The Boys in Red Hats (2021) Movie Script

This is
not a singular event.
It's part of a chain of
so many other news events
happening in this
country right now.
The message
that we send these kids
time and time again,
is that you're better
and that's a very
dangerous message to send.
The core
function of those schools
is to serve the class
interests of wealthy families.
I do think the media
is gonna finally get
their comeuppance. I do.
My name
is Jonathan Schroder.
Nine years ago, my friends and I
created a documentary series
for National Geographic Studios.
Oh man, that's a, that's
a calf look at-he's,
he's looking right at the lens.
And ever since,
I've been in central Michigan
filming farm animals
and the veterinarians
who take care of them.
I mean he's, he knows
he's been filmed.
But a certain
event that took place
on the steps of the
Lincoln Memorial
compelled me to take
on another project.
See, I'm a graduate of
Covington Catholic High School.
You may have heard of
that school before.
It's the all boys academy
that became the subject
of national debate
after this video went viral.
And there it is,
that notorious smirk
that sparked a controversy
unlike anything
this community has ever seen.
Those videos went viral
on social media today
receiving widespread
opposition and already,
one of those videos
has been viewed
more than a million times.
Members of the
Indigenous Peoples March,
surrounded by others wearing
Make America Great Again hats
and clothing, connecting them
to Covington
Catholic high school.
Indian Country Today identified
the man playing the drum
as an Omaha elder.
I heard them saying,
build that wall,
build that wall.
This is indigenous lands,
you're not supposed
to have walls here.
Here's what I knew from
the initial news coverage.
A native American Vietnam war
hero was peacefully marching
when a bunch of kids wearing
MAGA hats blocked his path
and started to harass him.
The video exploded and the
media went absolutely nuts.
Overnight, it became the
biggest news story in the world.
A group of high school
students has caused outrage
in parts of the United States.
A troubling scene
many are calling racist.
For Covington Catholic
high school students,
they traveled from
Kentucky to Washington
to attend the March
for life rally.
It exploded all over Twitter,
kids in MAGA hats, taunting
a Native American man.
Appearing to face off
with Nathan Phillips,
a 65 year old Native American
The viral encounter has
thrust this Kentucky community
into a politically
charged debate
that has police
here on high alert.
When I first saw the video,
I refused to believe
that these kids even went
to Covington Catholic
but then I saw our logo,
I saw some familiar faces
and I was like, holy shit,
this is my school.
And like most of America,
I was outraged
when that video surfaced.
I was embarrassed, ashamed,
I was even angry I
went to school there.
It made me want to vomit.
Absolutely made me wanna vomit.
That let's fix things with
a football cheer mentality,
let's take off our shirt
and jump up and down,
let's stand in front of this
person you know nothing about
with a shit-eating
smirk on your face.
It just brought flashbacks.
I mean that was what drew
me in just like anybody else
that smirk, that was
heard around the world.
I was a little embarrassed
of my community.
I was a little embarrassed
with my association
with Cov Cath.
I thought we were supposed
to be better than this.
In a statement,
the diocese of Covington
and Covington
Catholic High School
condemned the actions of
the students and said quote
"This behavior is opposed
to the church's teachings
on the dignity and respect
of the human person."
School officials say they are
now investigating the incident
and considering next steps
including the
possibility of expulsion.
To say that Covington
Catholic community
was taken off guard
by the situation
would be a gross understatement.
Everyone simply wanted to go
back to their country clubs
and their barbecues.
Now don't get me wrong,
every kid that attends
Covington Catholic
does not come from
wealth, but if you're rich
and you live in
Northern Kentucky,
chances are you're sending
your kid to Cov Cath.
Everyone came from Fort Wright,
Fort Mitchell, Villa Hills
very prominent upper
class white neighborhoods
in Northern Kentucky.
I do think Covington
Catholic students
think they're
better than students
from surrounding public schools.
I did when I was there,
it's not something I'm
necessarily proud of now,
looking back at it.
Pride, that's the name of
the game at Covington Catholic
and something I learned well
before I went to school there.
I saw my mom beaming with pride
after a coach from Cov Cath
recruited me to
play football there.
Just by being invited,
she acted like
I won a full scholarship to
play football at Notre Dame.
She saw this as an
invitation to an elite club,
to a place
where students graduate
and go on to institutions
like Harvard,
Princeton, and Columbia.
I only knew one
thing about Cov Cath,
it was an all boys school.
So I was like,
"Great mom, you're sending me
to a teenage penal colony."
Plus all my friends were
going to a public high school.
My freshman year
was pretty rough.
I missed my friends and I
felt like a complete outsider.
I'd never seen so much
Ralph Lauren, sweater vests
khaki pants and argyle
socks in my life.
I only lived 15 miles away,
but the kids would make jokes
that I was some sort
of inbred banjo picker
or a derelict hillbilly.
You know, it didn't help
that I was from a
part of the county
formerly known as
Sugar Tit, Kentucky.
That's right, I was from a place
called Sugar Tit, Kentucky.
But after a few months,
I fell head over heels
in love with the place.
That's when I really
started to get it.
I'll never forget when I
applied for my first job.
As soon as the employer learned
that I went to Covington
Catholic, he gave me the job,
no questions asked.
My senior year, I became
captain of the football team
and had major colleges
recruiting me.
It was everything my mother
had always dreamed of.
At Cov Cath, we were
a traveling pep rally.
Everywhere we went,
we'd chant and sing
our school fight song.
Being called rich
faggots by our rivals,
that wasn't offensive to us.
It was more like
a badge of honor.
They don't have what we have
and they'll never be as
good at anything as us.
God roots for the Colonels.
That's what we were taught
and that's what we believed.
And when people
got into our face,
you know what we would do?
We would smirk.
Sometimes just to
be little pricks,
sometimes because we were scared
and at the end of the day,
we trusted we would win.
And one way or another,
we usually did.
Saturday morning,
more clips have surfaced
showing almost two hours of
what happened in Washington, DC.
The teens insist they faced
a barrage of verbal abuse
from a group who
called themselves
the Black Hebrew Israelites.
That's when Native American
elder Nathan Phillips
says he stepped in and began
drumming as a gesture of peace.
Seeing the entire
video, I did a full 180.
The entire incident was
taken totally out of context.
And as you'll see here,
Nathan and his group
look over at the kids and
March straight towards them.
The way this thing was
reported and went viral
just me pissed off,
not just at the media
but at myself for buying
into all this nonsense
and all of the
inaccurate reporting.
I felt like a complete jackass.
For days, I've
ranted like an idiot.
When it turns out these
boys were being demonized
for wearing MAGA hats.
As redemption, I dedicated
the next year of my life
to finding out what
really happened.
I have lofty goals of proving
these boys were innocent
and were only guilty of
having a tremendous amount
of school spirit.
So how - how has it been
trying to get people in
the Covington Catholic
community to get on camera?
One of my best friends
I was talking about, well
do you think maybe that those
who attend Covington
Catholic, they're in a bubble?
And he said, I love my bubble,
I'm comfortable in my bubble.
I thought it would
be insulting him
by saying you know what?
You all live in a bubble,
but he's like,
you're damn right we
do and we like it here.
Bubble or not, after hearing
so many different
versions of the story,
it made a world of difference
hearing from the people
who were actually there.
The bus leaves around nine,
10 o'clock at night
and drives straight
through to Washington.
We all met at the
National Archives to gather
so that we could march as a
group in the March for Life.
We love babies, yes we do!
We love babies how 'bout you?
We love babies, yes we do!
The march was peaceful,
all the boys knew ahead of time
that they were
instructed to meet
at the Lincoln Memorial
because all the buses pick
up from that location.
When the boys started coming,
we were gathering at the lower
bottom part of the steps.
They're kind of free to
sight see for a while.
So my classmates
and I were standing
near the Lincoln Memorial,
we were doing a couple school
cheers to pass the time.
