between the two groups but the focus was on Elder Phillips.

Think people keep forgetting this was an Indigenous People's March. This was Phillips's event. The Israelites were being assholes but I think they'd tuned them out. But now you have a group of white kids wearing hats known to provoke a reaction gathered en masse. True, they were only at the Lincoln Memorial to meet their chaperones, but when I went on field trips as a kid, if any outside element was coming into conflict with us, and it posed no eminent danger, I would round them up and pull them away from it. Perhaps talk about it after.

Instead, the kids remained gathered, and were an easy target for the Israelites with their matching hats. And the chaperones just let them stay, even gave them permission to do a counter chant. This might have been acceptable if this was purely an Israelite rally, but this confrontation was actually disrupting the Indigenous People's march with negative energy. The kids even went back to bring more people who weren't initially involved into the fray.

It seems a bit like a "they started it" defense. It was like two guests getting into a fight at someone's house, with the host wanting them to knock it off.

When Phillips first begins banging his drum, his voice and demeanor are calm. He doesn't go right up to Sandmann, either. He is at first off to the side, several feet away and laughing. His facial expression only becomes a fixed stare when Phillips steps forward, in front of him. Why did Sandmann keep standing there, staring him down?

The argument is that Phillips did first, but I don't buy it. The video is shot from an awkward angle which, I think gives the illusion that the two are looking at each other. Similar to the "Kobe didn't flinch!" optical illusion.

But Phillips's eyes seem to meandering and shifting, almost as if he's trying to look away from Sandmann, whose gaze seems lazer focused on Phillips, his smile gradually fading.

Surrounding kids are mocking the song with faux-tomahawk chants and FSU Seminoles war crying. Several kids to Phillips's right are yelling things but due to the noise, it all meshes together. So who knows what they were saying. It doesn't prove "Build the Wall" wasn't shouted. Cell phone videos aren't going to pick up pristine audio from a group of kids at a fixed distance while the camera is inches away from a group of indigenous singers and several kids "singing along". It's not like this thing is the Zapruder film. It's incomplete as it's zoomed in.

I mean, is it worth the energy we've spent on it? In hindsight, probably not. But this new vid hardly exonerates the boys or casts the indigenous in a bad light. It was their damn rally, frankly who could blame them even if they were pissed that two feuding parties loudly let their beef spill over into the middle of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD-E-LDc384

The lib handwringing that tipsy alludes to has indeed been aggravating. As if they are just trying to once again be mediators that nobody adked them to be.

Mordy otm throughout

it's not the worth energy spent on it except that ppl view this as a prism to project all the other culture wars stuff they've been fighting - it's a symbolic flash point. so ppl are confusing all these other commitments they have for this event as tho by fighting this they can work out all the other stuff bothering them. and this keeps happening over and over. and if you're not exhausted by it it's probably bc you are getting something psychologically out of it. even if they send this kid to jail for life or he can't get a job or get into the college he wants or whatever consequence you're hoping for it won't fix or change anything in this country or in your life. it's not true that by holding this kid accountable trump or brett kavanaugh will be held accountable. humanity is full of bad ppl getting away with bad things. there's an entire branch of theology dedicated to resolving that friction. we're not going to solve it by deciding whether it's really a choad of the corn or just a facsimile.

it's not the worth energy spent on it except that ppl view this as a prism to project all the other culture wars stuff they've been fighting - it's a symbolic flash point. so ppl are confusing all these other commitments they have for this event as tho by fighting this they can work out all the other stuff bothering them

all of this is absolutely correct. the teens are still assholes imo.

also i do think that these sort of "flashpoints" or spectacles do have a way of steering discourse and affecting minds--and not just in the age of social media. activism itself often recognizes the usefulness of certain kinds of spectacle which aren't themselves the concrete stuff of policy or social change, but have symbolic value. so i'm not entirely sure what the advantage of running away from discussing this stuff is. that said, i'm not sure what the advantage of dwelling on it is, either.

Ftr i don't believe in ruining anybody's life over it. I have problems with some (repeat, some) aspects of callout culture, typically when it seeks a punishment greatly in excess of the crime.

it's not the worth energy spent on it except that ppl view this as a prism to project all the other culture wars stuff they've been fighting - it's a symbolic flash point

This is otm through and through. People view things as a prism for projection. It's never not been thus, it's how humanity rolls.

ime with this event ppl on the left are inclined to view it one way, people on the right the opposite, and everyone else is splitting the difference and shrugging their shoulders. similarly with gillette commercial. ppl who were primed to love it loved it, ppl primed to hate it hated it. ppl not primed one way or the other had a more complicated take (some good, some bad, or just agnosticism). i don't see that these things move the needle and when they do it's just as likely to create opposite and equal reactions.

well it's that and copout ego trips xp

It is kinda funny though that as soon as the student sympathizers find a video they feel paints them in a better light, it's now the COMPLETE IREFFUTABLE VIDEO, and not a vid that leaves many of the students offscreen, inaudible, and us rife with awkward camera angles.

i don't see that these things move the needle

which things? some do, some don't. maybe not this one.

otm, ego trips underrated imo xxp

Fair points, Neanderthal.