PUBLISHED TO
One report from the local Fox station says, “The young man's intent is unclear.”
It isn’t unclear. We know this face. The intent of that cold stare and hard smile are obvious: to intimidate, dismay, mock, disrupt, and disturb an old man. That face has been a useful tool of the people who seek to cause fear to those whom they dislike. In the particulars of prior versions, this is the face of the people who screamed at the schoolchildren in Little Rock. This is the face of the louts who dumped sodas on the people at the lunch counter in Greensboro. This is the face of Lawrence Rainey and Cecil Ray Price on trial for murder.
The boys watching this young man understand the intent. They surround this man, mock him, and do all they can to frighten him. They’re enjoying a moment of thrilling fearless cruelty. It goes on and on.
This never went away. It was never expunged from the culture. These boys are its proud heirs, and they know it.
Covington Catholic High School’s motto is Building Minds. Living Faith. Their phones and social media are offline for the moment as the school leaders handle the embarrassment of a seeming breach, or perhaps an equally embarrassing convergence, between this spontaneous behavior by their own, and their “over-riding mission...to assist parents and families in forming a Catholic identity within the students that God has entrusted to us.”
The particulars this time aren’t as important as the pattern over time. Covington would profit from taking a history lesson instead of being one.
Look at this picture. We know this face.
About Those Punks from Covington Catholic High School.
Covington Catholic High School and the Diocese of Covington apologized to the man in the video, identified as Vietnam veteran and Native American elder Nathan Phillips, and said they will take appropriate action, which could include expulsion.This is a possibility, but it will not be easy to expel the punks involved in this shocking incident. The local news is reporting Tweets from other so called catholics that they didn’t see anything wrong in the video. The students “appear to be enjoying” the music.
Right.
So expect a lot of pushback that this will violate those kids “freedom of speech.”
And you can bet their parents will argue this. In fact, I am counting on this. Why?
Because I taught in a catholic boys school in KY, and we had similar racial incidents that did not result in expulsions.
The school I taught at was diversifying, which I think is a good thing. Many of the new students were black and not from the local neighborhoods. Besides shoving Confederate flags in the black students face and yelling the South will rise again, we had several of the white students use the N word.
Only the worst offenders were ever expelled, and I think it was no more than two students who were expelled. This is because catholic schools can not really afford to throw too many students out. As with other private schools, catholic schools have priced themselves where they cater to upper middle class or wealthy parents.
It cost $13,000 dollars a year to go to the school I taught at. And we were not the most expensive either. Not like there are a lot of catholic parents who can afford to throw that kind of money around.
I predict maybe one or two students will be expelled. No more than that. Otherwise, I expect the archdiocese to ride this out.
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