No I am not delusional. I am questioning the decision making of the adults who were in charge of this school group. And yes, I do think Phillips version leaves a lot to be desired.
This piece was written by someone who has experience encountering blacks associated with the Black Israelite "movement". I just put that in quotations because I have no real idea what to call them. A religious sect? I don't know. But the things I would like to know now all boil down to why the adults supervising the school group thought it was a good idea to let the boys engage the Black Israelites.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amph...othing-justifies-what-covington-students-did/
I just saw the Today Show interview of Sandmann. He indicated that, in hindsight, he wished his school group had just moved along. In his statement a day or two ago, Sandmann indicated the group of 4 black demonstrators hurled racial insults at them. That's clear from the long version video, which was about an hour and a half in length(?). One guy in particular seems very agitated and seems to be doing most of the yelling at the students. Sandmann stated one student asked a chaparone if the students could drown out the Black protestors with school chants/cheers. And apparently the chaparone said yes.
So, I wonder, why would an adult in that climate decide that it was a good idea for the students to actually engage the black protestors?
Eventually, the students exit the scene. Sandmann stated on the Today interview that he wished they had just moved along to begin with. So why did the chaparones not make the decision to exit the scene in the first place? Even before Phillips showed up. And once the stare down with Phillips commenced, and you've got students yelling, laughing, a few performing the tomahawk chop, where the hell are the adult chaparones at that point?
Maybe it's just too easy for me to say, but if I'm the adult in charge of those boys, and there they all are being taunted and insulted by black protestors, my response is not going to be "sure, guys, go ahead and yell school cheers at the black protestors". In so many words, "sure, guys, let's escalate this thing". I'm pretty sure I'm going to say, "no, guys, c'mon, ignore them, let's just move along".
When I initially "softened" my interpretation of what I was seeing in the short version video, I still indicated that I did not find the boy's behavior "appropriate". I still feel that way. And I do make allowances for the fact that these are kids, juviniles. But they were supervised by adults. I would like to hear more from those adults. I want to know why they decided that it was an appropriate decision to remain on the scene and let the boys engage with a group of obviously agitated Black Israelites. And why those adults did nothing whatsoever when the encounter with Phillips unfolded.