Have you ever tried anything like that with a crowd who doesn’t know you? Of a different race? Please share.
They were suppose to be distracted away from their anger-focus. Mission accomplished.
The veteran’s strategy was effective, because it didn’t rely on an appeal to the mob’s better angels. The mob didn’t have to know what he was doing.
They didn’t act that way. They just started hacking around as kids do. Much better than returning insults. Situation successfully de-escalated by the veteran.
In my experience, if I see a stranger who is potentially violent, I don’t start discussing politics and I don’t start advocating reason. I make crowd noises like “Ea-sy dude”, or if there’s enough distance, “I do not want to see this,” or maybe, “This is not necessary.” With the proper tone of voice, each word said succinctly, hopefully conveying “Not cool, dude”. I do not try to challenge or flip my target: the goal is to distract them enough to nudge them off of a confrontational or violent path. The veteran was more hands-on than than I would have been, but you work with the social tools you have.
Almost. A bunch of hard-core assholes confront a bunch of run-of-the-mill jerkish teens and some old dude steps in and successfully calms things down. There’s a clip of Teen McJerkface with a MAGA hat delivering a shit-eating grin to the elderly Native American, and half of twitter freaks out. Wider context is provided later and it’s not that much better, though it is a little.
It was the old man, and his entourage, who approached the teen who had been standing on the steps. The old man, and his entourage, chose to ENGAGED WITH the teenager. The old man put his drum pounding within inches of the teens face, not the other way around. Unfortunately, pounding a drum, and chanting in a foreign language, is not the best form of communication. What was the old man trying to say? Was Timmy stuck in a well?
“The veteran did the right thing in not attempting to find another path: that would have been a challenge to the crowd.” Seriously? It’s considered a challenge to a crowd if someone attempts to find another path? Are you joking? Not engaging anyone in the crowd would have the best way of not challenging the crowd. Walking around the crowd would have been a good way of not challenging the crowd. Walking into the crowd and attempting to bully a member of the crowd is very poor way of not challenging the crowd.
After following this shitstorm for the past two days and going over all the evidence, I’m of the opinion (as a Democrat) that in the final analysis the optics are bad - for us.
It plays right into the hands of Trump’s narrative that the media is fake and that they spread false information or spin stories in a biased way.
Anyone who does a little research about what actually happened and watches the whole video, gets treated to an hour of Black Israelites spewing extremely hateful and offensive invective, which is like a wet dream for politicians and their surrogates who want to capitalize on racial tension. Forget about the Native American and the white teenagers; those Black Israelites alone are a living breathing embodiment of everything that the stereotypical Trump voter fears, and now the whole Trump movement just has more gas in its tank courtesy of that video.
Anyone who engages in doxxing is really playing with fire, and this incident has resulted in doxxing - initially of the wrong individual, it should be noted. If the left and the Democrats get tarred as “the party of doxxing”, they’re dead. If I worked for the Trump campaign I would right this instant be working on a series of attack ads focusing on the idea that outraged left-wing “SJWs” are on the warpath to doxx anyone and everyone that they disagree with.
I try to look at politics the way Don Draper would look at them. Remove emotions from the equation and set aside whatever feeling that a crowd of MAGA-hat wearing preppy teenage d-bags might personally induce in you. The optics are paramount. And in this particular case I think they are in the Trump crowd’s favor.
As I see it the veteran looked one way and saw four elderly African American assholes on a soapbox, and a crowd of 100 unruly and poorly chaperoned teens getting increasingly riled up. So he put himself in between the 2 groups, redirecting the mob’s potential hostility towards himself. Situation defused, mission accomplished.
Once, American conservatives were wary of mobs. Today, they cheer them on.
Yeah, if somebody is smiling, in your face, and blocking your path, you don’t just walk around them towards their friends. What do you think their friend would do? This is elementary school 101. The veteran’s actions were effective: after about 30 seconds of drumming, a bit of uncertainty crosses Smirky’s face: things aren’t going according to his agenda. That’s how you handle potentially violent street people: take them off their agenda. Also, I’m glad you agree that your point about the steps being 100 feet wide was utter bullshit: thank you.
The veteran distracted the crowd. He didn’t preach to them. That would have been counterproductive.
I agree with Lamoral though: doxxing is bad. I don’t even like to use the teen’s real name, though I will quote others that do.
Am I the only one who is starting to get annoyed about how much media coverage this incident is getting? No one was killed, no one was injured in anyway(well except for some bruised egos). This country is facing numerous problems that actually could have serious consequences; yet the news networks decide to have political analysts spend hours of their time debating the actions of a few individuals.
1 adult for every 10 kids sounds about right to me. But this was way more than any 10 kids. More like 40-50, as best as I could tell from the videos. Where were the 4-5 adults? Would you have let a group that large wander around unsupervised? We’re not talking about six or eight kids going to the snack bar together or playing frisbee on the quad.
