Came across this article from Rewire News today, White-Washing White Supremacy: Media Rushes to Excuse Covington Catholic Students. I'd been seeing this incident all over the place and I decided to actually look into it. Yes, these students were there protesting women's rights to healthcare, because why call it anything else really. They were basically there to protest abortion.
Yes, they've got their Trump water and Make America Great Again clothing (took me for ever to figure out what the hell MAGA meant. I'm not too quick with the anagrams, y'all.) Yes, they are reportedly attended sports games in black face (there is no photo, so I can't say yes or no, as I've not seen it, but I'll take their word for it, which is why I say reportedly). This is not a boys will be boys response, nor am I defending them nor condoning their behaviour. However, it seemed very much to me that they're just ignorant. It doesn't mean they're wrong, but if one doesn't know they are wrong, then how can they know that their actions are wrong and therefor try to correct their way of thinking? They can not. If you live in a hole in the ground and everyone around you thinks the same way and you are taught to think that same way and the history books in your school tell you to think the same way, then how exactly are you going to learn? Having people suddenly shout at you telling you are wrong is a sure way to get them to recoil and only think that they are right. Yes, it's true that they were mocking and disrespectful to Omaha Elder Nathan Phillips and the other people that were near him. However it really didn't look like, for the most part, that they knew what they were doing was so terribly, terribly wrong. Except that one guy pantomiming a blow job, he knew he was being mean. No, it seemed like a bunch of stupid high school boys, enveloped in their folds of white safety that that brought with them from Kentucky and acted accordingly. It's a show and let's jump around and laugh at the fool who is now our entertainment. I didn't say it was right. I never said their actions were right, because they are not. But it honestly seems like they just don't know no better. Which is the travesty. Their parents fueled them with misinformation and all of them will go forth and marry and have tons of babies (because clearly they don't believe in women not having babies) and will keep the misinformation going with those kids they will have one day. I think I'm pretty right in my assumptions, because I have been in that crowd before. Not a crowd of only teen boys, but a crowd of teen kids and the boys acted the same way. To them it was all excitement and fun and it never crossed their minds that they were being disrespectful while themselves acting like fools. There's mama's didn't teach them no better and it's probably because their mamas (and dads) knew no better themselves. It's not the same, because race is not involved, but I do have a story about simply not knowing. I went somewhere with a friend while we were in our twenties. I had a completely different upbringing than her. I was taught that The Civil Rights was all at once horrible and wonderful. Horrible that it was needed and the treatment received by black people, but wonderful because they accomplished things. I was taught that Native Americans were enslaved, murdered (knowingly or unknowingly because at first the Europeans didn't know their diseases were decimated the Indigenous peoples, later they used that evil to their advantage), and everything stolen from them and forced to move out of the way of "progress". A lot of kids that I knew had never heard these things and our history textbooks skipped over anything important like the Indigenous peoples, African slavery, or even The Civil Rights movement. If these events were mentioned they were skimmed or white washed into submission. And according to most people my age, those textbooks have changed little or even at all. I was taught how to be a lady with means, though I was not a lady with means. Gloves and hats were worn with dresses every Sunday. Ladies do not air their dirty laundry in public or expose the skeletons in their closets. They sit with their knees together and their feet crossed at the ankles. Yes ma'am/Yes Sir and No ma'am/No Sir as well as please and thank you were always expected. You did not run in the house or slam doors. You didn't scream and therefor were not screamed at. At a party, you only take small portions onto your plate, only what is respectable enough, and if you still would like more you make go back for more small portions, if the hostess does so or encourages you to do so. You never pile your plate with food nor take more than one plate at a time, which is where our story starts. Well, I could start at the time that we were pre-teens at a wedding shower. We were in attendance with our mothers, of course. My friend piled her plate with food to where it was tottering and made a mess and also sat, in a dress, with her legs open. She simply didn't have the same breeding and manners that I did. She did not know that this was ignorance or impolite behaviour. She was enjoying herself and her mother didn't care, because her mother too had no idea that it wasn't correct. Then my mother corrected her on both counts, "A lady never this and that." and then my friend did not continue to have fun at the party. If she didn't know, she didn't know. She wasn't raised the same way that I was. That information simply wasn't there. To then be told that she was wrong, what good did it do? It was one persons opinion, because though you could tell the other people in attendance found it rude, it was too rude to go and correct her because that is felt to be her mothers job. But if her mother doesn't know then how will she learn? But it didn't go over well and fast forward to the friend and I in our twenties. We went to a party and I placed small portions on my small plate and she piled two little plates full of food. My mothers corrections when she was eleven did no good at all. It's not that the knowledge was bad, I think it was just the way it went about. Perhaps my friend felt that since her mother wasn't correcting her that she, in fact, really didn't do anything wrong to begin