This kid here, he's
a Cov Cath student
who was front and center
during the confrontation.
We decided to
conceal his identity
due to his classmates
receiving threats of violence.
My next step was to
research the group
who didn't appear
in the first video,
the Black Hebrew Israelites.
According to the Southern
Poverty Law Center,
they're an extremist hate group
that trades an anti-Semitism.
In December of 2019, two people
associated with the group
were held responsible
for murdering four people
in a domestic terrorist
attack in New Jersey.
As soon as there were
probably maybe 20 boys, 30 boys,
the Black Hebrew Israelites
immediately kind of
targeted in on the boys.
We were hearing a few jeers,
we were kind of ignoring those.
The boys just kind of
were like, whoa, like
what's going on.
You know, like, why are
they screaming at us?
I remember them
vividly telling us
to look up a video
on YouTube about
how our president
is a homosexual.
They called them crackers,
white ass crackers,
bigots, school shooters.
They look like school
shooters, incest babies,
these boys will
harvest your organs.
No one should have
to go through that.
The more boys that gathered,
kind of the worse it got.
One of the boys had
asked one of the teachers
if they could do
their school cheer
because they do that every year
on the steps of the
Lincoln Memorial,
that's kinda how
they seal the day,
and, you know,
that's what they do.
The teacher said no
in the beginning.
And then I can't remember
what the exact insult was
but the teacher said, go
ahead and do your cheer,
let's drowned out the hate
that's being thrown at us.
And that's when they
did their rally cry,
and it's an all boys school,
so, you know,
that's what they do.
As we were coming to the steps,
I could hear the Cov Cath boys
on the-see them on the steps
and they were doing
one of their cheers.
As we move closer, I could
see the Black Israelites.
And there was a smaller group
which ended up being
the Native Americans.
The boys were watching
the Black Israelites
and it was like
a moth to a flame
is what I've equated it to.
You don't have any
place in our community
where you have people standing
just espousing name calling
and trying to incite a reaction.
You just don't have
that around here
and so we came up to the steps,
the Native Americans were moving
and walking slowly into
the crowd of Cov Cath boys.
A man walked over to us
and he was beating a drum
and we weren't really
sure what was happening,
he kind of just inserted
himself into our crowd.
So we thought, "Oh, you know,
gosh, let's be here,
let's stand, let's be
respectful, let's not move".
We didn't know why he
came into our group.
We thought, well, maybe he's
trying to, I don't know,
join in on the boys
that are chanting.
He made his way
through the crowd
and confronted one
of the students.
They just stood there,
looking at each other
while he was beating
the drum in his face.
The boys let him stand there.
Did we tell him to move?
No, we thought if
we turned our back
and walked away from
this Native American
who's beating his drum,
it would be disrespectful.
So we stood there and we
waited until he was finished.
I guess he was just, he
had a smirk on his face
to let the man know
he wouldn't be intimidated
by his presence.
There were several people
that were running around
and filming things, jumping
up on steps and on columns.
Maybe we were naive,
but we didn't know.
I even said to a teacher,
"Wow, I wonder what they're
filming this for what website
this will be on tomorrow."
Once Nathan Phillips
and his group
moved away from our group,
the rhetoric continued
from the Black
Hebrew Israelites.
We moved the boys to another
area across the street
so that we could get
them out of the way.
You know, everyone's
kind of geared up
and ready to get on the buses.
And while on the bus,
everybody's just settling back
down.
There was only one boy that
kind of turned and said,
"What just happened there?"
And I said,
"You were being baited."
We got back, we went home
and woke up to kind
of a firestorm.
Videos on the internet
showed student Nick Sandmann
standing in front
of Nathan Phillips
a Native American veteran as
Mr. Phillips played his drum.
I can see if you were
only seeing the snippet,
why you would automatically
jump to a bad conclusion.
My wife, Beth says the
boys are under attack
and I was like, what?
And they're being blamed
and I saw the video,
I said, this is not true.
I heard my mom on
the phone downstairs.
I saw the TV was on Fox News.
I was kind of angry at
the way things looked
because they did look...
it looked bad to begin with.
It seemed like for
the first few days
a lot of people were
still against us
and thought that we were
just white privileged males.
I got caught up in it, my
parents got caught up in it.
People around me
got caught up in it.
They went through a
complete living hell
that nobody should ever
have to experience.
Joining us right now is
that Attorney Robert Barnes.
Meet celebrity attorney,
Fox news pundit
and InfoWars special
guest Robert Barnes.
Now Robert is representing
some of the boys
and their families of
Covington Catholic.
You have former CNN
commentators talking about
getting them getting
punched in the face.
A Hollywood director
talking about
putting them through a shredder.
These are just some of
the most horrendous things
you could ever experience
as a human being.
The atmosphere seemed
a little different,
not as much energy
as there usually is.
You had a writer for
Saturday Night Live, comedian,
say that she would provide
free sexual services
to anyone who would
violently attack the kids.
I did not expect people
to be this hateful.
I got a direct message
on Instagram from someone
and they said something
along the lines of
I saw what your group of people
did to my culture
or my community,
I just, I declined it,
I didn't wanna respond.
Like it's so immature,
like, I mean...
Speaking of immature,
my love affair with Cov Cath
ended about six months
before I graduated.
One day in class, I
interrupted a teacher's lecture
with a joke so the teacher
calmly walked over to me,
stood in front of my desk
then proceeded to punch me
straight in the forehead.
And this guy just wasn't
any other teacher.
This guy was and still
is considered a legend
at the school and
in the community.
After the punch I was
dizzy and seeing stars.
Just before football practice,
I had a lump on my head so big
that I could barely
put my helmet on
and not once did I
consider talking about it.
Not because I wanted
to protect the teacher,
I wanted to protect myself.
The general attitude was, if
this guy whooped your ass,
then you probably deserved it.
And if you told any of your
other teachers or coaches
you probably get another
round of discipline.
At Cov Cath, one
punishment wasn't enough.
You got extra punishment
for being punished
in the first place.
And then it would
keep piling on.
For the rest of my
time in high school,
I counted down the
days to graduation
like a prison sentence.
I became distant,
angry and dismissive.
Immediately after college,
I took the first flight I
could find to New York City.
I couldn't wait to get
the hell out of Kentucky
and away from places
like Covington Catholic.
But even then, I could
have never imagined
the school being shut down
due to violent threats.
Covington Catholic students
were supposed to be
back in class today,
but administrators decided
to close the campus
early this morning,
citing safety concerns.
Now the boys are expected to
be back in class tomorrow.
So far, those who were there
made one thing clear.
This was way more
than just a story
about a smug kid
blocking an activist.
Could it be these kids
were just standing tall
in the face of adversity?
Once people see the full video
and realize what
really transpired,
people started
getting behind us.
Pretty soon, all the entities
that were criticizing the
boys were now backtracking.
Truth is the Washington Post
within two days of this story
started printing the other side,
Covington kids side.
They printed four stories that
were favorable to Covington,
but they ran with a
headline that says,
"Investigation clears kids
no racist or offensive
language used."
It's like, oh perfect.
A final investigative report
requested by the diocese of
Covington found no evidence
that the students use racist
or offensive language.
Today, Bishop Foys
has issued a letter,
he is offering support
for those students.
I'm just amazed at
the poise and restraint
that the students of
Covington Catholic had.
In a matter of hours,
these students were tried
and sentenced by the media
where accuracy is irrelevant.
I wrote an article called,
"I Failed the Covington
Catholic Test" for The Atlantic.
It seemed like there
was a unanimous verdict
that these kids had
done something awful.
I started talking to
both my kids about it
and my son started pushing back.
He also goes to an all
boys Catholic school.
I watched the longer videos
with the sinking
feeling in my stomach.
I believe the liberal
elite lead media
flat-out character
assassinated those boys.
