If you’ve been on social media today, you’ve likely seen footage of a smirking, young Trump supporter appearing to mock a Native American drummer in Washington, DC during yesterday’s Indigenous Peoples March. If the Native American man in the video looks familiar to those of you who, like me, live in Ypsilanti, Michigan, it’s because he’s our neighbor, Nathan Phillips. That’s him at the top of this post, in happier times, in a photo taken by local photographer Chris Stranad, just after I’d interviewed him on my old radio program, The Saturday Six Pack. [Damn, I miss that show.] Here, for those of you who might not have seen it yet, is footage of what transpired yesterday in DC.

I am so deeply grieved and angry by this as young kids in MAGA hats surrounded and mocked a beloved Native American elder yesterday. When your power is centered in your whiteness, mocking others who are unlike you makes you feel strong. But it’s weak. And despicable. pic.twitter.com/38FtzGtowL — Shaun King (@shaunking) January 19, 2019

And here’s a wider view of the same scene, in which you can see just how many young men were surrounding and mocking Nathan, who somehow managed to disregard their taunts… Afterward, in tears, Nathan, a veteran of the Vietnam era, said the young men had first approached him, chanting, “Build That Wall!“

So, yeah, a bunch of privileged white kids apparently taunted a Native American veteran, chanting about how we need to build a wall, ostensibly to keep people like him out… Just think about that for a minute.

I don’t have a lot of time, as I need to get back to my kids, but here are my initial thoughts about this.

First, of course, it’s absolutely heartbreaking to see anyone, let alone someone you know, being surrounded and mocked like this. I’d like to say that we, as a nation, are better than this. And I’d like to take some solace in the fact that tens of thousands of people are sharing videos today, like the ones above, and expressing outrage. But it’s difficult to ignore the fact that it’s not just one young man confronting Nathan in these videos, but nearly 100. Clearly we’re dealing with something here that’s both systematic and structural… a real world manifestation of the cruel and xenophobic vision of America that Donald Trump has been so eloquently articulating for his white American supporters these past several years. [The good news is, in some videos, you can hear people calling out these young, referring to them as a racist mob.]

Second, I can’t imagine, if I were in a situation like this, that I would have anywhere near the grace, dignity, and self-control displayed by Nathan. It really is truly inspiring. [When I watch these videos, I get the same kind of feeling as I get when watching documentary footage of The Little Rock Nine making their way into Central High School on September 23, 1957.]

Third, and this is really strange… Not only do I know Nathan, but it’s conceivable that I may have actually come into contact with some of the kids in the crowd harassing him, as they’re from Covington Catholic High School in Covington, Kentucky, where my parents live, and where we just spent Christmas a few weeks ago. For what it’s worth, I don’t think these could possibly be the children and grandchildren of my parents’ friends, but the fact that they could be is just really depressing.

Fourth, this reminds me of something I witnessed not too long ago in DC, at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, just after attending the March for Our Lives demonstration with my daughter.

Surreal experience at the Holocaust Museum yesterday after the march, watching an adult chaperone of a MAGA-hat-wearing student group complaining to security guards about the negative attention her teens were getting. pic.twitter.com/LdPTZ2Pb8c — Mark Maynard (@MarkAMaynard) March 25, 2018

I didn’t get into it at the time, but these students, who, if memory serves, were from a midwestern state like Indiana, were incredibly disrespectful, running through the museum, making inappropriate comments, etc… I think, sadly, this is just something that happens when young conservatives come to DC without their parents. They get off their busses, they buy MAGA merchandise from street vendors, and they make it their mission to “own” as many liberals as they can by ironically flashing their “white power” hand signs, yelling things in public about how they support the wall, etc. I’m tempted to blame the chaperones, but these “kids” are old enough to know better. And, in my opinion, they’re old enough to face the consequences for their actions. And hopefully that’s exactly what happens once these kids who mocked Nathan are identified.

Fifth, according to the Detroit News, the kids from Covington were bussed to DC not to attend museums and the like, but to attend the March for Life anti-abortion rally. Make of that what you will.

Sixth, according to an interview with Nathan just posted by the Washington Post, the young man standing in front of him in the video had stepped in his way, blocking him from moving forward. “It was getting ugly, and I was thinking: ‘I’ve got to find myself an exit out of this situation and finish my song at the Lincoln Memorial,’” Phillips recalled. “I started going that way, and that guy in the hat stood in my way and we were at an impasse. He just blocked my way and wouldn’t allow me to retreat.”

Seventh, I’m reminded of the fact that, the last time I had a real discussion with Nathan it was a few years ago, when, according to Nathan, he’d been taunted by drunken Eastern Michigan University students in “redface,” who, calling themselves “Hurons,” had told him to “go back to the fucking reservation.” So, sadly, this isn’t exactly something new for Nathan. [If you follow that last link, you’ll find my notes and photos from the episode of the Saturday Six Pack that Nathan joined me on, which was all about Eastern Michigan University’s insistence on bringing back their racist Native American mascot.]

OK, I’m going to show my kids these videos now, and ask them what they’d do if they ever found themselves in a situation like this. Here’s hoping they respond like the decent human beings I know them to be.

UPDATE: Since first posting this, additional facts about this incident have come to light. Most notably, before Nathan arrived, there was a somewhat heated exchange between the young white men shown in these video and a small group of about four or five black men identifying themselves as Black Hebrew Israelites. According to Nathan, he’d sought to defuse the situation by placing himself between these two groups. The following is from today’s Detroit Free Press.

UPDATE: Great Detroit music photographer Doug Coombe just reminded me that he was on that episode of The Saturday Six Pack as well… and he took photos. Here are Nathan and I talking.