Omaha Tribe Elder and Others - disrepect at National Mall

[David CO]

9 hours ago, WisconsinMomma said:

The students' school is closed today

So from the student point of view, it's all's well that ends well.

[perdidochas]

On 1/20/2019 at 10:18 AM, RememberSchiff said:

Might be kind for Scouts to send notes of appreciation  to Elder Nathan Philips.  Let him know those youth are not representative of  American youth. 

https://www.omaha.com/news/nebraska/omaha-tribe-member-in-spotlight-in-face-of-taunting-teens/article_475ee455-cf4c-510a-a9a1-2d29b25eb0f2.html

My $0.02

 

Don't think so.  I think the story is that Phillips was the disrespectful one.  

[walk in the woods]

And now there are reports that Philips and others attempted to disrupt a Catholic Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.  https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/nathan-phillips-rally-attempted-to-disrupt-mass-at-dcs-national-shrine-91038

[ianwilkins]

26 minutes ago, perdidochas said:

Don't think so.  I think the story is that Phillips was the disrespectful one.  

I think the story is...thinks are never quite as simple as they first appear. 

It's one of the more dispiriting things I find about modern life, that there are people whose first reaction to those disagreeing with them is to issue a death threat. What's that about? [shakes head sadly]

If only Bill and Ted's "Be Excellent to Each Other" had really become a worldwide mantra.

 

[MattR]

10 minutes ago, ianwilkins said:

It's one of the more dispiriting things I find about modern life, that there are people whose first reaction to those disagreeing with them is to issue a death threat. What's that about? [shakes head sadly]

I'm not sure people have changed so much as the technology has made "think first, open mouth second" harder to do. Remember the old days when we had editors for newspapers? Now it's a bunch of kids/folks with cell phones posting on social media and the news media playing catch up.

There is a lesson in here for our scouts. Those two stars on the scout badge mean something important.

[RememberSchiff]

1 hour ago, MattR said:

Remember the old days when we had editors for newspapers?

Yeah, DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.   

I have looked at the videos over and over and  I still arrive at what is apparently the wrong conclusion.  

Edited January 24, 2019 by RememberSchiff

[NJCubScouter]

On 1/20/2019 at 10:00 PM, Oldscout448 said:

... they think they are jews although they seem to mostly from Jamaica   Lost tribes maybe?)

Black Hebrew Israelites (aka Black Hebrews, African Hebrew Israelites, and Hebrew Israelites) do not think they are Jews.  They think they are descendants of the Hebrews and Israelites of the Bible. Some apparently believe that they are the ONLY descendants of the Biblical people, and that the Jews of today are not.  Some of them are hate groups, some are not.  Obviously this group that was involved in this incident is a hate group.

[NJCubScouter]

On 1/22/2019 at 9:31 AM, Eagledad said:

I will say that I have felt hostility toward white and religious people from members on this forum.

Hostility toward white people in this forum?  I have never seen it. It has always been my assumption that the vast majority of members of this forum are "white."  (I am using the broad definition of "white" here.) That is partly based on the fact that to my knowledge, ALL of the people who have chosen to have a photo of themselves as their avatar appear to be white.  I am not sure that anyone has ever identified themselves as being other than "white," with the possible exception of The Latin Scot who has identified himself as Latino (which doesn't necessarily mean he isn't or is "white") and I believe there was someone a ways back who identified himself as at least partly Native American.  So just who do you think is being hostile toward white people.

As for religious people, I have seen far more hostility toward NON-religious people than religious people in this forum.

[Sentinel947]

There's hostility on every forum. Towards every conceivable demographic and category. This forum is very civil and polite vs most forums that I've been on. There are a few members that like to stir up hostilities, but thankfully they aren't regular contributors.

Now I'm on my soapbox, so feel free to just skip the rest of my post. There has always been In group- out group status in people. The last couple decades have really stirred up "identity politics." This case from DC over the weekend is just the next chapter. The initial report was reported as a cut and dry case of racism, and harassment. When I first saw the first articles and the pictures, that's really what it looked like. As others involved made their statements and more videos turned up, the situation became much more murky and hard to define. Both sides of the political spectrum have taken the situation and blown it up as a chance to rally the wagons and stir up people's passions.

