Pig pile (plural pig
piles) noun, (United States,
colloquial) A disorderly pile of people formed by jumping upon a [person]. --Wiktionary.org
I was all set to write about it for my last column: the now
infamous confrontation on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial between Kentucky high school
boys, a Native American leader and a "religious" group called the
Black Hebrew Israelites. To recall: all three groups were in Washington, D.C.
to protest in one form or another. The
high school kids were there on January 18th as a part of a "March for
Life" anti-abortion rally. The
Omaha Native American tribe elder, Nathan Phillips, was there to lift up the
issue of Native American rights. The House
of Israel Black Hebrew Israelites, labeled a hate group by the Anti-Defamation
League and the Southern Poverty Law Center, was there to lift up their
particular brand of "religious" bias.
All three groups converged by accident in front of one of America's most
potent symbols of liberty and reconciliation.
How ironic. How sad. And what a brouhaha! So...what really happened? That
depends: on who you listen to. Who you believe. What you perceive occurred as
you watch videos of the clash, images posted on line and then viewed at one
point, more than 2 million times in less than three hours.
The boys were the inciters, right? They were wearing
"Make America Great Again" hats, did you see that? And that one kid
going face to face with Phillips with that smug look on his face? I heard they were chanting "Build a Wall!"
too. Talk about a bunch of scary confrontational kids. What kind of parents raise boys like
that? I even heard they come from a
Catholic high school. They should all be ashamed. As one twitter activist, New York Times Op-Ed
writer Kara Swisher, angrily tweeted, "I am thinking of finding every one
of these sh***y kids and giving them a very large piece of my mind.”
That's what happened and who is guilty, right? Well...maybe not.
It's a little more nuanced and complicated. Phillips claims he heard them chanting
"Build a wall" but then he back tracked from that story and said he
waded into the crowd to protect the kids from the "Hebrew" group who
apparently, for more than 45 minutes, were hurling insults at the boys. Calling
them sodomites, school shooters, etc.
And while the boys were not chanting about walls, many of them are seen
on the video mockingly doing "tomahawk chops" with their hands as
Phillips continues to bang on his drum. Phillips claimed to be a Vietnam Veteran. He
was in the Marine Reserves but did not serve in Vietnam.
Are there any conclusions we can draw from this hot mess?
Any truths to name, as the story fades away, as our culture waits for the next
confrontation or event to get all angry and self-righteous about? As we await a new pig pile to jump on:
today's latest YouTube video or breathless CNN report or tirades on Twitter
from the President on down. Because in
the news climate we are living within, you must have an opinion and you must
share it, tweet it, post it on Facebook, and let the world know what you
believe immediately!! Even better, if the "news" makes people look
bad you must condemn them in righteous rage.
Or not.
I'm reminded of this bit of wisdom offered by the author
Edgar Allan Poe in an 1845 short story. "You are young yet, my friend,”
replied my host, “but the time will arrive when you will learn to judge for
yourself of what is going on in the world, without trusting to the gossip of
others. Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see."
I'm as guilty as the next one of getting all riled up in
these frantic news days, when there is too much news from too many source and
when the latest news rushes in and yells for our attention on all of our devices
and then just as quickly departs for the next "big" story. These days, we take no time, we have no time to
think. To reflect. To investigate for ourselves. To ponder. To wonder.
To ask others, "What do you think happened?" To maybe even
declare in the face of seemingly "true" news, "I'm not really
sure what to believe or who to believe." And then to leave it at that. Or at
least to give the story time enough to flesh out and become clearer before we
draw any conclusions or make any hard and fast declarations about the
"truth".
That's my hope and prayer for the hothouse of current events
that we all we call home in 2019. Let us
pig pile less and be thoughtful more. Let
us be suspicious of any hard and fast opinions and judgments and instead actually
decide for ourselves. Better yet, let's
turn off our phones, slam shut our laptops, click off our always on TVs and
just breathe.
The news can wait.
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