I lived in the Cincinnati area 17 years. This article is accurate. Good job.

Cole, your version of events is inherently wrong. I'll assume you haven't seen the full video, because not, you're outright lying about the contents.

Philips - just like the BHI guys - was attending to spark a violent resection. "Where were the adults?" Some people have asked. Philips was the adult, what business did he have banging a drum inches from a teenagers face? Sure, these kids trolled the fuck out of him, but honestly he deserved it. He stepped up to the plate and is no crying that people reacted negatively. I'd these kids were wearing AOC hats we'd be celebrating them for chanting back against the BHI guys and for showing composure against Phillips' attempt to incite violence.

Let's go ahead and say right and wrong actions shouldn't solely be determined by the hat one is wearing. If you think otherwise, you are wrong.

I'm saddened that you think so little of the students at this school and of your hometown. You may feel enlightened, but you are so mistaken about this incident. The amount of class and restraint these boys showed in the face of adults screaming obscenities and getting in their faces is admirable, and I think it only comes from the upbringing and community they came from. A "smug look" (which is in the eyes of the beholder) and a red hat with letters you don't like do not determine fear or intent or whatever you attributed to these boys. You appear uneducated about the facts and full of your own insecurities and issues about your past and your place in this world. I will continue to pray for those like you to see reality. I would share this article to debunk you on my own social media and among my Catholic community (very near Kentucky), but I refuse to give you any free publicity. God bless.

In my view, David Cole here is expanding the conversation beyond what happened (or didn't happen) in Washington D.C. on Saturday and gives us a look into his own journey from an insular upbringing, to diversity, back to a (surprising) insularity in Seattle, then landing in Bremerton. I have now read and seen more about the confrontation and have a better understanding (perhaps still incomplete), but have to say that "smirk" is a description that resonated with me. There is a way to smile in an attempt to deescalate (as Sandmann says he was doing) but that is not what I see in these photos. Yes, a snapshot does not a full movie make, but I like this attempt by David Cole to ask some deeper questions.

This post is null and void and succeeded by Katie's post.

Leave these nice Catholic boys alone.

*superseded

How does an article like this even get "published" (Oh yeah, it's TS)? It reads like an Onion satire on sjws, and the kind of work you see from a site that's given up. They were "bussed" to Washington? lol

I'm sorry @10, there is such a thing as a national-level societal expression, AKA "culture." And it's not the same as a moral absolute, far from it. It's what makes us Americans, versus any other thing. That has both meaning and significance. I'm pretty sure that micro variations in American culture are what we're discussing/arguing about. So on the individual level you may be correct, but on the "my country" level, you are wrong.

Oh, and for what it's worth, there are micro variations in American Catholic culture too. I recognize the portrait that this article paints, and it was very interesting to read about and very pertinent to the Washington event in question. But what the author describes is a lot more toxic than the Catholic school culture I come from.

A description of class privilege in Kentucky, Welcome.

"Discipline at home was meted out at the end of a leather belt, especially when I was struggling in school due to an undiagnosed autism spectrum disorder and related issues of anxiety and depression."

Well, if ya cain't Beat it outta 'em, you're obviously a major Failure, as a parent.

As a child, I used to get beat* to death, weekly, if not more often,
and it (obviously!) didn't do ME any harm!

"Spare the Rod, Spoil the damn child!" is what Dad always usta say,
whilst he was warmin' up whatever Implement was within easy reach.

And, by GAWD, he was Right!

*which I DESERVED

I admit that, as a graduate of U.K. in Lexington, I had a frat boy image of Cov Cath. However, when I did more investigation by reading & watching video footage which showed a span of time before the “confrontation” between Sandmann & Phillips - & which spanned more of the crowd, I was more apt to believe Sandmann’s version. There is NO WAY that Mr Phillips thought that the Black Hebrews were at risk of being harmed by the young white rich boys from northern KY....

@16 and yet affluent, well-connected young white men are perfectly capable of harm, and tend FAR more frequently to be given easy penalties or no consequences at all for disproportionately serious crimes, while less affluent, nonwhite groups often receive harsher sentences or are charged as adults when minors for equivalent or comparatively lesser crimes. There are enough people who have not survived their encounters with smirking young white men who speak eloquently to authority and are given the benefit of the doubt as pillars of their communities. There are too many.

I don't think Mr. Phillips needed to think that the BHI were going to be harmed to step between them when he saw things escalating. But it would be irresponsible not to recognize the power dynamic in this country that favors the narrative of young white men. White supremacists are a hate group, and the BHI are a hate group, but any theoretical altercation between 50-100 MAGA teens and about 5 BHI would have come out much worse for the latter. Even if the teens visibly started it. We can't ignore that.

So you were picked last on the playground in grade school and you never got over it. Ease up on the hate dude.

Covington High School had to cancel classes and actives today because of threats.

I trust all you bone-headed vigilantes will delight in this news.

@20 if you want anything other than aggressive, controlling narcissism from Mr. sausage, you'll find it's like squeezing blood from a stone. He's like David Duke without the charisma

Look how divided this issue is - further dividing all of us. My 2 cents is that this punk could have simply stepped out of the way. Regardless of political or cultural differences, he was rude to an older person who had every right to walk on, and who did not say one word to him.