And having survived the purgatory of an all-boys school for five years of my adolescence, yes, I do think there’s a big difference between mixed and all-male groups. There’s just no check on the testosterone in an all-male environment. Being the bully is much more of a win in that environment than in a mixed environment; backing away from a confrontation is much more of a loss.
The steps were approximately 100 feet wide. If fact, they still are. Plenty of room for everyone to pass, unless someone was looking for a confrontation.
The old man’s intention was not to reach the top of the steps. The old man’s intention was not to confront the Black Hebrew Israelites, even though other Native Americans had had an earlier confrontation with the Black Hebrew Israelites. The old man intended to confront the teenagers, which he and his crew did. The lame stream media wouldn’t be as interested in ballyhooing a confrontation between Native Americans and Black Israelites. But a ginned up confrontation between Native Americans and white teens wearing hats that liberals/progressives/Democrats hate would be ratings gold.
The haters don’t like the teenagers face. That must make him feel so sad, unless it doesn’t. The haters seem to be clairvoyant. They act like they know exactly what this teen is thinking based on having never met him before.
Not if you are in the middle of a mob. If a mob is blocking you on your right, your left, your center, and your back, it’s best to halt. The width of the steps is irrelevant. Your argument is sadface.
I don’t want to make too much of this. The veteran could have left the crowd, regrouped, and made his way to the top of the steps. But haranguing the crowd wasn’t his goal. So he let the teen block him, braved the jeers of the crowd, and continued drumming. The point was to de-escalate a potentially violent crowd, which he did.
The rest of doorhinge’s comments combine accusations about the veteran’s motives along with claims that you had to read the teen’s mind (never mind the obvious body language) in order to understand him. Self awareness is not a modern conservative virtue.
My opinion, as an independent, is Meh. I was skeptical of the video from the first minute, and never did hear what I was supposed to hear within it, so it was dismissed…but the optics were centered upon the MAGA hats. The spotlight will always be on the MAGA hats. That is a self-inflicted problem, and it is not a forgiving light. So I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
How much of the longer videos (i’ve seen two from different cameras, each over an hour long) did you watch? I think if you watch from when you first hear Phillips’ drumming that you will note the school crowd is mostly stationary, Phillips is walking mostly parallel to them, gets close in front of one student, then moves to the next in line, Smirky McSmirkface, and stays in front of him.
And if I understand Phillips in interviews later, if he is trying to calm the situation, he should want to stay in between the groups, not move through the students to the other side.
The crowd surrounded him after Phillips stopped, apparently to get good camera shots or just to see.
I don’t get why someone is in the wrong for standing where they are. I especially don’t understand the virulence.
Oh yah, bad optics. I’m worried about bad optics and how progressives might look in the eyes of fucking smarmy shit kicking, cousin-fucking neoconfederates and Nazis. :rolleyes:
And MAGA sweaters too. I still do think that whoever organized or advised the kids about how cool it would be to get “uniformed” is the one that needs to be tarred and feathered in the metaphorical sense.
I think it is funny to me that the Black Israelite guys that reacted to the trolling were likely there to also support the no choice ideals of the anti-abortionists. If the Native American guys had not been there it would had been a different kind of a learning experience, that one that showed how divided the reactionary religious groups are.
If a hat and a smile is enough to send the progressive loons here and on Twitter verse into a hysterical frenzy I don’t think you all could handle a serious or real threat. A 16 year old with a hat has you all triggered fierce. And you ignore the real hate speech from a needed demographic. Sad.
Doxxing is kinda moot – regardless of his age, he became part of a video and a story that has been viewed, shared, liked, unliked, or whatever by tens of millions of people. And you know why? Because he decided to wear a hat that anyone with a pinch of sense knows is powerful symbolism, and not the good kind. It’s called vortex publicity, and he got sucked into the vortex.
All of that being said, my dislike of Trumpian politics aside, and my doubts about whether this young man will amount to anything other than a white establishment bully, he’s still young, and young people are, in my book, given the opportunity to get their fuck ups out of their system, which ironically is why I support Black Lives Matter. 'Cause it’s some rich fuckin irony how white people come to the defense of other white people when they’re threatened with doxxing…but have no problem calling a young - and dead - black man a ghetto thug when he’s responding to being harassed by a vigilante with a criminal history, for nothing more than walking back home from the convenience store.
There is a whole 'nother thread about how your penultimate sentence is inaccurate. I don’t want to derail this thread, but such statements should not be presented as fact.
Tell me something, Stonewall, which little bitch is getting his daddy to hire a PR firm to change his fucking diapers? It’s not Nathan Philips, who by the way is someone who actually served in combat, not some internet warrior bitch boy. That’s the whole irony here: little white suburbanite princess, all smug, all tough with his MAGA hat on, staring down a guy who’s been shot at in the jungles of SE Asia.
