Almost everyone has seen the picture of the high school student, Nick Sandmann, wearing a MAGA hat and standing in the way of a Native American Vietnam Veteran, Nathan Phillips, who was playing a drum and chanting. According to a Huffington Post article (click here), Sandmann said he was trying to diffuse a tense situation where he claimed that Phillips was yelling at his friends to go home to Europe. In addition, the high school students with Sandmann had been taunted by protesters from another group.
According to Phillips, he put himself between the high school students and the group that was taunting the kids. Phillips claimed that he was simply trying to diffuse the situation (click here).
I've been to protests. I know what diffuses tense situations. And while leading a protest, I've had counter protesters try obstruct our protest. I don't find Sandmann's account to be credible according to my experiences. I don't see a Native American elder who is also a Vietnam trying to start a confrontation by yelling at the kids telling them to return to Europe. As a Vietnam Veteran, Phillips worked with and/or faught alongside White Americans in far more tense situations than the confrontation in D.C. In addition, the best way to diffuse a situation between another group and your own is to walk away to be passive. And one doesn't diffuse a situation by standing in a face to face confrontation with the group that is challenging you. Once when the group of protesters I was leading were obstructed, we silently waited and the police told those obstructing us to move. Not only did we not have do anything, we didn't need to say anything or challenge those obstructing us either.
But besides the above, Sandmann's school stated that it would investigate and punish the students responsible with possible expulsions. And that is what we want to address here.
Unfortunately, the American first response to most transgression is to punish. Part of that is because of our nation's obsession with individualism. Because of that obsession, transgressions are seen as occurring without any context. When those of us who are privileged read about some crime committed by someone who is not privileged, we often do not take the differences in our status into account when judging the crime. We usually judge those committing crimes as having the same advantages we do and thus we show no understanding for their actions.
In addition, there have been too many times when we Americans have equated punishment and justice. Too many of us believe that the best way to respond to crime is to inflict pain believing that a criminal only needs ecough pain to teach them not to commit another crime. Under such a scenario, justice is spelled 'revenge.' We see this in both criminal justice and in our lawsuits. Little thought is given to correcting behavior through education. And not that we should equate justice and education. But justice should be thought of as having
When Sandmann's school investigates the incident, it could very well be that they find that the confrontation between Sandmann and Phillips was due to an innocent misunderstanding and thus no punishment would be warranted. But should Sandmann's school find that Sandmann and some of the other students were showing gross disrespect for Philips, I don't think expulsion should be considered. Yes, there could be some punishment. But along with that, Sandmann's school should attempt to find ways for Sandmann and his friends to learn about Native Americans, their history, and their current plight. In other words, Sandmann's school's response to any wrongful behavior committed by Sandmann and his friends should include education along with any sanctions. In fact, his school's response should revolve much more around educating the students involved more than on punishing them. In fact, perhaps our criminal justice system should do the same with many kinds of nonviolent crimes.
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