One of the more burning images from last Friday (January 18, 2019) was a video of Nick Sandmann adorned with a Make America Great Again (MAGA) cap and classmates from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky standing around a Native American named Nathan Philips at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. Philips was praying with ceremonial drumming, while the students laughed, clapped along, cheered, and horse played. Some of the students even appear to have made tomahawk gestures.
What generated all the controversy was a video tweet from @2020fight with the caption “This MAGA loser gleefully bothering a Native American protester at the Indigenous Peoples March.” Come to find out 48 hours later there was a lot more spin and hype to the tweet than reality. The tweet actually stretched credulity beyond the breaking point. (Fact of the matter is the Covington students were there to attend the March for Life rally, and Philips was attending a Native American rally which had concluded.) CNN subsequently reported that @2020fight was suspended on Twitter as a fake and misleading account.
But what comes to my mind in grappling with the whole situation is the word quagmire. Just what in the world was going on?
Articles from The New York Times and USA Today indicated another video surfaced revealing a third group of Black Hebrew Israelites shouting out their beliefs to the crowds. To Native Americans, one the Hebrew Israelite shouted, “You are the children of Israel. Before you started worshiping totem poles, you was worshiping the true living God!” and “This is the reason why this land was taken from you, because you worshiped everything except the Most High!” Turning attention to those gathering for the March for Life rally, which included the Covington students, another Hebrew Israelite’s shouted, “That’s Make American Great Again, a bunch of child molesting faggots, just like your damn Donald Trump!” Whites in the crowd were also referred to as “dirty ass crackers.”
Black Hebrew Israelites emerged in the early twentieth century. The earliest known preachers of this cultic movement were William Saunders Crowley (1847-1908) and Prophet Frank S. Cherry (?-1965). A common belief held by Hebrew Israelites is that Black people are the literal descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel and that White people are evil, cursed, wicked, and unrighteous. They believe that salvation comes by perfect adherence to the law, which includes the proper pronunciation of names. The Lord is then referred to with sort of Hebraic kind of twist. Instead of Jesus, they say, “Yahushua” and instead of God, they say, “Yahweh.” (To find out more about Black Hebrew Israelites see “The Origin and Insufficiency of the Black Hebrew Israelite Movement” by Jimmy Butts. Listen also to the Hank Unplugged podcast with Vocab Malone).
As the Hebrew Israelites were carrying on with their hate speech, the Covington students countered with their own school cheer. Was this counter a wise move? Did the chaperons who gave the ok to the students make the right call? Philips believing the situation was coming to a “boiling point” approached the students with ceremonial drumming and prayers. Other Native American drummers accompanied in a procession. Could it be that the Native American activist defused a volatile situation which was about to explode?
The image of Sandmann standing face to face with Philips has drawn many interpretations from observers, many of them quite negative, but just what was going on? Was Sandmann smirking or being disrespectful? Just what could the boy have done to turn the situation into something positive? Regarding the incident, Sandmann said, “I did smile at one point because I wanted him to know that I was not going to become angry, intimidated or be provoked into a larger confrontation,” and “I am a faithful Christian and practicing Catholic, and I always try to live up to the ideals my faith teaches me — to remain respectful of others, and to take no action that would lead to conflict or violence.” Certainly, one can give the young man the benefit of the doubt. Is this granting the guy favors or privileges non-white folks are denied? I pray that everyone would get the benefit of the doubt when they need it the most.
But, what about the wearing of the MAGA cap? Would that not be to some an emotional trigger given what some perceive it has come to symbolize? I can see why for even I got visceral reactions to the news of some of the things Trump said and did in the past. Rod Dreher puts it well: “Though Donald Trump won the presidency in part with the strong support of Catholics and Evangelicals, the idea that someone as robustly vulgar, fiercely combative, and morally compromised as Trump will be an avatar for the restoration of Christian morality and social unity is beyond delusional.”1
The fact that Sandmann was donning the MAGA cap never really means the boy would condone any of Trump’s vulgarities. Yet, Trump is a pro-life supporter, and how could one not expect to see folks donning them at a pro-life rally? Even conservative voters, while not condoning any of Trump’s vulgarities, still saw it fit to cast the ballot for the Republican, since they saw the candidate as advancing policies that advance the common good.
In my humble opinion, donning a MAGA cap and being supportive the policies associated of the Trump administration hardly makes one a hater of any sort. While I do not sport a MAGA cap myself, I would never rush to judge someone who does.
The whole situation at the March for Life rally with Philips, Sandmann, and the Black Hebrew Israelites was a quagmire. There is lots of misinformation about the incident circulating on social media, and far too many have quickly jumped to conclusions without consideration of all the evidence. The wisdom of Solomon is apropos: “The one who states his case first seems right, | until the other comes and examines him” (Prov. 18:17, ESV).
~ WGN
1. Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation (New York: Sentinel, 2017), 79.
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