Respect and Accountability in the Covington High School confrontation
By: Eileen Kugler
The situation with the Covington Catholic School students is complex, not as simple as it once looked. In today’s climate, we want to have a clear good guy and bad guy. Either the left or right is correct. The conservatives or liberals are right. But life is complex and that situation contains many lessons. One of the lessons is these boys need to be held accountable for their own actions, no matter who else bears some responsibility. Here are my thoughts:
* There were adults who acted inappropriately. From what I’ve read and seen, the Hebrew Israelites often throw offensive slurs at people, and the students were targets this time. Did the Native American drummer give the students a reason to be afraid of him? Perhaps, but doubtful. Should the chaperones have encouraged the students to move away from a tense situation? Yes, in my book.
* I’m not a fan of the 24 hour news cycle, but I am a fan of journalism. Cable news and internet news sources report a story as it is developing, and the real story often takes a bit of time to flesh out. But the media are not at fault for what happened. They are also victims of our desire for them to feed a narrative we want — Who is right? who is wrong? Don’t give us complexities! I prefer a well-researched newspaper story to the talking heads of cable news.
* The teens need to be held accountable for their decisions. “Who care if they were wearing MAGA hats?” some have written. A MAGA hat sends a message. They didn’t need to say “Build that wall,” because their hats said it all. That hat stands for vilifying anyone who isn’t white and (their brand of) Christian. If we don’t teach these boys about respecting and learning from people who are different from them, they grow up to be the white privileged men abusing power that we all see around us.
* It was easy to predict that these boys were being taught intolerance. The valedictorian of the school, who is gay, was not permitted to speak at graduation. There is a verified picture of some boys from this school going in blackface to a basketball game where they were playing a team that included African-American students. It makes me sad that these boys will likely never have a real conversation about what happened, never be given the opportunity to think deeply about their own part in it and how they might have acted differently.
* And I believe that these boys, without that education, will grow up to the be privileged Kavanaughs, given every opportunity and never being held accountable… for any transgression or poor decision. Their families and teachers circling the wagons to protect them from any tough questions about their behavior does them, and our society, no good.