It is just magnified
and blown out of context
for the purpose
of being divisive.
There's nothing worse
than the identity politics
that is without question
played on by Democrats.
The reality is this
wasn't much of a story
and it became such
an incredible story.
So that's it then.
Let's just all move on.
Everyone knows the boys
didn't do anything wrong,
so everyone's living
happily ever after, right?
Okay, not really.
Everyone is still
very much pissed.
You tell me you're religious,
you need to apologize.
Nope.
You need to apologize
for 400 years of tyranny.
So, after all the facts came
out, why is no one
on either side of this thing,
satisfied with the results?
Even Nick Sandmann still harbors
resentment, as he tweeted,
looks like Nathan Phillips
only wants to be on camera
when he's in on the ambush,
what a fraud.
He embedded this video from
Liberty Hangout in his tweet.
Nathan, why did you lie?
You ruined someone's life,
what a bleep, what a bleep.
And where
does this divide stem from?
I wanted to dive deeper,
but of all the people
I wanted to talk to,
only two could tell me
what really happened, Nathan
Phillips and Nick Sandmann.
And I have so many
questions for both.
I mean, they both gave
versions of events, right?
So I mean, Nathan Phillips,
he had a few interviews
where he talked about
his version of events,
which appears to not
coincide with the reality,
the rest of us are experiencing.
Yeah, it sounds like there's a
couple of lies he's telling.
So Nick Sandmann,
how do you go about
trying to engage in a
conversation with a minor
that has obviously lawyered up
and he's got a PR Firm, and-
I'll have to bro down with him,
I'll be like, "Look Nick, I'm
a Colonel, you're a Colonel,
I love Cov Cath,
you love Cov Cath.
One question for you, buddy.
Why didn't you just
step aside? Why?"
Yeah. Yeah.
Hello?
Hey, it's Jon Schroder calling.
Hey Jon, how are ya?
- I'm good, how're you doing?
- Good.
I'm trying to still
see if I can get
ahold of the Sandmann
family somehow.
And I know you have a
relationship with those guys
and I was calling to
see if there's any way
you could explain to them-
I just want to get a
feeling of who Nick is
and how it's
affected of his life.
I don't know, I know you
don't have a definitive answer
on this but do you think
this is something that
the Sandmann family
would even be open to?
Because the last thing I wanna
do is harass them.
I mean, maybe? I don't really
know, to be honest with you.
I don't know but I mean,
I'm sure she would
at least take it
under consideration.
But again, I'm not positive
about that by any means.
Okay, we'll give it a shot
and we'll see what happens.
Yep. Yep, for sure.
Fantastic, thanks again.
Okay, thanks, Jon, bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Given that these boys
were essentially vindicated
in the next day's news cycle,
I thought the folks
at Covington Catholic
would be happy with
the media flip-flop.
It turns out they're
still very, very angry.
In their minds,
this was a deliberate attack
on their religion, their
beliefs, even their ethnicity.
And a lot of that anger
is directed straight
at Nathan Phillips.
Nathan Phillips is lying.
I think Nathan Phillips lies
to get his agenda across.
You know, it was a good way
for him to script the story
because you get prestige
by whether you're a victim.
And particularly
when you combine that
with intersectionality,
then you know,
how many bonus points do I get?
Oh, I could be this, I could
add this and I could add this.
Well, I'm a transgendered alien,
so maybe that'll
put me at the top.
You know what I mean-
And all the rest.
He wanted to create
a viral moment.
I don't really
know a lot about him,
I haven't read a lot about him
because I don't think he's
deserving of my time or energy.
But what I have heard
and read about him
is that he does lie.
When I first started
following the story
about Nathan Phillips, one of
the things that I noticed was
there were a lot
of inconsistencies.
I went to a blog that was the
Native Youth Alliance blog.
And I noticed it said, we
can give you a tax deduction.
I thought - hmm,
that's interesting.
So I wanted to find out more
and every time I started to dig,
something more came
up that was strange.
They weren't registered as
a nonprofit with the IRS.
Did some more digging and found
that Native Youth Alliance
was registered in DC
but it had not kept
current with the filings
to remain a company
in good standing.
The Native Youth Alliance
when it had been registered
had used the same
PO box as his wife
who had since deceased for a
nonprofit that she was running.
And when I clicked
to send an email,
the email came up as
going to Nathan Phillips
which really seems
strange given that
all the newspaper articles
were describing this
as an organization he
had previously served
as a director for.
If someone presents
themselves as being a charity
that is registered with the
IRS and allowed to accept
tax deductible donations,
but they're not,
they're committing a fraud.
I question his motivation,
I question his integrity.
He may be filled with hate,
I don't know.
You know, right about now,
I'm not a big fan
of Nathan Phillips,
his lies and his actions
caused innocent kids
to get death and bomb threats.
But why would he
do such a thing?
And why would he
want such a thing?
And who is this guy
in the first place?
I'm determined to find out.
So I am the Native American
journalist, I'm Mohawk,
and I was the one who
identified Nathan Phillips
when this first came out.
No, I don't think
anything was staged.
I really think it's an
unfortunate instance
of capturing a microcosm of
the reality of society on film.
I was talking to Nathan Phillips
later that day and he says,
"You know, I saw the
Black Hebrew Israelites
saying really, really
terrible things.
And these kids had
no idea what to do."
A longer video
showed Phillips approaching
the boys with his drum.
What Nathan is doing
is he's playing his drum
as a sense to say, look,
I am coming in here
as a peaceful person and then
realized in the middle of it,
Uh... Okay, people are not
responding
the way that I thought,
so I'm gonna keep playing it.
People thought he was
being an instigator
but what people never understood
about this entire thing
was this was a native man
and non-native young men
who didn't understand
the communication
that the elder was
trying to deliver.
There is something very
intrinsically important
in dealing with the
Native American drum.
It is the ultimate in
sacred instruments.
If I was to be having an
argument and we were yelling
and Hey, this and Hey that
and an elder was to walk
up to the two of us,
hitting his drum, both of us
would understand immediately
we need to stop and
to take a moment
and to realize there are sacred
existences besides ourself.
Nathan Phillips here
he's portrayed as an elder,
I've seen no evidence
that he was an elder at all.
And that anger
just wasn't reserved
for Nathan Phillips either.
After those first few weeks,
I was still very frustrated
with how the media portrayed
us, because I don't think
you can trust the media
in this day and age.
They ruin lives.
I'd really love to see the
media be held accountable
for their actions,
with these lawsuits.
Breaking tonight,
Nicholas Sandmann,
the student that you remember
from this famous moment,
he's now filed a $275 million
lawsuit against NBC Universal.
His legal team has also
sued the Washington Post
and CNN for huge
amounts of money.
Even President Trump tweeted:
Nick Sandmann and the
students of Covington Catholic
had become symbols of fake
news and how evil it can be.
They have captivated the
attention of the world
and I know they will
use it for good.
It started off unpleasant
but can end in a dream,
says President Trump.
Can you imagine being
one of these kids
and having the President of the
United States in your corner?
Talk about having the ultimate
resource against the media.
They get away with so much
and they need to be
held responsible.
It's not right for them
to be given as much
freedom as they are.
You see it with the President,
they'll paint the President
in the worst light possible.
It's not just the Cov Cath,
you've got other fake
instances going on
where they're saying that
a crime has happened,
it didn't happen,
just to make a point.
I think it's mostly the
media's fault, they're animals.
You know, I have to admit,
I feel protective over these
kids, especially Nick Sandmann.
This could have easily
been me and my friends.
And after discussing
with the families,
I really understood the toll
it had taken on the community.
And if it weren't for the
kooks on social media,
this entire event would
have never been reported.
But not everyone I
spoke with agreed.
I think that this
was an important event
and I think that social
media have been terrific
in highlighting how
hyper-local issues
can snowball into
greater moments.
