The Covington Catholic Story is Another Example of our Crumbling Society

By now, everyone has an opinion about Native American Nathan Phillips and his encounter with a few dozen students from the all boys Covington Catholic school in Kentucky. If you’ve seen the extended footage and are active on twitter, then you know that this story has been massively over reported and has completely taken on a life of its own.

And once again, the story comes off like a volleyball game with two sides hitting the ball back at one another. The Covington story is simply another example of our tribalism. This country is at a place where one side (of two) is ready, willing and basically frothing at the mouth to defend a minority no matter what actually happened while the other side will stand up for anything or anyone that seems even remotely traditional (insert your own interpretation of traditional). Don’t forget, there’s only two sides here! No room for objectivity!

Once it was clear that the Catholic boys did not surround Phillips and that instead, Phillips marched in between the boys and five or so black Hebrew Israelites (I honestly never heard of that religion. Group? I don’t even know) to try to calm the situation down, conservatives on twitter first apologized for jumping to conclusions and then went all the way to the other side of the volleyball court. People I respect on twitter from the right praised the boys for showing “restraint” and acted exactly how they would want their son to act in that situation. Some took it a step further and tied it to Jesus. Holy smokes, it was thick. Some even decided to attack Nathan Phillips. The National Review had a piece calling Nathan Phillips a liar for example.

And of course, we cannot forget to condemn the media. Don’t get me wrong, the media blew it again. But the media shows us what we want. Somewhere in time, America decided that a story about some white kids supposedly harassing a Native American Vietnam Veteran was a national story. So CNN is going to give that to you. For hours. And hours. And more hours. And you watch. And you retweet the stories. And the videos. And you slap your opinion all over social media. And then somebody’s life changes forever.

Unfortunately however, we learned exactly zero lessons about sensationalizing non-stories from the Phillips/Covington reveal because everybody has retreated to their side of the volleyball net and continue to sensationally defend their team with utmost conviction. The story is several days old now and has made it through it’s first weekend but twitter is still abuzz with the typical narratives. [Yep, I’m writing about it here so I am guilty too.]

The “left’s” position has evolved into unverified stories about Covington’s treatment of minority students in the past and the Catholic Church’s historical treatment of Native Americans. The “right” is now speaking about how proud they are that these alter boys showed restraint – but what does that mean? That they didn’t beat up Phillips or fight the Israelites ? I don’t know.

Just briefly about the right’s position here before I talk about the left, those kids did not deserve the attention nor the treatment they got from the media. But please, the Covington kids were most certainly not behaving how I would want my sons to behave. The school chants on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial? The kid taking his shirt off and riling up his fellow students? The war chants to the beat of Phillips’s drum? None of this behavior necessarily requires punishment [where the heck were the teachers throughout this ordeal]. But praise? Hmmmm, I don’t think so.

To laud the Covington kids’ behavior on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, one must still subscribe to the age old mantra, “Boys will be boys.” In fact, I saw plenty of tweets describing their behavior as very typical of teenage boys. Those tweets are right! I am sure I acted this way at times when I was a teenager.

That’s not the point though. Society as a whole is trying to curb that sort of behavior. Despite being on the lighter side of the “bad behavior scale,” we as parents, educators and role models should not want a large mob of loud teenage boys to behave this way. Certainly not in public. Certainly not in Washington D.C. Certainly not on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Certainly not at the Right to Life March.  And certainly not while representing a Catholic school from Kentucky in our nation’s capital.

For example, the House Representative for Convington’s District, Thomas Massie, a guy I like and respect, has tweeted, “the honorable and tolerant students of Convington . . . .” and “the parents and mentors of these boys should be proud, not ashamed, of their kids’ behavior.” Do not praise these kids for their behavior Congressman. Their behavior was none of those superlatives. We must teach our children to do more than the minimum and to always be their best selves. We have to do better and this unfortunate scene is the perfect opportunity and as adults, we must teach young people about the mistakes that are made so that future generations avoid making them in the future.

Ok, so the left. Where to start? Fuck off. How about that. A few years ago while Obama was still President, I vividly recall reading tweets, blogs and even some articles that basically tied all white people to one another as one humongous group. I was worried at that time that America, especially from the left, was heading in a direction where white people were going to be grouped entirely with one another regardless of our political leanings, our geography, our charitable work and anything else that separates us. I would fall into the same category as the meth addict from Ohio despite being a progressive conservative (yes that’s a thing and if it’s not it still is because that’s me) attorney from California. And if the left continued this trend so that it became a real, tangible thing in the U.S., we would naturally see results like what we’ve seen here with Covington – just more of them.

And it’s racist as hell. I suppose there’s many people who don’t believe that whites can be victims of racism, but it’s true and it happens all the time. I experienced it first hand during my four years in the Marine Corps (I refuse to digress here and will save for another blog post) and that’s what happened to the Covington kids. I saw the meme of Nick Sandmann being compared to Brett Kavanaugh. I mean, the comparison couldn’t be more spot on. Sandmann is white and Catholic and so is Kavanaugh. They must be the same exact person, right? This is sarcasm FYI. So if Kavanaugh and Sandmann are both white AND the same religion and Kavanaugh might have sexually assaulted some women, then Sandmann must . . . . .what exactly? Be a bad kid? Have had bad intentions when standing their in front of Phillips? Help me understand, because my two sons are white and I want help navigating this world that the loud twitter accounts of the left have created for us to live in.

I want my two sons to grow up with nothing but love in their hearts for every person of all races, genders, sexual orientations and country’s of origin. I want my two sons to be charitable and selfless. I want them to succeed first, but then use their success to lift up others. I want to teach my children to be all of these things. I am a well-intentioned father. I am also a father who is afraid of what this country is going to look like when my four year old and my one year old are teenagers if this trend continues.

Now I am sure that someone who reads this (assuming anyone reads this) will say, “Now you know how minorities feel.” First of all, I already know – at least to the extent that a white male is allowed to claim to know. Secondly, there are white people like myself and so many others who fight for equal treatment in this country through charities, non-profits, policy reform and other means. Treating white people as “one and the same” as a form of payback for years of unfairness is not going to help advance minority causes. We need to build more people up, not tear more people down. Together. And I want to be motivated to do more building than destroying.

At the end of the day, I’m just a dad with two sons who were born white in the twenty-first century. Had they been born 125 years earlier, they would not have been so fortunate. Mikey and Joey would have been unwanted minorities, coming over on a boat from Sicily to Ellis Island like my Great-Grandfather Joseph Licari. Treated like second class people. That’s not the case in 2019 though. They are white as can be and they are privileged. But they are going to do great things for a lot of marginalized people. I know my wife and I will be sure to try and instill values and virtue that motivate them to live a life of service to others. I am afraid, however, that my son or sons will one day be doing something similar to Nathan Sandmann – standing still, saying nothing in a tense setting and have their lives upended by the twitter mob or the media. Whichever comes for them first.

Let’s do better. Together. Don’t choose a side. Don’t think in binary terms. The Convington story is a teachable moment if we allow it to be. Or we can retreat to each of our sides of the volleyball court and continue playing this silly game even though we are the adults. I’m talking to all of us.