![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/533\/2016\/02\/A_fist-fight_between_Lord_Brougham_and_Lord_Melbourne_as_Pea_Wellcome_V0050236-1024x776.jpg\")
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images
images@wellcome.ac.uk
http:\/\/wellcomeimages.org
A fist-fight between Lord Brougham and Lord Melbourne as Peachum and Lockit. Coloured lithograph by H.B. (John Doyle), 1837.
1837 By: John DoylePublished: 22 October 1836
Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
That\u2019s the way this works, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n
After all, on Saturday afternoon and evening, twitter and blogs\u00a0 and news sites (about facebook I couldn\u2019t say) gorged themselves on a feast of hate against a group of white, Catholic, southern, anti-abortion teen boys who ticked all their boxes to be presumed guilty in an encounter with a group of Native American protestors that was deemed to be \u201cracist\u201d and \u201charassing\u201d and in which the kids were quoted as chanting \u201cbuild the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even their school and the bishop issued an apology, promising that the school \u201cwill take appropriate action, up to and including expulsion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Catholics, too, were quick to pile on, eager to prove that they were willing to criticize their own.<\/p>\n
As the AP reported (here at the Washington Post<\/em>):<\/p>\n Videos circulating online show a youth staring at and standing extremely close to Nathan Phillips, a 64-year-old Native American man singing and playing a drum.<\/p>\n Other students, some wearing Covington clothing and many wearing \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d hats and sweatshirts, surrounded them, chanting, laughing and jeering.<\/p>\n In a joint statement to the Cincinnati Enquirer , the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington and Covington Catholic High School apologized to Phillips. Officials said they are investigating and will take \u201cappropriate action, up to and including expulsion.\u201d . . .<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was there singing, I heard them saying \u2018Build that wall, build that wall,\u2019\u201d Phillips said, as he wiped away tears in a video posted on Instagram.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Subsequently, extended footage of the incident revealed that Phillips and his group approached the boys, not the reverse.\u00a0 Students claim they had already been engaged in chanting school cheers, and there is no \u201cbuild the wall\u201d to be found.\u00a0 Another one of Phillips\u2019 group starts shouting at another one of the boys that they should \u201cgo back to Europe.\u201d\u00a0 Reason.com provides a detailed account<\/a> of what the new video showed, and CNN chronicled it as well<\/a>, though other sites such as USA Today<\/a>, still give Phillips the last word, allowing him to claim \u201cfear\u201d due to the boys\u2019 \u201chatred.\u201d \u00a0 The new video prompted some of the journalists and pundits who had so quickly condemned the boys, to backtrack, though others still insisted that the boys had the duty to retreat, that because their behavior did not conform to a Christlike idea, they remain at fault.\u00a0 Here\u2019s celebrity-priest James Martin:<\/p>\n Re #CovingtonHighSchool<\/a>: I will be happy to apologize for condemning the actions of the students if it turns out that they were somehow acting as good and moral Christians. The last thing I want is to see Catholic schools and Catholic students held in any disrepute. 1\/<\/p>\n \u2014 James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) January 20, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n
\n