Trump supporters face controversy after face-off with indigenous man
On Jan. 18, Covington Catholic High School students sent social media into a frenzy as some of them were filmed confronting Nathan Phillips, an indigenous people’s rights activist and Omaha tribe elder. The incident was covered extensively, not only by news cameras but also with smartphones.
The students from the private school in Northern Kentucky were in Washington, D.C., for the pro-life rally March for Life, while Phillips was attending the Indigenous Peoples’ March. The organizers of the Indigenous Peoples’ March were the party who first shared the footage online, and it did not take long for the video to go viral.
Many of the Covington Catholic High School students were wearing ‘Make America Great Again’ hats and President Donald Trump was quick to respond through Twitter. In a tweet, the president claimed that the students had become examples of “fake news.â€
“They have captivated the attention of the world, and I know they will use it for the good – maybe even to bring people together,†Trump tweeted.
Trump’s tweet brought into question the positives and negatives of social media, an issue that continues to be discussed after the fallout from the Facebook data privacy scandal.
Social media sites such as Facebook were supposedly designed, as Trump said, ‘to bring people together.’
The Covington Catholic High School students were initially blasted on social media for their behavior, but follow-up interviews and additional footage appear to show that the confrontation developed from a convergence of three separate parties, the third being a group of black men who identify as Hebrew Israelites.