with and that my mother was just crazy. My friend had to have me and other people we didn't know help her with her plates of food and she dropped things anyway and picked them back up (which of course you do not do). She'd learned nothing and made the situation of food on plates worse then than it had been when we were younger. I could tell her, inform her, help her. But who would it really help? My friend would be ashamed and embarrassed and probably not heed my words for the future anyways. It was basically too little, too late. She's missed the boat on learning that because no one had taught her mother and probably no one taught her mothers mothers. It is not unlike a child being raised by parents and elders who think or feel a certain way on subjects. You live in your little community of like-minded people and you grow up not bucking the system, because to you there is nothing to buck. These people are being raised in Pleasantville and there are no 90s kids or a radical painter to infiltrate and stir up questions. They are correct. Their parents, teachers, other people in the community are all correct. Everyone in their tiny community is correct, because the community is correct and there's been no one in all that time to raise questions to the contrary. They are not correct and it's sad that they don't know that, but the simple fact is; they don't know that. Then they act the way they always would in their very, very sheltered community and people start screaming at them that they are wrong. It's true they are wrong, but are they going to see that? No. Perhaps one or two might, in time, start questioning how they were raised, but for the most part, they are right and everyone else is wrong. Which seems illogical when a million people could tell you you're wrong, but you'll stick by the thousand that tell you you're right. Why? Because you don't know those million people. They don't know you. You probably feel trapped and threatened, so you retreat back into what you know, which is the safety of your sheltered community and all that they think and feel. Their the minority in this opinion, but does it matter? No, because you know that thousand person minority and everything's always been fine in that group and you'll go back and continue to make it fine. I think this way because for the most part they are just jumping around and hooting and hollaring and having fun. They don't seem to be trying to be mean and evil, they're just being stupid and sillly and sheltered. Then they're told they are wrong, their parents are wrong and that they are imbred. You can see that it's not fun anymore and they no longer feel happy in their freedom. It's not surprise at all to me that after social media outcry they would feel more threatened and then tell the story how they saw it. I don't even think they're spinning lies. When someone doesn't know enough to expand their thoughts and horizons they simply can't see anything other than what they've always seen. To them, and the way they were raised, they did absolutely nothing wrong. Everyone was having a good time and then it was ruined and it's not their fault. So, of course this is what they would say if they can't see the other possibilities that are readily staring them down. Perhaps they don't even want to see it. Perhaps there are a few that do. Who knows. I can't speak for those boys individually, but collectively, that's exactly what it seemed like and psychologically speaking I'm probably right. No one every really likes to take that into account, they just see people as wholly evil and wrong or wholly good and correct, but people and life never work like that. Ever. There are lots of things to take into account when figuring out the biological species that is Human. The grey areas. Only Siths deal in absolutes if Star Wars has taught us anything. If you think that I'm apologizing for, or defending these boys then you've missed the entire point of this entry. What they did was wrong, the point is that I'm 99.9% certain that they don't see it that way, because they have no real guidance to see it any other way than how they were raised. If you think this is a case of boys will be boys, then you, again, have missed the point of this post. My point is that there has to be a better way to educate people versus the very white washed notion that is painted over this entire country. You can't scream at them and tell them they are wrong, because history and time has proven that it is not a technique that works. It's just like a middle school play yard. Your twelve year old self screams at the other twelve year old that they are wrong. They scream at you that you are wrong, you both walk way with your arms folded, pouting, all the while minds have not changed; each of you still believes you are right and the other is wrong. Nothing changed, except you now hate each other where you probably didn't before. I know that the history we teach kids in school should change. But then how does one really go about doing that. They say the conquerors always write history and I believe that to be true, because it's not in our own country that this sort of thing happens. But how does one change the collective mind of this democracy into laying out all of the facts, reviewing them and only editing for time (since you can't learn all of everything in twelve years of schooling)? How do you get that collective to agree to allow all of the facts to be put in any sort of tome? And then who, after all of this time, will readily believe what is typed up in there? That's a lot of years worth of "family" history that would be re-examined and put out there and most would probably think that lies and propoganda were being shoved down their throats. I've tried to tell my parents, who were raised in the 1950s that George Washington didn't have wooden teeth nor is there any evidence that he chopped down a cherry tree and that whole "I can not tell a lie" trope. I've tried to tell them that President Lincoln had Indigenous people slaughtered (ordered Dakota peoples execution), or that "In God We Trust" was never anywhere in our government until the 1950s and the looming threat of Communism threatened the US. Will they believe it? Not on your life. They don't