And so while this may be
seen as an isolated incident
that turned into a
spectacle if you will,
it's essential to highlight
some of these things
to know certain things
are becoming acceptable
and others aren't.
Do I think these students
were treated unfairly
by the media?
All I can say is
that it's our job
to get both sides of the
story, to tell the truth,
be fair, be accurate, and that's
our role, that's our duty.
I think social media
acted irresponsibly
but that's kind of
what social media does.
I think news media was
essentially playing catch up.
It takes a little bit longer
to get the whole story
out there.
And I thought we had
some news outlets that
covered this really well.
This term, "the media"
or "mainstream media"
has become this pejorative
essentially to decry, you know,
any content that you don't
like, or you disagree with.
We've kind of lost our
journalistic appreciation.
Journalism is a part of
our American democracy,
it is at the core of it.
It's very critical to
hold our people in power,
our elected officials,
accountable.
Not all media is the same,
not what some everyday
citizen says on Facebook
isn't the same as
what a reporter
at the Cincinnati
Enquirer is writing,
or what a talking
head at CNN is saying,
or what a celebrity in
Hollywood is saying on Twitter.
That's a dangerous
view of the media.
You know, even if it took
the media time to get
the story correct,
the news reports
ultimately made it clear
these boys were completely
innocent, right?
Some others to this day still
think we were in the wrong.
How could they be in the wrong?
They were innocent bystanders.
Like Seinfeld said,
there's no such thing
as a guilty bystander.
Am I blind?
What the hell are these
people seeing that I'm not?
The entirety of this video
should completely exonerate
these boys, right?
I think even though the
students were cleared,
I'm still kind of outraged.
I can't say I blame them
but I kind of blame the
culture of Covington Catholic,
and I couldn't help
to think that that
would have easily been us
had we gone on that trip.
My opinion hasn't
changed one iota, nothing.
When I saw it, and the first
thing I saw was the image
of that young man
smiling in the face
of this Native American elder,
surrounded by his peers.
What I saw was an
arrogant young man
aware that there
are no consequences
for how he treated
that elderly person.
Hard-stop, that's what I saw.
And that's what I still see.
And what I see now is America
running to apologize for it.
When the other videos surfaced,
it complicated the narrative
and the media were
eager to retract
that this was a
disrespectful interaction
from the young boys.
The full video was released
showing what really happened
with left wing activists who
approached the teens first.
All the local
elected officials
retracted their statements.
We're watching local
media run to defend.
One of my friends
locally wrote an article,
"I Failed the Cov Cath Test"
Right away, I apologize,
I shouldn't have said
those things.
What I saw was white people
always getting
apologized for it,
because if that was a
young African-American,
I can guarantee you
this conversation would
be totally different.
We never ever jump to
defend the African-American
who is gunned down in
the street by a cop.
We jump immediately to
shouldn't have been saying it,
shouldn't have reached
for his Skittles,
shouldn't have been selling
single cigarettes
on the street corner.
If you're a white guy like me,
it can be difficult to
relate to minorities,
especially when you're
surrounded
by other white people,
99.9% of your life.
And it wasn't until I
moved to New York City
that I finally
began to experience
different ethnicities
and cultures.
And it wasn't an
easy adjustment.
I lived above a gay bar
in the West Village.
My one roommate was a
self-proclaimed social anarchist
and my other roommate didn't
speak a lick of English.
I tried to embrace my new home
but I was intimidated
and lonely and honestly,
I was leaning towards
moving back to Kentucky.
That's when I decided to call
my friend Brian Williams,
who is also a Cov Cath grad
and had a really sweet place
on the Upper West Side.
When I spoke with Brian,
he encouraged me not to
leave and he invited me out.
And this was a guy I
hadn't seen for six years.
It didn't matter.
He was a Cov Cath grad,
we played football together
and he considered me a brother.
Brian introduced me
to all his friends
and suddenly I had
a new social circle.
He became the star
of my student films
and I was his sidekick at
some amazing Yankees games.
Brian was just a
blast to be around
and he epitomized everything
a Cov Cath grad should be.
Athletically and academically,
he was a superstar.
After playing football
at Columbia University,
Brian landed a prestigious
job on Wall Street
as soon as he graduated.
Brian and I had very similar
but also very different
experiences in high school.
Brian was proud to be a
Colonel. Me? Not so much.
But Brian encouraged me not
to let one bad experience
define my entire
existence in high school.
And I took his advice.
I can honestly say that
without Brian Williams,
I doubt that I would've ever
reconnected with that community
or ever stepped foot
on the campus again.
These kids did nothing wrong,
they were innocent bystanders.
There were wearing MAGA hats,
they were jumping up and
down, they were chanting,
not a good look but
for Nicholas Sandmann
and for these kids to get
death threats, bomb threats?
I think there's reasons why
people who maybe aren't white
aren't rich Catholic
school kids,
see that and see
something different.
You know, they see things
that maybe you or I don't see.
This certainly was a
win for Covington Catholic
but not because
the truth came out.
In fact, it was a win
because the truth was hidden.
The very truth that would
reveal the amount of resources
that were mobilized in
order to protect a school
and its students from
any kind of challenge
to their elite status.
The cleanup job, as it refers to
the Covington Catholic incident
really centers on making
the story about one person
rather than the institution,
making about Nick Sandmann
and whether he is a good child
or a bad child, whether
he's a racist child
or not a racist child,
all of which
are the most shallow ways that
you can approach this story.
And so when you
make it about him
and you make it about his
character, he gets a chance
to go on The Today Show
and say that he was scared
because the Black Israelites
were threatening to him
and even Savannah Guthrie
at one point, I think
in that interview kind
of challenges him.
There were more
of you than them.
But you felt like
they were stronger?
They were a group of adults
and I wasn't sure what
was gonna happen next.
What you see in those videos
are tribes acting
in tribal ways.
And the way to approach
that story is to think about
which tribe actually
has the power here.
And I would have
to remind everybody
there was only one person
suing the Washington Post
and NBC and all these other
major media organizations
for hundreds of
millions of dollars.
There's only one.
While I can agree that a
child doesn't innately have
all of that power, what are
the things behind that child?
Elite schools teach students,
there's always a winner
and there's always
a loser therefore.
So their success always comes
at the expense of
someone losing.
I think those schools graduate
socially inept young men.
And I don't think
there's anything
that these schools
can do about it.
We had three female teachers
when I was at this school,
one African-American teacher
in the history of the school,
50 years old,
one the whole time.
You're graduating these kids,
what are they gonna think?
The only time they
see poor people
is when they go
on a mission trip
and they're going to save
and to serve these people.
I think it's very difficult
to teach inclusiveness
in that kind of environment.
I've really been reflecting
upon my time at
Covington Catholic,
and I think something that
really hampered my growth
was the overall
lack of diversity
and the lack of
diversity education.
People of different color,
of different religions
of different nationalities,
that was a weird thing to us.
That was a very
strange thing to us
if you were not a white
guy from Northern Kentucky.
And there were times when
we wrestled with that.
And I wonder if a little bit
of that's not happening now.
The best educational minds
can be absent of
thought about diversity.
During the time of
the ordeal in DC,
there was an immediate
call from the NAACP
to the leadership of
the Covington diocese.
We did make the phone calls to
the principals of the school,
to the superintendent,
to the Bishop's office.
We did call a few times.
I had a talk with
the superintendent
of the Archdiocese,
I introduced him to a
diversity program that I do
in Northern Kentucky for
other school districts.
They felt that they had
enough people around the table
to handle this internally.
And so they chose
to go that route.
I have to admit race awareness
is not something my
alma mater does well.
Overnight, a
series of images showing
past Covington high school
students wearing blackface
at a sporting event,
sparking new controversy.
