David highlights this section from CNN’s interview with Nathan Phillips:
Phillips: Oh, what I was witnessing was just hate? Racism? Well, hate. What I’m saying is that when these folks came there, these other folks were saying their piece, and these others they got offended with it because they were both just expressing their own views. And if it’s racism, that’s what it was because the folks that were having their moment there, they were saying things that I don’t know if I agreed with them or not, but some of it was educational, and it was truth, and it was history about religious views and ideologies, but these other folks, the young students, they couldn’t see it. They had one point of view, it seemed, and that was that their point of view was the only point of view that was worthwhile. And that’s now what I was feeling.
This is just garbage. There’s no other word for it. It’s garbage. Almost every constituent part is vague, sub-literate, open-ended nonsense. “Saying their piece.” “Expressing their own views.” “Having their moment.” “Saying things.” These are descriptions that could apply as equally to Abraham Lincoln as to Benito Mussolini. They’re meaningless. What silliness we put up with on television.
Then we reach the cherry on top:
I don’t know if I agreed with them or not, but some of it was educational, and it was truth, and it was history about religious views and ideologies, but these other folks, the young students, they couldn’t see it. They had one point of view, it seemed, and that was that their point of view was the only point of view that was worthwhile. And that’s now what I was feeling.
The “them” in this paragraph is the Black Israelites. The people who “couldn’t see it” are the students at whom the Black Israelites were shouting. And the “some of it,” which Phillips believed was “educational, and it was truth, and it was history about religious views and ideologies,” is an endless string of abuse and bile. As Robby Soave of Reason notes:
They call them crackers, faggots, and pedophiles. At the 1:20 mark (which comes after the Phillips incident) they call one of the few black students the n-word and tell him that his friends are going to murder him and steal his organs. At the 1:25 mark, they complain that “you give faggots rights,” which prompted booing from the students. Throughout the video they threaten the kids with violence, and attempt to goad them into attacking first.
Other choice insults that were lobbed at the Covington students — and anyone who had the misfortune of passing by — included “a bunch of incest babies,” “dirty ass little crackers” and “coon.”
Phillips complains that the students “couldn’t see it.” Rather, they
had one point of view, it seemed, and that was that their point of view was the only point of view that was worthwhile.
As opposed to what?