Last Sunday, just weeks after the anniversary of one of the worst Native American massacres in history, Donald Trump used the incident as a punchline in his most recent attack against Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whom he regularly calls “Pocahontas” in reference to her American Indian heritage. Days later, a group of unruly white students from Covington Catholic High School in Park Hills followed his lead by taunting Native American elders at the Indigenous Peoples March in Washington, D.C.
The March, unfortunately, coincided with the March for Life rally in D.C., which protested the practice and legality of abortion. However, as the two groups crossed paths, a young man wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat stood in a native elder’s face and taunted him as other teens chanted, “build that wall, build that wall.” Ironic, right?
The incident was caught on camera and immediately shared on YouTube and Twitter, which sparked backlash and criticisms and forced the school to release a statement of disapproval. But now, as the news continues to spread, the student, who claimed to have been “confronted by a Native American protestor,” is speaking out and blaming the blacks.
“I am providing this factual account of what happened on Friday afternoon at the Lincoln Memorial to correct misinformation and outright lies being spread about my family and me,” Nick Sandmann.
“When we arrived, we noticed four African American protestors who were also on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial,” he wrote. “I am not sure what they were protesting, and I did not interact with them. I did hear them direct derogatory insults at our school group.”
“The protestors said hateful things,” Sandmann continued. “They called us ‘racists,’ ‘bigots,’ ‘white crackers,’ ‘faggots,’ and ‘incest kids.’ They also taunted an African American student from my school by telling him that we would ‘harvest his organs.’” He said, adding that the group asked to sing school chants, in return, to combat the alleged hate. “We would not have done that without obtaining permission from the adults in charge of our group.”
“At no time did I hear any student chant anything other than the school spirit chants,” he said. “I did not witness or hear any students chant ‘build that wall’ or anything hateful or racist at any time. Assertions to the contrary are simply false. Our chants were loud because we wanted to drown out the hateful comments that were being shouted at us by the protestors.”
From there, according to Sandmann, that’s when the elderly Native American man approached the group.
“The protestor everyone has seen in the video began playing his drum as he waded into the crowd, which parted for him,” Sandmann said. “I did not see anyone try to block his path. He locked eyes with me and approached me, coming within inches of my face. He played his drum the entire time he was in my face.”
“I never interacted with this protestor,” Sandmann claimed. ”I did not speak to him. I did not make any hand gestures or other aggressive moves. To be honest, I was startled and confused as to why he had approached me. We had already been yelled at by another group of protestors, and when the second group approached I was worried that a situation was getting out of control where adults were attempting to provoke teenagers.”
But, of course, Sandmann remained calm, which he believed helped “diffuse the situation.”
“I said a silent prayer that the situation would not get out of hand,” Sandmann said. “During the period of the drumming, a member of the protestor’s entourage began yelling at a fellow student that we “stole our land’ and that we should ‘go back to Europe’ I heard one of my fellow students begin to respond. I motioned to my classmate and tried to get him to stop.”
As Sandmann continued, he maintained the elder was the aggressor, claiming that he singled him out. He also said he never understood why both groups confronted them and scoffed at the idea that students from his school would ever be racist toward African Americans or Native Americans because he does “not have hateful feelings in my heart, and did not witness any of my classmates doing that.”
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