Frankfort, KY – Video Showing Students In ‘MAGA’ Hats Mock Native American After Rally Goes Viral

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    Frankfort, KY – A diocese in Kentucky apologized Saturday after videos emerged showing students from a Catholic boys’ high school mocking Native Americans outside the Lincoln Memorial after a rally in Washington.

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    The Indigenous Peoples March in Washington on Friday coincided with the March for Life, which drew thousands of anti-abortion protesters, including a group from Covington Catholic High School in Park Hills.

    Videos circulating online show a youth staring at and standing extremely close to Nathan Phillips, a 64-year-old Native American man singing and playing a drum.

    Other students, some wearing Covington clothing and many wearing “Make America Great Again” hats and sweatshirts, surrounded them, chanting, laughing and jeering.

    In a joint statement , the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington and Covington Catholic High School apologized to Phillips. Officials said they are investigating and will take “appropriate action, up to and including expulsion.”

    “We extend our deepest apologies to Mr. Phillips,” the statement read. “This behavior is opposed to the Church’s teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person.”

    According to the “Indian Country Today” website, Phillips is an Omaha elder and Vietnam veteran who holds an annual ceremony honoring Native American veterans at Arlington National Cemetery.

    Phillips told The Washington Post that the students and other apparent participants from the nearby March for Life rally were taunting the dispersing indigenous crowd. He said things were “getting ugly” and he tried to walk to the Lincoln Memorial to finish his song when the youth stood in front of him, blocking his path.

    “When I was there singing, I heard them saying ‘Build that wall, build that wall,'” Phillips said, as he wiped away tears in a video posted on Instagram. “This is indigenous lands. We’re not supposed to have walls here. We never did.”

    He told the newspaper that while he was drumming, he thought about his wife, Shoshana, who died of bone marrow cancer nearly four years ago, and the threats that indigenous communities around the world are facing.

    “I felt like the spirit was talking through me,” Phillips said.

    State Rep. Ruth Buffalo, a North Dakota state lawmaker and member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, said she was saddened to see students showing disrespect to an elder who is also a U.S. military veteran at what was supposed to be a celebration of all cultures.

    “The behavior shown in that video is just a snapshot of what indigenous people have faced and are continuing to face,” Buffalo said.

    She said she hoped it would lead to some kind of meeting with the students to provide education on issues facing Native Americans.

    The videos prompted a torrent of outrage online. Actress and activist Alyssa Milano tweeted that the footage “brought me to tears,” while actor Chris Evans tweeted that the students’ actions were “appalling” and “shameful.”

    U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland, D-New Mexico, who is a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and had been at the rally earlier in the day, used Twitter to sharply criticize what she called a “heartbreaking” display of “blatant hate, disrespect, and intolerance.”

    Haaland, who is also Catholic, told The Associated Press she was particularly saddened to see the boys mocking an elder, who is revered in Native American culture. She placed some of the blame on President Donald Trump, who has used Indian names like Pocahontas as an insult.

    “It is sad that we have a president who uses Native American women’s names as racial slurs and that’s an example that these kids are clearly following considering the fact that they had their ‘Make America Great Again’ hats on,” Haaland said. “He’s really brought out the worst in people.”


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    26 Comments
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    ayinglefunadorf
    ayinglefunadorf
    5 years ago

    HITLER JUGEND

    hashomer
    hashomer
    5 years ago

    Yes these MAGA hat wearing catholic school boys surrounded these American Indian Elders who had just come from a ceremony at Arlington Cemetery to harass and insult them. Typical of MAGA fascism and racism. Typical of catholic church in USA. The diocese just apologized. They were sorry no Indians were killed or forcibly converted. FEH on MAGA RACISM.

    fat36
    fat36
    5 years ago

    The new America. schools producing younger brainless students thinking on your own does not exist anymore teaching Them just to follow the herd. It’s like flies flying into a fly zapper the light Attracts you fly into it

    Vvvvv
    Vvvvv
    5 years ago

    Naturally the fake news liberal press thinks this is terribly important, while they ignore all the anti semitism coming from the Democrats and their newly elected pos politicians.,,,what hypocrites liberals are,

    hashomer
    hashomer
    5 years ago

    Official 2016 US Census counted total 15 million self-identified US Citizens as American Indian, Alaska Native or Mixed Race Native American Indian. There were 6 million Jews counted in that Census. How many will be counted in 2020 Census, unless GOP represses the count for insidious political reasons? Look it up…

    adar29
    adar29
    5 years ago

    Actually the native American guy is shoving the drum in the kid’s face. Whatdid you wanted him to do?

    AmYisroel
    AmYisroel
    5 years ago

    More fake news lies by the leftist lying media
    The boys didn’t surround the Indian drummer he came into their circle drumming away and others attacked the students calling them faggot and whites go back to Europe

    PaulinSaudi
    PaulinSaudi
    5 years ago

    Seems there are two sides to this story. It is wonderful to have so much video of all this.

    ayinglefunadorf
    ayinglefunadorf
    5 years ago

    The White Neo-Nazis MAGA Hitler Jugend started up with cursing JEWS before attacking the Indian. Read the whole story. There are more tapes.

    ayinglefunadorf
    ayinglefunadorf
    5 years ago

    Waiting to see what Trump will say about the MAGA Nazis attacking American Jews and American Indians. The Church and the School already apologized and will investigate and expel them. Will Trump call them “FIne People on both sides” again. Will he allow the Feds to press charges against them? Lets wait and see.

    5 years ago

    To “KD-#11”- Someone should write the curator of the Ronald Reagan Presidential library, about the Indian Citizenship Act ( signed by President Coolidge on June 2, 1924), which granted all Native American Indians, citizenship. Yet, in a speech in the early 1980’s, Reagan (who was no intellectual), had the stupidity to state, “The Indians should leave their reservations, and become citizens”. It was probably one of the dumbest statements, which he made during his presidency.