Catholic Students in MAGA Hats Surround, Harass Native American Veteran

By Gabrielle Bruney, Esquire

20 January 19

Footage of the mob encircling Indigenous Peoples March attendees has gone viral.

iral footage of teenagers mobbing a Native American man and his companions at Friday's Indigenous Peoples March is sparking outrage. In the video, the man—identified by Indian Country Today as Omaha elder Nathan Phillips—is seen singing and drumming with fellow marchers while encircled by chanting teens, many of whom are wearing President Trump's Make America Great Again apparel. One youth pointedly stands directly in front of Phillips, smirking.

The teens are thought to be students of Kentucky's Covington Catholic High School, which dispatched students to Washington D.C. for the anti-abortion March for Life, which was also held Friday. A representative for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington told the Cincinnati Enquirer that the diocese is "just now learning about this incident and [regrets] it took place," and that they are "looking into it."

Phillips is a veteran of the Vietnam War, and he organizes an annual ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in honor of his fellow Native vets. "I heard them saying, 'build that wall, build that wall,'" Phillips was filmed saying in another video, presumably taken after the crowd around him dispersed. "You know, this is indigenous land," he said, wiping away tears.

We’re not supposed to have walls here—we never did. For millennium. Before anybody else came here, we never had wells. We never had a prison. We always took care of our elders, we took care of our children. We always provided for them, we taught them right from wrong. I wish I could see that energy of the young men to, you know, to put that energy into making this country really great.

This isn't the first display of school-age racism to go viral in recent months. In November, a photo of boys from Wisconsin’s Baraboo High School making Nazi salutes spread around the internet. Both incidents are part of a trend that’s been dubbed "the Trump effect"—anecdotal reports of racism and hate-based bullying students and educators have reported in the wake of Donald Trump’s political rise. In 2016, middle schoolers in Michigan filled their cafeteria with chants of "build the wall," while high schoolers in Pennsylvania were filmed yelling "white power" while holding a Trump sign aloft. During that year’s election, one educator told the The Nation that his district had seen "more racial incidents in the last 12 months than there have been in years."

Representative Deb Haaland, one of the country's first Native American Congresswomen, responded to the incident via Twitter. "This Veteran put his life on the line for our country," she wrote. "The students’ display of blatant hate, disrespect, and intolerance is a signal of how common decency has decayed under this administration. Heartbreaking."