Blame it On the Weather
The phone rang at the crack of dawn. School canceled again, due to weather. T is thrilled. I am also happy....but this weather has me in such a funk. Or maybe it is just the state of the world.
I've been reading everything I can get my hands on about the Covington students and their run in with the Omaha Elder. At first, I was horrified. Then...it looked as if there might be more to it, going in a different direction. And then...I realized that I was being played. The whole thing has me in a hard funk.
From what I can discern, this is what actually happened. It begins at the March for Life. A group of teenaged boys from an all male Catholic High School are milling around. They encounter a female and begin to shout jeers at her, referring to her as a "slut." This is on tape. It is not doctored.
Where are their chaperones? Why was this allowed?
Then, the boys are waiting for their bus to take them home. A group of Black Hebrew Israelite men begin to jeer at them. For some idiotic reason, someone decides to allow the boys to engage with these creeps by shouting "school cheers" back at them.
This is where it comes up again. Where in the hell were the chaperones and WHY did they approve of this? I think that if I were chaperoning and saw the children whom I was in charge of being verbally attacked, my first response would be to PROTECT them and get them away from the perpetrators.
Instead, it escalates into a screamathon with one boy whipping off his shirt and dancing wildly.
A Native American group notices the squirmish and decides to try to defray the situation by doing a calming drum chant between the two groups.
This seems to be a poor decision, however I will allow it since it seems that the chaperones were nowhere in sight and doing virtually nothing to try to diffuse the situation.
And then we come to what I can only call the smirkfaced kid. Standing in front of the Native American, holding his ground, probably posturing for his friends. This is the part where everyone gets to say, "boys will be boys." Except that you don't. I have watched several videos of this and depending on the angle, you get a different story.
And therein lies the rub.
If you are a Trumper, you watch the video and only see kids being kids. Okay, so some of the boys are jeering and making tomahawk chops with their hands. Basically smirkface is not doing anything. Except looking at the Native American like he is beneath him and smiling maliciously.
Oh, wait...sorry. Smirkface is standing in his choirboy outfit and silently praying because he is a good Catholic boy.
There. That fits what you need better, yes?
If you are on the side of the Native American group, you see an elderly man who made a really misguided decision and thought he could diffuse the situation with a calming chant. (And yes, I looked up the chant...it is a chant from the Omaha tribe that is used to bring calm to threatening situations....google it.) You see a group of teenaged boys who are now in a mob situation.
This is NEVER a good thing with teenaged boys. EVER. I have lived with a teacher for nearly 40 years and she has always stressed that boys in a group where things escalate like this can be dangerous, that you need to separate them and speak one-on-one with them.
They begin doing exactly what their tormentors were doing to them. They quickly surround the smaller Native American group and begin mocking and jeering at the drummer.
FINALLY, the previously invisible chaperones show up and begin herding the boys into their bus.
But, now...there is video. And people are angry. How DARE that boy be so disrespectful to his elder? Videos and pictures surface and we are all angry. Honestly? I was not that surprised. I have noticed, with some despair, that the youth of today seem to have no compulsion to treat their elders with respect. And that their parents see no reason to teach this to them. It is disheartening.
Now, this group of boys are, in general, from extremely wealthy families. The smirking boy's mother immediately calls in a very posh, extremely expensive PR firm to handle the situation.
Because this is what the wealthy do. They clean up after their children. And in this case...I am wondering if they had much choice. I mean, this kid was getting death threats.
Death threats.
Everyone, including me, is taking sides.
We all need to take a step back and think logically and pragmatically.
What happened was a series of events where people did not behave with their best selves.
The boys who taunted the girl and called her a slut.
The men who taunted the high school students with cruel jeers.
The high school teenagers who let mob mentality whip them into a frenzy of writhing creepiness or worse....a slow, smug smile showing supremacy over another.
People threatening to burn a SCHOOL down and kill CHILDREN.
People pretending that the teenagers were simply quietly praying and refusing to acknowledge that there was something very wrong with the pictures they were seeing of screaming boys doing tomahawk chops.
We've ALL failed. But, honestly? In truth, I believe that the ones who failed the most were the chaperones. One step in to stop the boys from taunting a girl and calling her a slut. A situation is diffused. Another step in to move the children away from the cruel tauntings of angry men. A situation is diffused.
If they had been doing their job, this would have had a different ending.
Instead, we have a president who steps in without using any sort of logic or intelligence. No. He just craftily gets out that pot stirrer that he keeps readily available and gleefully stirs. And stirs and stirs.
