NEO: Covington and the politics of aggressive standing.

At any rate, I have some advice for Sandmann: it wouldn’t have mattered. If Sandman had somehow managed to walk away from Phillips, one (or more) of these things would have almost certainly resulted: Sandmann would have been criticized for disrespecting Phillips by walking away, and/or Phillips would have followed him beating that drum all the while, and/or Phillips would have focused the same technique on another boy.

So many people hated Sandmann’s smile (excuse me, smirk). But what if he hadn’t smiled? What facial expressions would not have constituted facecrime on the part a white preppy-looking teenaged boy (in a MAGA cap! Let’s not forget the MAGA cap!) being confronted by Phillips and his up-close-and-personal drumming and chanting? A grim face on Sandmann would have been considered even more “aggressive,” wouldn’t it? And laughing would have been even more disrespectful. Telling Phillips to get away? Perish the thought—racist! Turning his face away? Disrespectful again.

I’m not just trying to be cute here. I am serious in saying I believe there was nothing Sandmann could have done that would have changed the outcome, once he was selected as the target for the confrontation and the recording of the exchange on video by Phillips, who was accompanied by people with videocameras filming it from the start.

Enormous numbers of people considered Sandmann guilty on sight because of the categories of person to which he belongs, and because of what propaganda has guided them to believe. I almost wrote “guilty until proven innocent,” but that is too kind to those among them who will not even accept proof of innocence. They want him guilty, because it suits their political and their emotional purposes.

Well, that’s just because they’re trash.