want to hear about it, don't want to read about it, don't want to ponder it even. It's all lies because why? The government wouldn't lie to us, so what we learned is right and true? Or is it that the education in formative years holds a lasting sway over all of us; whether it's country history or family history and ways of thinking? Perhaps those sixty boys could have an education class on what really went down and why their actions were not harmless. But then who would sanction that? Surely the government wouldn't waste time, money, or effort in re-educationg these boys out of their very sheltered lives. They are minors and their parents make all the decisions for them. Do you think that their parents, who are obviously of the same mind-set as their parents and grandparents probably were, would allow their children to come up out of that shelter? To them they'd be being taught that their very right ways are very wrong and well, that's not right at all? They wouldn't want their children to be taught something other than what they all collectively believe, because to them anything other than their thoughts are wrong. I will agree all day that news shouldn't have put a spin on it saying that the boys were faultless and all blame lies with one Indigenous man and five Black man. It's incredible to me that they'd write that up and that people would swallow that. But at the same time, I'm not really all that surprised and am saddened to realize, yet again, that this is the world that I live in. How does one go about instituting "the facts and nothing but the facts, ma'am" when it comes to the news? We're a far cry from that and I'm not sure if we ever were there. Straight stories didn't sell papers and they don't make for good news. It's not flashy or eye catching. My father, who is very conservative and pro-Trump, constantly listens to conservative news radio and Fox News and tells me that everything is a lie except what he listens to and watches. I've noticed that both sides paint a larger picture, in their favour, than what is really there. It takes me forever to discern what's probably true by reading a lot of different write ups from both sides and some that seem more impartial and coming away with the middle line that they all hold, which is more than likely the single grain of truth. I tried to tell him as much, but he won't see it any other way than that what he reads is wholly impartial and everything else is "fake news" and he thinks I'm lying when I research through various types of news sources to find the truth. "Dad, I'll give you a science experiment. For one week, every day find one news story, just one. Read it on Fox News and then go find at least five other sources (liberal leaning and otherwise). See how all of them are leaning in some way or another, ballooning the story out to gain more readers, pointing directly to what that demographic wants to hear, and then find the one thing that connects them all and that's probably the truth. Write down what you find out." I lost him at "read news sources other than Fox News." I thought it was a very good and sound experiment. I know what I'm talking about because this is how I have to read news these days. Which is why something will float around on social media and after so long, if it still piques my interest, then I will go and read up on it. All over the place, multiple types of sources, foreign and domestic. Because in doing this, I think this is the best way to ascertain any true meaning of what's really happening out there and honestly who has time to do this for any little thing that one sees on the internet, which is why it has to still pique my interest for me to pursue it. But how does one go about changing this system? I shouldn't have to research for hours on just one news story simply to get what the news story is really all about; factually and truthfully. That's the job of the informant. They are the ones that are supposed to be doing all the research, finding the truest form of the story, and that is what they report so that I only have to spend five minutes reading this story before moving onto the next. That's how this is supposed to work, so why doesn't it work that way? How does one get it to change? Do we really have to make the human race see that sensationalism isn't in their best interest? The news media and people in that line will tell you that sensationalism is what sells, because readers won't read the news otherwise. Is that really true? Was it always true? Did we, as a people, collectively brainwash ourselves into making that the truth? Can we come back from that, and if so, I honestly want to know how one goes about that? I think overhauling the way the news works and whats written in the textbooks is a good start, though I'm not sure how easy that pill will be for most Americans to swallow, if they'll swallow it at all. It would be the right thing to do, but will it bring about change or just more hate? If this isn't the way to open peoples minds to factual and truthful things from the past into the present, then what is the correct course we should be on for that to happen? How do we take those 60 boys and others like them from their "safe havens" of ignorance and show them how other people see? How do we take other people from their own forms of ignorance and show them how other people see? How do we lay it all bare and expect people to accept it? How do we come together in some form of understanding? How do we work through this to come through the fire and out onto the other side? Of course I don't want this to be some single, bland, brainwashed society, nor do I want us so full of information that we lose all reason and become an extinct race of know it alls off of Star Trek. What's the balance? How do we go about achieving that? I know you can't please all of the people all the time, but this polarity is getting ridiculous. I probably shouldn't even say getting as there seems to have always been some sort of polarity in peoples. To answer my title statement... I wish I knew...
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AuthorA girl from South Mississippi who finds herself in exploration. Archives
November 2019
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