Having now seen more of the video…
Jesus that’s a fucking mob screaming “WALL WALL WALL” at a tiny group of black preachers (who are being jerks) while wearing the modern equivalents of white hoods and mocking a veteran who comes in to try to break it up. Fuck all this nonsense about how it isn’t what it clearly is.
Note that I’m the last person on this board (well, after Huey Freeman) to defend some MAGA-wearing WASC misogynist-in-training dudebro, when I ask : do you give the same credulity to speeches and writing from, say, the Parkland survivors?
If anyone thinks a well off* kids parents are not making their lawyer go over the statement with a fine tooth comb, then that person is delusional.
*The school tuition is over 10,000 USD a year, so they aren’t exactly trailer trash.
Oh, we know that there’s other people involved. That’s not the same as “No 16-year-old wrote that”. That’s just ageist.
Pretty much. From that same Deadspin article:
Last night, the smirking teen, Nick Sandmann, was identified in a statement issued in his name by the publicity firm his parents hired for him, in which he suggested that he was in fact the victim in the situation.
(Bolding mine).
Digging deeper: Covington Catholic video: RunSwitch PR helped Nick Sandmann
Asked about its role, RunSwitch released a statement saying that the firm "has been retained by the Sandmann family to offer professional counsel with what has become a national media story. We are working with the family to ensure an accurate recounting of events which occurred this past weekend.”
So yeah, while a 16-year-old maybe could have written that, we know that this kid’s parents hired a fucking PR firm to run damage control.
Holy fucking shit.
Can you imagine being so fucking privileged that when a picture of you being an asshole goes viral, your parents will hire a PUBLIC RELATIONS AND MARKETING COMPANY to help manage your image. That they not only have the money to be able to afford to hire a PR firm, but are so interested in coddling their brat that they’ll actually fucking do it.
This is how you get Affluenza, kids. This is why this particular strain of bully wins. Personally, I’ve gone from “I hope he gets some actual comeuppance over this” to “I hope he gets castrated with a rusty knife”.
It’s the fact that they’re not trailer trash that is the most unsettling to me. Obviously, they come from influential families who have the money to send them to Washington for a week to engage in a political protest. It’s all well and good that they’re learning the value of political activism, but what are they going to do with that activism now and in the years to come? What are their other values?
I think the MAGA hat he sports gives us a clue. He wasn’t just there to protest abortion; he’s seeking to identify more broadly with white nationalism.
He’ll never get the perspective the rest of us desire, for the reasons you’ve alluded to above. I attended a private religious school in the South with a student body whose backgrounds were probably not much different from the kids from Covington. A lot of the guys there were bullies and they clearly took their cues from their elitist parents. They’d get charged for simple assault/battery, DUI, and other minor stuff, and their parents were constantly bailing their asses out. They went on to university and probably became fraternity president (if alcoholism and drug abuse didn’t force them to drop out, that is) and took over their dad’s business, or worked in one of their friends’ businesses.
None of this is to suggest that they don’t have brains, or that they don’t work hard - they probably did learn to fly straight at some point. But they learned the same kinds of lessons that, say, star athletes at major college football and basketball programs learn: they can be shitheads and there will be someone there to bail them out. They live in the cocoon that is their social and economic status. It’s doubtful these kids will turn out to be anything different than what we see now. And in a way, I kinda get it. Becoming independent of this close-knit social network takes some courage, if that can be believed. It means being a little different, and it’s just easier to go along with the conventions and behavioral norms that everyone else adheres to; it’s just easier to be a part of the clan.
I could not help but hear that in the voice of Sterling Archer.
Seriously? It’s a PR firm. A bunch of lawyers with additional marketing degrees. And lots of pretty, buxom young women as their public faces.
They deal with the public. Anyone can engage them. Contacting one can be done in minutes, first session completed a couple of hours later. It’s not a country club membership application. You need no proposers and seconders along with impeccable references. Just call.