Soon after
the Lincoln Memorial incident,
old footage of the
cheering section,
the Cov Cath crazies as
they're known resurfaced,
showing students in blackface
at basketball games.
People affiliated
with the school point out
that the video was filmed
during a blackout night
for the basketball team where
students were encouraged
to wear black from head to toe.
And the Covington
Catholic community
just shrugged it off as a
simple misunderstanding.
What wasn't shown was Covington
Catholic has black-outs,
they have blue-outs,
they have white-outs.
And so there are other
games where they are dressed
like the Blue Man's Group,
blue shirts,
I don't think they were
intending to offend Blue Men,
I think that that
happened to be one
of their school colors.
When they were all whitewashed,
I, as a white person took no
offense at that whatsoever,
it's part of the fun they had.
I just don't get it,
how can any adult, parent,
teacher or administrator
think that white kids
painting their face black
is a good idea?
There was no intent to
offend by any of those boys
at any time.
I noticed
that some of the blackout faces,
the boys added big exaggerated
white lips and eyes
to their face paint.
And that's a look
specific to minstrel shows
and those exaggerated
white lips and eyes?
They were missing during
the blue and white outs.
At best, this is
woefully ignorant.
At worst, it's just
flat out racist.
Early on in my research,
I was at a basketball game.
The school was playing
this public school
where the students are
mostly African-American,
the students come from
poverty, et cetera.
Towards the end of the game,
when it became obvious
that they were going to lose,
this one little group
of students that began
shaking their keys to
their expensive houses
and expensive cars
towards the opposing team
and began to chant this thing,
you'll be working
for us one day,
you'll be working-it's okay.
What was the...?
That's alright, that's okay,
you will work for us someday.
Yeah, we used to
chant that one too.
And what was remarkable
at that moment,
not just that the entire
school, it seemed like,
began chanting this,
but the fact that
there were so many teachers,
the headmaster
and the principal and parents
and they were laughing
and they were condoning
that behavior,
which revealed a lot
about what their children,
what their students think
about themselves and others.
You know,
even if would lose the game,
we wanted everyone else to know
that we were gonna win at life.
And not once did our teachers,
our parents, our coaches
tell us that anything
was wrong with that,
that it was elitist
or reprehensible.
For anyone who's gone
to Cov Cath and wonders,
gee I wonder why so many
people hate us? That's why.
Part of what young people
at elite schools learn
are strategies that allow them
to uphold those understandings.
And one of those strategies
is to cast themselves
as the victim.
They really went after us,
said are very rude
and mean things.
You have all these people
coming out of the woodwork,
attacking them for nothing.
They were the ones targeted,
they were the ones prosecuted,
they were the ones persecuted,
they were the ones shamed,
they were the ones defamed,
they were the ones attacked.
These kids are not trying
to act like victims.
Look at all of these people
against me when in fact
a lot of things are
working for them.
Privileged individuals
have a lot of resources
to mobilize in those moments
to make sure that
they are getting
the narrative that
they want out,
and that's the one
that we all believe.
Students from more
disadvantaged schools
would not have had
the same resources.
And therefore it would have been
a very different
outcome for them.
One of the most important
parts of the first video
was the face of the young man.
The white male gaze
directed towards the
elder native American man.
This is a look that is
very familiar to minorities
that communicates
I'm superior to you,
it communicates a certain
contempt for others,
that smirk even though
he was very silent,
during that moment
no words were spoken,
it communicated volumes.
Smirk, smile...
I don't think he was smirking,
but that was the
thing that was said
is that he was smirking.
I think he was nervous,
he was young and he
was standing there.
Everybody saw in that
what they wanted to.
It was another Rorschach test.
You looked at that kid's face
and brought your own
prejudices to it.
The biggest criticism wise is,
how do you know what was
going through his head?
And we don't know he could
have been experiencing fear
and this was probably
scary to him in many ways.
But despite that fear,
we also need to pay
attention to the confidence,
the sense of entitlement, the
fact that he didn't back down.
I had no idea a little smirk
could cause such huge
contempt and outrage.
His actions, his body language,
it was communicating
something that we have seen
over and over in our country.
It was the same face
that we saw in the 1950s,
when a bunch of white
men were gathered around
African-American
children as they entered
the school building
after desegregation.
It was the same look that
we've seen in the history books
of the African-American
man, sitting at a counter
with a bunch of white
men surrounding him
with this same smirk on
their face that communicates
that I'm better than you and
a particular kind of contempt.
There was a moment of
real intentional gazing
that is not often afforded
to people of color.
People of color are
supposed to look away,
they're supposed to
not see oppression,
they're supposed
to not call it out.
But I think in this particular
moment, young people,
especially young white males
who are being radicalized
to have these kinds of racist
ideals are being challenged
to look directly into
the face of someone
that they would like to
oppress or like to do away with
in order to make
America great again.
What always preceded an act
of violence in those videos
was the jeering that
we saw in this video.
So all of the righteous
sneering and the yelling
and those kinds of things
eventually escalated to pushing
and tragically
escalate to lynching.
So for many communities,
when they see that kind of
cheering, it's a trigger.
It's very scary because
you don't know where that
is going to end, you don't
know where the line is.
One of the things that it
revealed was that obviously
these young men had kind
of formed not so productive
kind of understandings
about themselves and others.
And where are they getting
those understandings?
What sources is it?
Is it from their school?
Is it from their churches?
Is it from families,
larger contexts?
I know
exactly where they got it.
When other schools would
scream insults at us,
we'd just start chanting
and singing our fight song.
That was our defense
mechanism to drown them out.
Don't be offended you
liberal snowflakes!
Your media and
twitter attacks
We've got lawyers and
they've got our backs
You limousine
liberal hypocrites!
If we can't be smarter
We're gonna be louder. If we
Is it possible that these kids
were just responding
in the only way they knew how?
Chanting is a big part of the
culture at Covington Catholic.
It's who we are,
it's what we do.
I wanna entertain
that idea, I do.
And you know, it's
possible, it's possible that
the only way that you know
how to deal with conflict
is to throw a pep rally at it.
I mean, that kind
of beggars belief
what else are you
learning at that school?
They had the option
of not responding
which is what the vast
majority of people who walk by
black Israelites on any sidewalk
in DC or in New York do.
They just keep walking.
Have you heard anything
as far as Sandmann's attorneys,
you're just dealing straight
with the attorneys, right?
Not the Sandmann family?
Right, dealing straight
with the attorneys and it's,
we'll see.
I had a great
conversation on the phone,
he understands the point
of the documentary,
he understands that
I'm sensitive to Nick
and what he went through.
So hopefully we'll
hear something soon,
but it's just been
a back and forth.
Last text I sent to
Nathan was, look,
I don't have to interview
on camera, no microphones.
How about just the two
of us get a coffee.
To me, it almost be better if
there weren't cameras there.
And I could just speak
to Nathan directly.
I think he'd be more open,
I think he'd be more honest
and more comfortable.
Yeah, well, it's
kind of interesting
how the Sandmann family has
so much wrapped up in this
monetarily resource-wise
whereas Nathan is just,
it seems like he's
doing it all on his own.
Could be one reason why he'd
be reluctant to talk is, I mean
if it goes bad for him, he
doesn't really have a recourse.
Whereas Nick, it sounds like
if the situation go exactly
as the Sandmann's wanted
you could be real fucked.
At the same time, Nathan
has a lot more to hide.
When this story first broke,
I saw Nathan Phillips
as the good guy,
someone I could root for,
almost a hero for standing
up to these punks.
But as the story got
more complicated,
so did Nathan Phillips.
The more I learned about him,
the more I began to
question his character
and his motivations.
Nathan claimed the
boys were chanting,
build that wall,
build that wall.
I've watched that video
at least a thousand times
and I still can't hear
anyone saying that.
But at the same time,
I'll give Nathan the
benefit of the doubt.
However, Nathan also
claims that he was
a "recon ranger" in Vietnam.
