I doubt we will ever know a full objective truth of the circumstances surrounding Native American Veteran Nathan Phillips and the group of Covington Catholic students at the Lincoln Memorial. The videos do seem to be a bit of rorschach test - do you side with the Catholic kids who were jeered at by one group and had an adult come into their face? Or the peaceful and elderly protestor surrounded by MAGA-hat wearing kids cheering and smirking?
On Saturday I retweeted two tweets that were sent out in the initial moments following the confrontation.
On Sunday a fuller picture emerged and I retweeted several tweets based upon further information. (Douthat's advice mirrors my own thoughts most closely).
How often does this mirror our own "real-life" disciplinary experiences?
We come in with our own biases and viewpoints, see an incident in the classroom, on the playground, in the hall, from a staff member or parent, and quickly react? A Catholic and a principal and a leader is called to do more.
We must approach each situation with patience, trust, love, mercy, and justice.
First, patience is necessary to ensure we do not rush to judgement. We must be patient with those involved - giving them the emotional space to process and share their viewpoint. We must be patient with ourselves that we listen, hear, and process what is said.
Discipline needs to then be approached with trust. Trust that the truth can and may be known. But even if it is not, trust that we can move forward knowing that the truth is known to God and that we have done our best.
Love is necessary to our process - it is the willing of the good in another - what consequences? what processes are in place to ensure that those involved (including the leader) move forward in a positive way, a way to encourages growth? Too many of our disciplinary processes are not supportive but retributive (and a twitter mob is a perfect example of this).
Finally, we have those twin values of mercy and justice. Inexorably wrapped up with love, true mercy will enable all parties to move forward; while justice will be a step forward for the aggrieved and the community as a whole. Perhaps mercy is calling us to treat the student with understanding - he is a kid, confronted by an adult, in an emotionally charged situation. Or maybe mercy is calling us to treat the older gentlemen, most likely someone who has suffered from racism and intolerance his whole life, with additional understanding and support.
In this situation, as a principal across the country, I cannot extend justice directly - however - as a member of the American and Catholic communities I can do so indirectly.
This is a moment of education, as Julie Zimmermann wrote in The Atlantic:
If the Covington Catholic incident was a test, it’s one I failed—along with most others. Will we learn from it, or will we continue to roam social media, looking for the next outrage fix? Next time a story like this surfaces, I’ll try to sit it out until more facts have emerged. I’ll remind myself that the truth is sometimes unknowable, and I’ll stick to discussing the news with people I know in real life, instead of with strangers whom I’ve never met. I’ll get my news from legitimate journalists instead of an online mob for whom Saturday-morning indignation is just another form of entertainment. And above all, I’ll try to take the advice I give my kids daily: Put the phone down and go do something productive.
So, we learn and hopefully change; but it's these words from C.S. Lewis (That Jeremy McLellan tweeted out) that will stick with me:
Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one's first feeling, 'Thank God, even they aren't quite so bad as that,' or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything -- God and our friends and ourselves included -- as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred,
- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