As a lawyer, I have drafted/looked over countless such releases, and interacted with such firms, and or referred/been referred clients to them. Large corporate fucks. And dirt poor bastards.
You seem to have a persecution complex. Very few people hate all Christians, they hate the phony kind that Smirkiepoo Sandmann represents- rich motherfuckers who have nothing better to do with their time than try to tell women what to do with their bodies. Assholes that chant “Build the wall!” when confronted with people who don’t share their skin color, worship differently than they do, or love people of the same gender.
Very few people hate someone because of the clothes they wear. Except when the clothes are a white hood, or the modern equivalent- the MAGA hat. Wearing a MAGA hat is like a flashing neon sign proclaiming to the world: “I’m a bigoted moron who hates everyone who doesn’t look like me!”
Just curious, what would be the fee for drafting such a press release? Just a ballpark figure will do, I won’t hold you to a quote if I want to hire you.
Depends on a lot of variables. A company would normally expect such work as standard part of services provided on retainer. An individual, that is difficult to say, without more information on the case and the fee structure offered. A case like this a firm might take it for free or reduced fees, hoping the exposure might lead to more business down the line.
Most of the people who worked on the Blasey Ford for Case for Prof Ford, did so for free fit
Covington kids wear blackface to basketball games to intimidate visiting players:
I end up with mixed feelings. It sure looks like these kids were being assholes. And there’s a lot wrong with what they’re doing.
But doxxing these kids and threatening their schools is way worse than anything they did. When we put misbehaving kids, by name, at the center of a national controversy, we’re not doing a good thing.
These kids didn’t get shot by police: they’re wealthy and white and are much more protected by the power structure. Don’t mistake them for Tamir Rice.
But that doesn’t mean we should treat some privileged asshole kid as chum in the water.
Agree 1000%
The Sandmann kid got out in front of this and doxxed himself with the help of a PR firm before anyone else leaked his name. They’re 16. In two years, they’ll be able to vote, fight in the military, and do all the other things we expect 18-year-olds to do. But no, they’re kids - they won’t face backlash. Because they’re kids.
(Actually mostly because they’re rich and white and their parents are convinced they did nothing wrong and the media is stupid enough to buy their bullshit if it comes from a presentable, “respectable” place.)
That’s why this pisses people off so much. These kids are every “shitty high school bully” character we’ve ever seen, and we already know they won’t face any fucking consequences for being phenomenally shitty people, when someone who wasn’t as well-heeled would face far worse, and someone who wasn’t so fair-skinned might face arrest or worse.
My understanding is that people were actively trying to name and locate the kids in the video before he revealed his own name. The fact that he got out in front of it doesn’t indict him at all.
And saying “they won’t face backlash” is bizarre. They won’t face jail time, sure–but they could easily lose a spot at college, and their schools is closed today because of security concerns.
They won’t be shot, they won’t go to jail, sure. But what’s happening to them is not a good thing.
Good lord. No they aren’t, and that right there epitomizes the problem. They’re not symbols, they’re not avatars. They’re not every shitty high school bully. They’re just a few specific shitty high school bullies. They should be held responsible for their own shittiness, absolutely. What’s happening instead is that they’re being held responsible for the shittiness of every high school bully.
I don’t want them off the hook. I also don’t want them subject to a national campaign of harassment. These two views are compatible.
Can you point to where you think this is being done because I don’t see it in the only video on that page. If you mean where the kid is out front and eventually takes off his shirt, I think that that’s a choreographed cheer and they’re yelling “AAH!”.
Unfunny, unoriginal, attention seeking liberal
“SNL WRITER OFFERS ORAL SEX FOR ANYONE WHO PUNCHES MAGA KID”
https://www.infowars.com/snl-writer-offers-oral-sex-for-anyone-who-punches-maga-kid/
Are there any other liberal women or men who want to exchange sexual favors for violence against children? Asking for a horny friend.
< That’s a smirk.
Oh, an Infowars link. Cool.
No. I do have an alternative suggestion for you, but it’s more of a solo project.