Outrage after video emerges of teens mocking Native American
WASHINGTON : Shock and outrage swept social media over a video that appeared to show a group of white teenagers wearing Trump campaign’s ‘Make America Great Again’ caps mobbing and mocking a Native American man as he sang and beat his drum, with remarkable calm and dignity.
A young man in MAGA cap was seen standing defiantly close to Nathan Philips, a 64-year-old veteran of the Vietnam War, blocking his way, staring at him with an unwavering sneer.
Philips told The Washington Post in an interview he had felt threatened by the teens as they swarmed around him but continued singing a song of unity, while thinking of his wife who died of cancer four years ago and challenges faced by indigenous communities around the world.
“I felt like the spirit was talking through me,” Phillips said.
The footage went viral on Saturday, sparking outrage and comments that the incident was a sign of the times: rising ethnic and racial tensions that have followed the 2016 elections.
“Heartbreaking,” tweeted Deb Haaland, one of the first two Native Americans elected to the US House of Representatives last November. “This Veteran put his life on the line for our country. The students’ display of blatant hate, disrespect, and intolerance is a signal of how common decency has decayed under this administration.” President Donald Trump has been criticised for using stereotypes to attack Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren for her claims to Native American ancestry.