I have decided, in light of other videos coming out showing more of what happened in DC with the Covington teens and the indigenous man, that I will go through what I wrote earlier and see how I feel now.
1. Teens are dumb
This still holds true. A group of teen boys is, in my opinion, way too immature to take to a Right to Life rally. Boys' brains mature even slower than girls, and when there are a bunch of teen boys, that is just a vat of hormones and poor judgment.
Some people have said the boys were chanting in solidarity, but if you have spent any time around teens, you might have paid attention to the sidelong looks some of them gave each other. Those sidelong glances say a lot. To me, they say, "I feel stupid, and I don't know how to act." They did not say, "I stand in solidarity with this indigenous man because I have a respect for his age and his experience."
2. Students who do not attend school with a diverse population often have "ideas" about their superiority.
This holds true, which I say from personal experience. I cannot guarantee that it applies to the Covington kids, and I'm not a betting person, but I'm gonna go with my hunch.
3. If you're wearing a MAGA hat, chances are you subscribe to some of the beliefs about how things used to be (read as "When white people had all the power, all the time").
I do not like to or want to blame the victim, but anyone with an ounce of sense should be aware that wearing a hat to a rally in DC that concerns a hotly debated constitutional right and happens during a tense government shutdown, is going to be putting oneself in a potentially tense situation. If you do not understand this, you should not attend such a rally at all (hat or no).
You have a right to wear whatever you want wherever you want, but people also have the right to think certain things of you if you wear such apparel. Women deal with this garbage all the time. Welcome to our world, boys.
4. If you're an adult who is taking teens with unformed pre-frontal cortexes to a march in DC, you may want to discuss these things IN ADVANCE and urge them not to wear such accessories that will make them targets in a politically-charged atmosphere.
I stand by this. I put this squarely on the chaperones. I would have instructed students to not wear those hats. Wear them on the bus. Wear them in the hotel. Do not wear them on the Mall.
5. If you're an adult taking teens with unformed pre-frontal cortexes to a march in DC that is supposed to be about respecting LIFE, you may want to consider all forms of life in the respect equation. Not just white, fetal life.
And this includes the asshats who are voicing their own loud sentiments that you might find abhorrent. Just because a person is yelling crazy sh*t at you doesn't mean you have to respond in kind. Ignore them.
6. If you're an adult taking teens with unformed pre-frontal cortexes to a march in DC, you may want to think about and discuss how much recording of events happens at these events and that there is this the possibility that acting foolish will get you a lifetime of notoriety on social media.
No one could have foreseen this happening, but in all these videos floating around I do not see any adults blowing a whistle and yelling for the boys to move. I do not see any adults trying to intervene and perhaps get the boy to back up from the indigenous man, to say to the man, "Could you give this boy some space." I do not see any adults intervene when the other indigenous man says something inappropriate back to the Covington boy.
And so I still stand by this, too. The boy who "stood his ground" looked smug to me. That smugness may have truly been fear or confusion, but he was in a weird situation and none of his chaperones appear to have stepped in.
7. If you're an adult taking teens with unformed pre-frontal cortexes to a march in DC and you see something going down, you may want to intervene and GET THE KIDS OUT OF THAT SITUATION so that they don't have notoriety on social media and get crucified by people who think they are smug little shitheads (which they may very well be, but they are teenagers and don't understand the fallout from their actions).
1. Teens are dumb
This still holds true. A group of teen boys is, in my opinion, way too immature to take to a Right to Life rally. Boys' brains mature even slower than girls, and when there are a bunch of teen boys, that is just a vat of hormones and poor judgment.
Some people have said the boys were chanting in solidarity, but if you have spent any time around teens, you might have paid attention to the sidelong looks some of them gave each other. Those sidelong glances say a lot. To me, they say, "I feel stupid, and I don't know how to act." They did not say, "I stand in solidarity with this indigenous man because I have a respect for his age and his experience."
2. Students who do not attend school with a diverse population often have "ideas" about their superiority.
This holds true, which I say from personal experience. I cannot guarantee that it applies to the Covington kids, and I'm not a betting person, but I'm gonna go with my hunch.
3. If you're wearing a MAGA hat, chances are you subscribe to some of the beliefs about how things used to be (read as "When white people had all the power, all the time").
I do not like to or want to blame the victim, but anyone with an ounce of sense should be aware that wearing a hat to a rally in DC that concerns a hotly debated constitutional right and happens during a tense government shutdown, is going to be putting oneself in a potentially tense situation. If you do not understand this, you should not attend such a rally at all (hat or no).
You have a right to wear whatever you want wherever you want, but people also have the right to think certain things of you if you wear such apparel. Women deal with this garbage all the time. Welcome to our world, boys.
4. If you're an adult who is taking teens with unformed pre-frontal cortexes to a march in DC, you may want to discuss these things IN ADVANCE and urge them not to wear such accessories that will make them targets in a politically-charged atmosphere.
5. If you're an adult taking teens with unformed pre-frontal cortexes to a march in DC that is supposed to be about respecting LIFE, you may want to consider all forms of life in the respect equation. Not just white, fetal life.
And this includes the asshats who are voicing their own loud sentiments that you might find abhorrent. Just because a person is yelling crazy sh*t at you doesn't mean you have to respond in kind. Ignore them.
6. If you're an adult taking teens with unformed pre-frontal cortexes to a march in DC, you may want to think about and discuss how much recording of events happens at these events and that there is this the possibility that acting foolish will get you a lifetime of notoriety on social media.
No one could have foreseen this happening, but in all these videos floating around I do not see any adults blowing a whistle and yelling for the boys to move. I do not see any adults trying to intervene and perhaps get the boy to back up from the indigenous man, to say to the man, "Could you give this boy some space." I do not see any adults intervene when the other indigenous man says something inappropriate back to the Covington boy.
And so I still stand by this, too. The boy who "stood his ground" looked smug to me. That smugness may have truly been fear or confusion, but he was in a weird situation and none of his chaperones appear to have stepped in.
7. If you're an adult taking teens with unformed pre-frontal cortexes to a march in DC and you see something going down, you may want to intervene and GET THE KIDS OUT OF THAT SITUATION so that they don't have notoriety on social media and get crucified by people who think they are smug little shitheads (which they may very well be, but they are teenagers and don't understand the fallout from their actions).
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