Americans all over the country reacted with horror and disgust at the viral video of a racist MAGA-hat wearing teenager harassing a Native American veteran during today’s Indigenous Peoples’ March.
The question on many people’s minds was how a kid so young could so proudly exude such hate, smugly secure in his presumption that there would be no consequences for his actions.
His mother’s response to a Heavy.com reporter quickly made it clear why the kid was so comfortable with racism.
Rather than take responsibility for her son’s actions, she instead gave the Trumpiest excuse she possibly could: double down on the racism, blame the media for being the real hate-mongers, and then saying that her son had somehow been driven to harass the old man because he himself was harassed by…”black Muslims.”
Heavy.com‘s Ellyn Santiago reports that:
In an email to this reporter, the mother of the student right up in Phillips’ face said the story was “fake news.” She claimed that Phillips, who she referred as a “this man,” in quotation marks, was drumming close to the teen’s face. But her biggest gripe, besides saying this reporter was promoting hate, was that she alleged the students were themselves harassed. By “black Muslims.”
“Shame on you! Were you there? Did you hear the names the people where calling these boys? It was shameful. Did you witness the black Muslims yelling profanities and video taping trying to get something to futher (sic) your narrative of hatred?? Did you know that this “man” came up to this one boy and drummed in his face? Shame on you. Only reporting what you want. More fake news.”
When this reporter thanked her for the correspondence and explained that it would be reported on as part of the story, she demanded the emails be deleted.
“Delete my email. I want nothing to do with helping perpetuating (sic) your hate. I do not want to be a part of your story. You are ruining a boys life for fake news. Hate spreads like wildfire. I pray for you.”
While there is no evidence that there were any “black Muslims” present at the Indigenous People’s Rally, reports now indicate that a group of the Black Israelites were in the area at the time and may have clashed with the March for Life kids — but even if that’s the case it doesn’t explain why they needed to swarm around an old man and chant “BUILD THAT WALL” at him while smiling from ear to ear.
https://twitter.com/jjmacnab/status/1087037789189824512
But it does explain why this kid thought it was acceptable to behave this way. Hate begins in the home, unfortunately, and seeing that his mother immediately concocted a racist conspiracy theory to explain her son’s appalling actions tells you everything you need to know about what kind of a household he was raised in and what kind of a man he’s going to grow up to be.
Original reporting by Ellyn Santiago at Heavy.com
This story has been updated to reflect new information.
