I believe that there is a very strong chance that we will see that young people will be put into mandatory service. And the real concerns is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums.

Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN)
April 6, 2009

Just when you think Michele Bachmann, who upon retiring from Congress in 2014 said she was not going away, had not been seen or heard of since, an incident which has been in the news recently reminds us her spirit still lives.  The above quote was in response to a Senate bill introduced by Ted Kennedy called the National Service Act, an expansion of the AmeriCorps volunteer program.  Although the occasion was wrong, this weekend I began to think her warning contained more than a kernel of truth.

The occasion?  The video of an incident involving Black Hebrew Israelites, a Native American elder and students from a Catholic High School in Covington, Kentucky.  Before getting to the main point of this post, let me first say the incident itself is irrelevant and did not deserve the attention it received from the media which then botched the narrative from every perspective.

Anyone who has spent time in a major U.S. city understands Black Israelites, who believe they are decendants of the ancient Israelites and seem to have one purpose in life. They are “sidewalk ministers” who stand on street corners and yell at people of all races, nationalities and religions.  The are equal opportunity high-decibel evangelists.  And when you encounter them, you have a choice.  You stop and take in this unique tribute to the First Amendment of the Constitution or you ignore them and go on your way.

A delegation of 231 students from Covington Catholic High School likely had not been prepared for their introduction to this religious sect.  And they took the preaching far too seriously.  (I’ll get to the question “Where were the adult chaperones?” later.)  They stupidly chose to confront the Black Israelites.

Which brings us to the Native American elder Nathan Phillips.  He could have been an innocent bystander, but believed he could diffuse the tension.  I do not know if the students’ response to Mr Phillips was based on his heritage or their surprise he seemed to be sticking up for the Black Israelites.

Shit happens.  And in my humble opinion that is exactly what this was.  Shit happening.  But when you make so much of shit happening, you miss the big picture and more importantly, the big questions.  Which brings me back to Ms. Bachmann and the opening quote.

The big question?  “What were 231 students and their chaperones from Covington Catholic High School doing in Washington, D.C. at the March for Life?”  This is where Michele Bachmann, unwittingly, reminds us that there are re-education camps in America.  Were the Covington students not put in mandatory service to attend a political rally?  They were not required to attend, but it was a trip sponsored and organized by the high school.

And Covington students, when they say the pledge of allegiance each morning, add the words “born and unborn” at the end.  Is this not training young people in a philosophy the current government puts forward?   And finally, was not the March for Life “a politically correct forum” from the school’s perspective?

There even seemed to be a dress code, a “Make America Great Again” cap, which raises a whole other set of questions.  No doubt Covington Catholic operates as a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit.  If so, they would be prohibited from endorsing any political candidate.  Where did all those caps come from?  And is it just a coincidence Donald Trump’s current White House legal counsel Pat Cipollone is a graduate of (drum roll) Covington Catholic High School?

Doing the research for this post, I tried to find out more about the school itself.  Among the more interesting facts is the school has approximately 550 students and 42 teachers, a student/faculty ratio any public school would die for.  But as SiriusXM Insight talk show host John Fugelsang noted on Tuesday’s episode, the entire faculty is white. (For the record, when I went to verify this, the faculty section of the website had been removed.) Hence, the title of today’s post.  I doubt there are many Catholic or Jewish faculty on staff at a Saudi Arabian madrasa. You don’t want to muck up your message by bringing in teachers who may have a different life experience.

This evening I went back to the school’s website to verify other secondary information on Wikipedia and local newspaper articles about the school’s history, curriculum and mission statement.  The entire website had been deleted so I will not share other sources’ reports about questionable teaching practices.

So, with only what we do know, what are the takeaways?

1. This is America and the Constitution still guarantees freedom of speech and religious expression regardless of how sane or insane the message is perceived to be.  For all I care, as long as they are modifying the pledge of allegiance, Covington Catholic could change the opening line of “My Country Tis’ of Thee” to “My Country’s Not for Thee.”  It is their constitutional prerogative.
2. Covington Catholic should not have had to close for two days this week due to threats to the students and their families.  The perpetrators of those threats deserve the consequences of their actions.
3. And perhaps most important, we should not focus our attention or anger at the students.  How could the administration think using their students as props to inflate the crowd at the March for Life was a good idea?  Or that a horde of young white males brought up in a culture where a teacher in an official 2014 promotional video tells future students a Covington Catholic education prepares them to be president of their college fraternities are the best advocates to challenge a woman’s right to control her own body.  (Source: “Examining a Covington Catholic Promotional Video,” Rolling Stone, January 23, 2019)  Where were the adults and what did they instruct the students to do in case of a confrontation?   Hopefully, the students could have figured this out on there own.  Unfortunately they did not. After all, they were only doing what they have been socialized to do at their re-education camp.

Thank you Michele Bachmann, for reminding us of how truly reckless that is.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP