Essay Sample on Nathan Phillips and His Unprovoked Aggressive Antics

Introduction

Everyone has said their piece about Nathan Phillips and his unprovoked aggressive antics and also about the unexpected behavior that Covington Catholic students emulated, but almost no one wants to address the other group of haters here. The black Hebrew Israelites men pointing fingers and spewing hate speech at the white teenagers are the very definition of hypocrisy. Unfortunately, if one is a white American in this day and age, one does not have to say or do anything to become the target of hate. The black Israelites were shouting and aggressively taunting a group of children who were waiting for a bus, not bothering anyone. Actually, the intervention of Nathan Phillips in a bid to calm the tense situation between the students and the black Israelites was initially sparked by the black Israelites. In as much as they were only four of them, they are the ones who caused the fuss, forcing Nathan to try diffusing the situation. However, Nathan Phillips' involvement brings in a whole topic of settler colonization and racism at a more comprehensive picture. There is an aspect of wonder as to why Nathan did not take his drums to the Black Israelites instead of the students. This clearly shows how the whites are the target of hate nowadays, catalyzed by the media who report the news without carrying out an in-depth analysis of situations before publishing any of it.

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I chose to further watch more clips on YouTube regarding the incident, one titled "The Truth - Nathan Philips / Covington Catholic Kids" and another clip titled "Tucker: MAGA hat-wearing students smeared by media." The reason as to why I chose these two particular videos was to enable me to see and listen to the other side of the story and having a clear picture of the whole cause for this heat. I did not want to make impaired judgments on any party involved and avoid bias.

Settler colonialism is the type of colonialism that works through the erasure and elimination of indigenous populations with an invasive settler society that, over time develops a distinctive identity and sovereignty. Settler colonialism is showcased in the incident by Nathan Phillips, whom in his interviews is seen to claim that the school students were shouting harsh comments at him, mainly being "Build the wall!" According to the information from the videos I watched, no one point did I come across the part where students shouted those words at him however much the videos had corrupted sound output. Nathan Phillips is seen to claim that the indigenous people have been overlooked and that the whites have in all manners attempted to demean them and disregard them as equals. Nathan further expounds on the aspect of settler colonialism when he mentions on the rights all American citizens are entitled to, namely freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, and freedom of movement; which to him are not being fairly practiced. Nathan's intervention was aimed at diffusing the tense situation between the students and the black Israelites, and at the same time trying to convey the message of peace to all victims. However, the black Israelites tend to think that the whites (Catholic school students) are always favored regardless of situations and they are seen to throw offensive statements at them. The media fails to address the hate portrayed by the Black Israelites and also fail to scrutinize Nathan's causes of intervention hence rendering their news bias. The president's tweet was all I support fully, that "Looking like Nick Sandman and Covington Catholic students were treated unfairly with early judgments proving out to be false- smeared by media. Not good, but making a big comeback. New footage shows that media was wrong about teen's encounter with Native American".