First of all, there's
no such position
in the Marine Corps
called a recon ranger.
Secondly, he was actually
a refrigerator repairman
who never stepped foot
outside of the United States.
And according to the
Washington Examiner,
Nathan had a criminal record
during his time in the military.
He was charged with assault,
escaping from prison
not to mention several
alcohol related crimes.
But no matter what
happened in Nathan's past,
this story blew up for
one reason: the MAGA hats,
quite possibly the most divisive
and controversial political
attire in modern day history.
I feel like part of
why we were targeted
was because of the
hats that we had on
showing our support
for the president.
Like it or not, this hat
has become a symbol of hate,
of judgment, white privilege.
And by wearing this hat, those
students cloaked themselves
with those kinds of messages.
It implies a greatness that
large chunks of this country
were not able to take a part in.
It taps into a nostalgia for
a greatness that did not exist
for a large group of Americans.
And to embrace that
slogan means to disqualify
those Americans. Laying
that out that way,
it is a racist slogan.
Like I don't think
it's racist personally
but I think other people
might think it is.
I think you have
to question yourself,
why are you feeling
hate at a hat?
Because the person wearing it
probably doesn't feel
hate towards you,
but you feel hate
towards the hat.
Just because you wear a MAGA hat
doesn't automatically
make you a racist
but it makes you
someone who is willing
to provoke a reaction to
throw into somebody's face
this strong statement that
you know to be loaded.
They're not trying to do
something truly terrible
like wear Chicago Bears hat
at a Green Bay Packer game.
That might be truly offensive.
That might be intentional
infliction of emotional distress
but a MAGA hat in Washington DC
is something that we
should love and celebrate.
You have to understand
in this day and age,
a bunch of white kids
wearing MAGA hats,
jumping up and
down and chanting,
whether they're
confronting other people,
other people are
confronting them,
they're not putting themselves
in a great situation.
This isn't
about Nick and Nathan.
This is about what's
right and what's wrong.
And how you feel about Trump,
the MAGA hats or
white privilege,
it can put you on
either side of this
without knowing the facts.
To me, I don't think
either direction of the story
is totally honest, right?
I mean, you've got
Nathan Phillips saying
that he heard people
yelling, "build the wall",
you can't hear in the recording,
but it doesn't mean
nobody said it.
You've got Nick Sandmann saying
he was smiling, not smirking
and they were just scared
and trying to be respectful.
Meanwhile, you watch the video,
they're all jumping up and
down doing Tomahawk chops.
I feel like both
of these stories
are being spun to some degree.
So I just wanna make sure that
we have a level of skepticism
that is appropriate
for both sides of this.
Well, I think if the
Cov Cath kids, for example
lied about being in Vietnam,
lied about their discharge
from the military,
if they set up a
fictitious charity,
I would be a lot more
skeptical of that side,
but these are 17 year old kids
and I know it looks horrible,
but when push comes to shove,
they're all gonna get together
and they're all gonna chant.
And this was at Nathan
Phillips expense
and cameras were everywhere.
I just don't buy it,
I don't think Nick
Sandmann's interviews
are any more honest than
Nathan Phillips interviews.
The difference is
Nick Sandmann's family
has a lot more
money to do it with.
I'm a part of that,
I'm a part of that community,
I'm a part of that culture,
I'm an alumni.
I used to participate in
that sort of behavior.
I'm not proud of it, but
that's what those kids do,
that's what they're
taught to do.
But I think that's the whole
crux of this thing is like
it's not necessarily
how the kids responded,
but why did the kids
respond that way?
Why does this school
with so many resources
at their disposal have
children who think
it's okay to do what they did?
One thing that I found
particularly interesting
was if you look at the
beginning of that video,
when Nathan Phillips comes up
Nick Sandmann isn't
even in the picture
which means he had to
insert himself into it.
You know, which is something
that nobody really ever
kind of revisited.
It's like these were children,
and we can call them children,
we can call them young men,
but fundamentally they
were acting as provocateurs
and they enjoyed that
as young men tend to do.
And you can tell by their
interaction there isn't,
from the kid perspective,
they're not hostile
or anything else.
Not one time do you ever hear
or see, or did I hear or see
any boy in that group
turn and scream an insult
or reply or yell back
anything at any time.
They stood there more composed
than probably most adults
ever would have been.
It's so frustrating
and kind of unbelievable
and somewhat laughable that
there were so many people
trying to paint those
students' reactions
as something other than
mockery and derision.
Because if you've
been to high school,
you know what it looks
like when a group of kids
know that they have the power
and are wielding that power.
That's exactly
what it looks like.
So they think they're joining
in and they, this was great,
this is fun,
it's all a big moment.
We had to deal with these crazy
Black Hebrew
Israelites over here,
and now we've got a guy
that wants to party with us.
That was their reaction.
They didn't think,
"Oh, let's make fun of him,
let's attack them,
let's hurt them",
nothing like that at all.
You hear a lot of the young
men, singing along with him,
some would say mockingly,
some of the kids were
doing Tomahawk chops.
Well, how dare they?
My response to that
is how could they not?
You know, we still have teams
like the Washington Redskins.
We have entire
stadiums of people
who do the Tomahawk chop
for the Atlanta Braves.
And it's just
cherished by our media.
We haven't even gotten
rid of this mockery
of native existence
but we suddenly expect these
kids to behave perfectly
and not act like Indians?
I don't blame these kids.
They're taught every day
that acting like an Indian
inappropriately is
perfectly acceptable.
Nobody doing a Tomahawk
is doing it to mock
Native American tradition
at Florida state games
or Kansas City Chiefs games
or Atlanta Braves games.
They see it as celebrating
this emotive powerful
music tribal tradition.
I do not know of one
single person, not one
that has said they're
honored by such behavior.
I'm insulted by it and I find it
a mockery of my race,
I find it a mockery
of my culture
and I find it a mockery of my
beliefs and I don't like it.
And I would like to
ask people to stop.
Those boys might not have
thought about it that deeply,
they might not have considered
all the implications of that,
but teenagers know how to troll,
teenagers know how to provoke,
they know how to cause offense
and that was something that
they were willing to do.
The kid that confronted the
Native American with the drum,
his shitty reply on
Good Morning America
really pissed me off.
Do you feel from this experience
that you owe anybody an apology?
Do you see your own
fault in any way?
As far as standing there,
I had every right to do so.
I don't, I, my position is that
I was not disrespectful
to Mr. Phillips.
That really made me think,
Oh, there's no concession here.
There's no we were at the
wrong place at the wrong time.
Or we should have been the
better person and walked away,
there was none of that.
I see it as a
smile saying that
this is the best you're
going to get out of me.
You won't get any further
reaction of aggression
and I'm willing to stand here
as long as you wanna hit
this drum in my face.
There wasn't a single 'I regret'
there wasn't a single
'I apologize'
there wasn't a single
'I'm sorry'
there wasn't a single 'Well
maybe looking back at it,
I should have done this'.
I think that's the part that
still kind of chips my ass
a little bit,
even with the kids
being cleared.
While I didn't share
Andy's anger,
I did wanna get real honest
answers from Nick Sandmann.
I was hopeful that his attorney
would respond to our request.
Speaking of Sandmann,
I just got off the phone
with his attorney.
He said, draft an email.
He encouraged me to actually
play up the fact that, you know
I went to Covington Catholic,
that I'm a Colonel,
that I'm sympathetic
to Nick Sandmann.
So I was thinking
we got to go big.
Right.
We'll get a designer,
design him like a scrapbook,
we'll produce something,
you know.
It needs a grand gesture.
If we could fly an
airplane over his house
with a sign that said,
please be in our documentary,
that's what I would do.
We're right on the cusp,
we're right on the
cusp of getting him.
It's just a matter of
executing whatever we sent him.