No one learns anything. Everything feels wrong. We are all so angry with each other.
And it never had to happen.
I've been reading everything I can get my hands on about the Covington students and their run in with the Omaha Elder. At first, I was horrified. Then...it looked as if there might be more to it, going in a different direction. And then...I realized that I was being played. The whole thing has me in a hard funk.
From what I can discern, this is what actually happened. It begins at the March for Life. A group of teenaged boys from an all male Catholic High School are milling around. They encounter a female and begin to shout jeers at her, referring to her as a "slut." This is on tape. It is not doctored.
Where are their chaperones? Why was this allowed?
Then, the boys are waiting for their bus to take them home. A group of Black Hebrew Israelite men begin to jeer at them. For some idiotic reason, someone decides to allow the boys to engage with these creeps by shouting "school cheers" back at them.
This is where it comes up again. Where in the hell were the chaperones and WHY did they approve of this? I think that if I were chaperoning and saw the children whom I was in charge of being verbally attacked, my first response would be to PROTECT them and get them away from the perpetrators.
Instead, it escalates into a screamathon with one boy whipping off his shirt and dancing wildly.
A Native American group notices the squirmish and decides to try to defray the situation by doing a calming drum chant between the two groups.
This seems to be a poor decision, however I will allow it since it seems that the chaperones were nowhere in sight and doing virtually nothing to try to diffuse the situation.
And then we come to what I can only call the smirkfaced kid. Standing in front of the Native American, holding his ground, probably posturing for his friends. This is the part where everyone gets to say, "boys will be boys." Except that you don't. I have watched several videos of this and depending on the angle, you get a different story.
And therein lies the rub.
If you are a Trumper, you watch the video and only see kids being kids. Okay, so some of the boys are jeering and making tomahawk chops with their hands. Basically smirkface is not doing anything. Except looking at the Native American like he is beneath him and smiling maliciously.
Oh, wait...sorry. Smirkface is standing in his choirboy outfit and silently praying because he is a good Catholic boy.
There. That fits what you need better, yes?
If you are on the side of the Native American group, you see an elderly man who made a really misguided decision and thought he could diffuse the situation with a calming chant. (And yes, I looked up the chant...it is a chant from the Omaha tribe that is used to bring calm to threatening situations....google it.) You see a group of teenaged boys who are now in a mob situation.
This is NEVER a good thing with teenaged boys. EVER. I have lived with a teacher for nearly 40 years and she has always stressed that boys in a group where things escalate like this can be dangerous, that you need to separate them and speak one-on-one with them.
They begin doing exactly what their tormentors were doing to them. They quickly surround the smaller Native American group and begin mocking and jeering at the drummer.
FINALLY, the previously invisible chaperones show up and begin herding the boys into their bus.
But, now...there is video. And people are angry. How DARE that boy be so disrespectful to his elder? Videos and pictures surface and we are all angry. Honestly? I was not that surprised. I have noticed, with some despair, that the youth of today seem to have no compulsion to treat their elders with respect. And that their parents see no reason to teach this to them. It is disheartening.
Now, this group of boys are, in general, from extremely wealthy families. The smirking boy's mother immediately calls in a very posh, extremely expensive PR firm to handle the situation.
Because this is what the wealthy do. They clean up after their children. And in this case...I am wondering if they had much choice. I mean, this kid was getting death threats.
Death threats.
Everyone, including me, is taking sides.
We all need to take a step back and think logically and pragmatically.
What happened was a series of events where people did not behave with their best selves.
The boys who taunted the girl and called her a slut.
The men who taunted the high school students with cruel jeers.
The high school teenagers who let mob mentality whip them into a frenzy of writhing creepiness or worse....a slow, smug smile showing supremacy over another.
People threatening to burn a SCHOOL down and kill CHILDREN.
People pretending that the teenagers were simply quietly praying and refusing to acknowledge that there was something very wrong with the pictures they were seeing of screaming boys doing tomahawk chops.
We've ALL failed. But, honestly? In truth, I believe that the ones who failed the most were the chaperones. One step in to stop the boys from taunting a girl and calling her a slut. A situation is diffused. Another step in to move the children away from the cruel tauntings of angry men. A situation is diffused.
If they had been doing their job, this would have had a different ending.
Instead, we have a president who steps in without using any sort of logic or intelligence. No. He just craftily gets out that pot stirrer that he keeps readily available and gleefully stirs. And stirs and stirs.
No one learns anything. Everything feels wrong. We are all so angry with each other.
And it never had to happen.
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