There are folks dredging up stories from former alumni with axes to grind to try to paint the whole school as racist. Taking pictures from a basketball game as a sign of racism. Bomb threats against the school. There are celebrities and journalists who either don't like the Pro-Life movement or don't like white people, or don't like Trump, or got triggered by the boys expression. Lawsuits are definitely going to be filed by Mr. Sandmann and his family. On the right wing all sorts of stuff is coming out about Mr. Phillips and his legal record, his background, his military service. I'm seeing articles about "How the media and the liberals are out to destroy the Catholic Church."  It's all a chance to again, rally the wagons, us vs them. Hate "the other" and donate lots of money to the "team." We all have to take a side, or we're racist conservatives, or evil communists. Even the President of the United States is commenting on a public situation that decades ago would never have been reported on. 20 years ago, before social media, this maybe wouldn't have even been written about in local DC papers let alone international news media. Mr. Phillips shouldn't have entered the group of teenagers. The teenagers shouldn't have been jumped, whooped and made hand chopping motions at Mr. Phillips and his group. The Black Israelite's were maybe the worst offenders of the whole thing, shouting some pretty terrible stuff at the students and the Native American group but in particular one of the students who is African American. 

Part of this falls on the impact of media organizations rushing to publish "scoops" before cross interviewing, verifying information. For them it's just about making money, and outrage sells. Then there are social media networks, which are held to an even lower standard of journalistic integrity, where most things posted are basically made up. Add in celebrities and politicians who see stuff that is useful to them, and then crap is out in the public discourse, making everybody angry and lowering all of our IQ's in the process. I don't really know how much longer society can continue with this constant outrage, the hate and the counter hate. It's not about disagreement anymore, it's about destroying an "enemy". It's not about understanding the other, its about scoring points. It's about flashing our partisan bona-fides so we fit in to our in group. Societal politics have become blood-sport, and we're all going to be less happy, less safe and less prosperous for it. A ship that sinks takes with it all of it's passengers. Or maybe I'm just a pessimist and need to spend less time on the internet. 

Relating it all back to Scouting. Scouting is part of the antidote to some of this. Scouting's values of brotherhood and friendship to all is even more necessary today than it has been in many decades. 

 

[WAKWIB]

This whole affair could be made into a very frightening episode of "The Twilight Zone."  

[Saltface]

8 hours ago, WAKWIB said:

This whole affair could be made into a very frightening episode of "The Twilight Zone."  

Indeed. Imagine trying to explain the whole affair to someone who just got back from a two week camping trip and didn't see the story evolve in real-time. 

[FireStone]

I'm constantly amazed that in this day and age of having a computer with a built-in video camera in the pocket of so many Americans, complete with the ability to actually EDIT those videos immediately after they're shot, that the media takes any video immediately at face value. Even when this technology was accessible in the home, the learning curve still made it prohibitive for most average folks to use it. But on a phone? Clipping a video, cutting out what you don't want people to see if it hurts the angle you're trying to show, it's easy.

Take the tech phenomenon and pair that with the mad rush to get things published, posted, and on-air one millisecond before your competing news organization, and you get the predicament we're in today. Sloppy reporting, rush to judgement, irreparable damage done to reputations based on a minute of editing in a phone.

The media is so sloppy. There was a screenshot of a text message that was going around with this video that was a supposed eye-witness account to back up what the video was trying to show, with the boy as the aggressor. But the supposedly "received" text message showed in the screenshot as a "sent" message. It was faked just to further the fake story. And yet the media runs with it. They won't take 2 seconds to look at something and think about whether it even seems legit. Modern journalism is "shoot first, ask questions later, maybe."

[Sentinel947]

Private Investigation firm hired by the Diocese of Covington released their report today. https://www.yahoo.com/news/report-covington-high-school-incident-225252440.html