And here it is,
in all its glory, the packet
we sent to Nick.
Not bad, huh?
I always wonder what my friend
Brian Williams
would have thought
about the situation.
Unfortunately, I'll never know
because on September 11th, 2001,
Brian lost his life in
the World Trade Center.
Not only did I lose a brother,
the Cov Cath family
lost one of their own.
Hopefully his family can
take solace in knowing
that Brian Williams
will forever be known
as being one of the greatest
people to ever call themselves
a Covington Catholic Colonel.
That should be our
school's legacy,
not this crazy viral video.
The video I watched, you
see the very beginnings of it.
So it's the Covington high
school boys just standing there
and the black Israelites
standing there,
both of them are being
antagonistic to each other
in equal parts.
Ain't y'all supporting Trump?
That's not even a real-
You know what?
Now the Covington Catholic boys,
there's so much more of them.
There were literally
dozens and dozens of them
and then they start kind
of that sort of pep rally,
almost like mob mentality.
And it was really
kind of amazing to see
because there's a lot of
movement from the students
but the black
Israelites who they say
they felt threatened by
are stood in one place
the entire time.
It's the Covington Catholic boys
that are moving back and forth.
There's this sense
of provocation.
There was a couple of
boys who were I think
waving sticks even.
You know, it's hard for me
to imagine this same scenario
with a group of kids
from a mostly black
Washington DC school
acting in that way
because they are so hyper aware
of the way that they're
viewed of as threats
which is not something
that ever seems
to cross these kids' minds until
well after the fact, right?
Until it becomes a news story.
I don't even think we could have
a collection of black students
coming together
and not being accosted
before they even got to a
critical mass of people.
And we've seen that before.
We've seen the news
frame peaceful gatherings
of African-Americans recently
as quote unquote "race riots."
Even when we try to see groups
of African-American students
going to a pool party in Texas,
in McKinney, Texas, we can
see that becoming a problem.
You see police coming there
and slamming a 15 year old girl
into the ground in a
bikini completely unarmed.
So black kids aren't
allowed to convene
in the same ways
that white kids are.
I absolutely view this
as a textbook example
of white privilege.
Privilege is a
very messy concept
and it's a very confusing
concept to many people.
You get your education,
you get a job and
then you get married
and you raise your kids and
then you work your ass off.
If that's white privilege, okay.
People get so offended
when you say
the phrase white privilege
when you tell white people,
white men especially
so me, maybe you
got what you got
partly because of
how you were born.
It rocks this
American paradigm that
if you work hard in
this country,
this is what you'll get.
But not as hard as
the people I know
who are making $10 an hour
and have to make a decision
whether or not to buy books
or clothes for their children.
I would love to talk to somebody
to understand their point
of view of white privilege,
of what they're saying.
I haven't experienced it
that I can tell.
Of course, I think this is
an issue of white privilege
in that white people are
allowed to take up space
in that way and even be loud
and obnoxious in that way
and it still not be
seen as threatening.
We see black men trying to
have a meeting at Starbucks
and they have the police called
on them
in a matter of seconds.
Once again, I don't understand.
I don't understand.
They - They're there - they're -
They're - they're Catholics.
They're going to school.
I don't understand.
I don't see a lot of handouts.
I think it's interesting that
nobody treats those students
as though they were a threat.
Even though I look at that
and I see something
very threatening
and I see why a Nathan Phillips
would wanna diffuse
the situation
because it looked unruly,
it looked threatening.
There were a lot of you,
a handful of the others.
Do you think they
might've felt threatened
by a bunch of young men kind
of beating their chests?
I would just say that
the fact remains that
they initiated
their comments with us,
and I mean, they provoked us
into a peaceful response
of school spirit.
It was a failed moment
by both the chaperones
and the school, having
not known the chaperones,
I can understand where
immediately it may be jarring,
but as an adult you
know not to get children
into those kinds of scenarios.
And that's hard to hear. Um -
We were there,
we were there the entire time.
And -
We did not...
it was a fluid situation.
The chaperones job
is to guide the student
in such a way that they
don't become the story.
You can't possibly think
that starting a cheer
is going to be seen
as something calm.
There was just, there
was a lot more going on
than just what was being filmed.
I don't think the boys
could have reacted differently
in that situation.
I think if you are
trained to be dominant,
to be first, America first,
I think if you are consuming
a steady diet of nationalism
and white nationalism at that,
I think it's very difficult
for you to have a perspective
of what other people
who don't look like you
could be going through.
It all just seems
like a nuisance
and it seems like
here we go again
with those people
being very sensitive.
Why do we care about this?
I don't see any meaning in
their actions whatsoever.
This is how liberals
are reacting to anyone
these days suspected
of supporting Trump.
All of a sudden, because
Trump gets elected,
we're talking about
how the dangers
of white nationalists
is going to come up.
It's like when's the last white
nationalist violent incident
of major consequence?
They don't exist anymore.
The death toll here in El Paso,
rising tonight at least 22 dead
now.
Now the gunman opened fire
in a Walmart parking lot.
He would later say that mission
was to kill as many
Hispanics as possible.
Breaking news:
deadly church shooting,
at least nine people
killed in a massacre
in a historic black church.
The website
includes a lengthy statement
criticizing blacks
as quote, "inferior".
In a car plowing
into a crowd of demonstrators
protesting against those
white nationalists,
a 32 year old woman killed.
The latest breaking news
unfolding in Christchurch
where there have been
two separate shootings
at two mosques.
It is no doubt, a manifesto
of a white supremacist.
Before Roof left, he stood
over a witness
and uttered a racially
inflammatory statement.
I feel like white males are now
the target
just because people want
to make other ethnicities
and races look -
um - really good.
I don't wanna try.
So I heard back from
the Sandmann family.
It's a hard, no.
Well that sucks.
Thanks for agreeing, yeah.
After all this fricking time,
after the packet,
after the conversations,
after all the emails,
after all the texts, it's a no.
Another person I've always
wanted to meet up with
was the legendary
teacher who punched me.
And it actually happened
over a Thanksgiving weekend
at a Cov Cath football game.
And there he was, standing
right in front of me.
I relived this moment a
thousand times in my head
what would I do now
as a grown ass man
if I ever came across this guy?
My former goal was
to overwhelm him
with a tremendous amount
of violence and rage.
But the very first words
out of his mouth were,
"I'm sorry you lost your friend,
Brian Williams,"
and then he gave me a big hug.
Afterwards, I was completely
disarmed, all was forgiven,
and in spite of nearly
knocking me out,
I still felt a conflicting need
to protect his power and
reputation in our community.
It is quite remarkable
how much effort
and how many resources
are paid and devoted
to protecting the most
powerful and privileged.
Institutions like
Covington Catholic,
both fail Nick Sandmann
and produce Nick Sandmanns.
Because he's not singular.
My political ideas
are sort of locked.
I don't know if
they'll ever change
just because of what happened.
In order to really
have a discussion
that we need to have about
racism in this country,
it would require us not
centering the feelings
of white people
and their goodness.
And we would have to
center somebody else.
And that is something
that has not happened
in that community clearly.
No, I can't,
I'm too close to it.
I know those boys.
I know there, I know
they meant no ill will,
I know they meant no harm.
No, I can't understand why
they went batshit crazy.
You would have to value
the personhood, the feelings,
the history of somebody
who is not you.
Which is not something
these boys know how to do.
And we can blame
in their community,
we can blame their agency,
we can blame this country
for continuing to
reinforce the idea
that their perspective is
the center of everything.
The boys that were
up there at Washington
that handled
themselves peacefully,
that quality that
I saw in those boys
is part of the
quality of our region.
This is a story about
childhood and who gets it.
This is a story about
protection and who gets it.
This is a story about who
can get to redeem themselves.
And it's very clear to me
who does and who doesn't.
At this point,
the more I researched
Nathan Phillips,
the more determined I
am to speak with him.
In my mind, this is a
guy who inadvertently
got into something way bigger
than he could have
ever imagined.
Maybe he's embarrassed,
maybe he doesn't wanna
get caught in another lie.
One thing I know for certain
is that Nathan Phillips has
led an extremely difficult life
and has been an activist
for quite some time.
So you've been having a
dialogue with Nathan Phillips.
We've been going back and forth,
we've been texting
back and forth.
So since his organization
won't get back to me,
I went right back to Nathan
Phillips and it was a hard no.
So what I'm thinking
of doing is just
driving five hours to his place
and knocking on his door.
Thinking with the hopes of
maybe seeing me in person,
I can somehow magically charm
him into uh - an interview,
I don't know.
So what's the Nick Sandmann
situation though?
Are we, do you think,
I know, I mean-
If Nick Sandmann
was not a minor,
I don't give a shit
about the lawyers,
I would knock on his
door and be look, dude,
I'm a Colonel, you're a Colonel,
let's talk this out.
But the fact that he is
a minor and the fact that
I'm a 45 year old man
knocking on someone's door
looking to interview a kid,
probably not a good look.
I mean, Nathan Phillips is
an adult,
but I don't know,
I think we should
be similarly careful
about how we deal with Nathan.
I mean, I know
you have given him
all the opportunities
in the world,
but we should definitely
make sure they're all expired
before we show up at his door.
I wanna be sensitive
to Nathan Phillips
but there's a lot of questions
that I want to ask him.
Nathan is a guy who's told many,
many, many lies
to further his narrative
that he was the victim.
So I have many more questions
for Nathan than I do Nick.
You know what?
Today I'm throwing a hail
Mary and driving five hours
to see if Nathan Phillips
will speak to me,
hopefully on camera.
Maybe all those
websites and articles
exposing Nathan as a
liar simply aren't true.
And maybe his charity is
perfectly legit, I don't know.
But either way I want to
give Nathan an opportunity
and a platform to set
the record straight.
About halfway through the trip,
I received a text from
my wife alerting me
that Nathan Phillips was
on his way to New York City
and that he was soliciting money
from the Native Youth
Alliance Facebook page
to fund the trip.
I kept this info to myself
because I didn't want
the crew to think
we would be spending all
day driving for nothing.
Who knows, maybe Nathan lied
to his Facebook followers
and stayed at home.
Either way, I wasn't
expecting Nathan to be home.
That's Nathan Phillips'
house right there.
I'm just gonna walk up
and knock on his door
and see if he'll talk.
Nathan?
Hello, Nathan?
Hey, my name is Jon Schroder.
I've been texting you about
a documentary that I'm doing
about uh - the Cov
Cath incident and...
I was wondering if I could
talk to you for just a second.
Nathan, I promise just
no funny questions,
no trick ques...
Call the police.
Threatened to call the police.
I just wanted five
minutes to talk to him
and then I'm not sure
if it picked up on the mic
but he threatened
to call the police
and he slammed
the door in my face.
So that's where we're at.
And actually I'd like to
get the fuck out of here
before he actually
does call the police.
So we'll cut on this.
I will never forget the look on
Nathan's face
when he answered the door.
My heart was racing as
I saw Nathan's confusion
morph into rage and disgust.
And this was a guy that
I'd been researching
for over a year.
I've read hundreds of
the social media posts
and watched countless
internet clips of this man.
I've been trying to
dissect this man's life
and here I was standing
face to face with him
and it was one of the most
surreal moments of my life.
So Nathan posted this
on his Facebook page
shortly after
I knocked on his door.
Even though I identified myself
by name and by profession
even though Nathan and I had
been corresponding for months
and he has all my contact
information, he knows my name
he referred to me as
quote "this fella,"
he pretended not to know me
and to add insult to injury,
He made it sound like I was
after his little dog too.
When Nathan answered the door,
I couldn't help but notice
his living conditions.
Anyone who thinks Nathan
has become wealthy
due to this incident
is dead wrong.
I doubt that anyone
attending Covington Catholic
lives in similar conditions.
The trip obviously
didn't go as planned,
but the more I thought about
interviewing Nick and Nathan,
the more I realized this isn't
a story about us versus them
or Nick versus Nathan,
this is about
something way bigger.
You know I hope
someday Nick and Nathan
will ultimately
forgive each other
but it's impossible to
forgive when each side feels
they have done nothing
wrong in the first place.
I have my own issues
with forgiveness.
I ultimately forgave the
teacher who punched me,
mostly because he was like a
second father to not only me,
but to many others who
attended that school.
And make no mistake, I still
love this man to this day.
Regardless, I have to wonder
if he were teaching
at a public school,
there would be no way in hell
he would've gotten away
with punching a student.
It probably would
have ended his career
and he probably would
have faced legal charges.
There were other
kids hit by this guy
and some would
tell their parents
and some of the
parents would say,
"Well what did you
do to deserve it?"
Most of the parents
and the teachers
thought nothing was
wrong with this.
Which brings me to the incident
at the Lincoln Memorial.
The Cov Cath students were
being verbally attacked
by a hate group and confronted
by an indigenous man.
And what did we do?
We smirked and we
threw a pep rally at it
because as dysfunctional
as it sounds,
that's how we deal with
adverse situations.
And the Cov Cath community
sees nothing wrong
with this behavior.
Not only is it tolerated,
it's expected.
I originally wanted
to make this film
to prove that the boys in the
red hats did nothing wrong.
But as I listened to those
on the other side of it,
I realized they didn't
do much right either.
My heart aches
for these young kids
who didn't understand
what was happening.
A lot of these young
men probably just-
want to just put this to rest.
They don't wanna talk
about it anymore.
And if they don't wanna
learn anything from it,
You know, I have to be honest
and say I don't blame them
because they've probably
been asked to death about it.
But if any of these
young men are listening,
I'd like to say that if you can,
try to empathize with
people in this world
who may not have what you have,
people who aren't
walking in your shoes.
When I was reaching out
to the Covington Catholic
community for interviews,
one person who declined
said something that
really struck me.
He said, "You know what?
I love my bubble."
That's the problem.
Not the boys in red hats, not
the Black Hebrew Israelites
not the Native Americans,
not the Republicans,
or the Democrats, it's
our culture of insularity
and our fierce instinct
to defend our own beliefs.
And the only winners
in all of this
are the social
media conglomerates
and the 24 hour news networks.
They play us like pawns
in an endless debate
that keeps us all trapped,
galvanized and divided.
So whether it's our social media
bubble, the Fox News bubble
or CNN bubble, maybe it's
time, we all burst out.

And if you like Trump
It doesn't mean
that you're a chump
And if you're in to Bernie
I hope you enjoy the journey
If you're sitting on a fence
And you love Mike Pence
I might say that makes sense
with a smile or a smirk
It doesn't mean
you're a jerk
Let's be friends
Let's be friends
Let's be friends
Let's hold hands
play nice in the sand
Let's be bros
Let's see how it goes
Let's smile away
On this glorious day come on
Let's be friends

Whether left or right
You should love
with all your might
Liberal or conservative
Eat your food with
less preservatives
It's the land of the free
Red white and blue diversity
Baby Jesus on our knee
Not judging or blaming
Let's be friends
Let's be friends
Let's be friends
Let's smile away on
this glorious day
Come on, let's be friends
Just take my arm
We'll do no harm
It's some lucky charms
You bring the bowl
I'll bring the milk
Marshmallows in our silks
Come on, let's be friends
Let's be friends
Let's be friends
Let's be friends
Let's be friends
Let's be friends
Let's be friends
Let's be friends
Let's be friends
Let's be friends
Let's be friends
Let's be friends
Let's be friends
Let's be friends
Let's be friends
Let's be friends
Let's be friends
Let's be friends
Pete Rose for
the Hall of Fame