Social Media Has Changed The Fabric Of Our Country

Social networking has changed the way we communicate and receive information. There are positive aspects to social networking.  One of the most apparent ones is the ability of the users to instantly connect to other people all over the world. But that aspect can have consequences if the information being transmitted is wrong and harmful. As Michael Godwin wrote in a New York Post editorial, “Technology gives it (social media) the power to erupt instantly over the slightest provocation or no provocation at all. “

We saw evidence of this last weekend when teens from Covington High School were accused on Twitter. These youngsters were Catholic from a Catholic high School in Kentucky who came to Washington D C to participate in the March for Life to protest abortions.

The controversy began after a partial video surfaced showing a confrontation between the high school students and some Native American adults. The students were initially accused of mocking the Native Americans in the Indigenous People’s March which coincided with the March for Life. The snippet of the video which was in reality 2 hours long quickly gained traction on social media with many condemning the students wearing the red MAGA (Make America Great Again” hats; but later another video emerged showing some of the students being harassed with a voice off camera is heard saying “White people, go back to Europe where you came from as  Nathan Phillips banged his Indian drum.

 In actuality, five members of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement started the whole melee by calling the boys racists, bigots, white crackers and other vulgar names. Reacting to the initial erroneous video, falsehoods flew  out of control  on social network last Friday as pundits, politicians , clergy and the press joined together to smear the group of boys.  Many owe these youngsters an apology for rushing to judgement before knowing the complete facts. 

 President Trump defended the students caught up in a storm of misinformed social media rage calling the news coverage of their controversial encounter with the Native-American elder ‘evil’.

According to Michael Knowles,”a social media lynch mob inverted the truth of what happened at the National Mall .The Catholic High School had to close Tuesday, after the fact, due to death threats. The boys were widely maligned and vilified online .According to Jill Hamlin, a chaperone mother, who said, “The boys were targeted for what they stood for as Christians and the right to life and partially because of the color of their skin.” The student who was singled out on Twitter who Phillips confronted, Nick Sandmann, just stood there with a typical teenage smile and didn’t say a word. The young man was vilified; but people forgot that he was a kid. He was declared the face of white supremacy and privilege.  The joke was that these boys come from a part of Kentucky that consists of low income families.

Freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar, a freshman Congress woman that we must be concerned about because of her placement on the Foreign Affairs Committee and is  staunchly anti-Israel,  faced social media backlash for putting in her two cents with many in the media initially misreporting on the  widely viewed confrontation  with the  Native American elder. .Omar irresponsibly tweeted on the subject, responding to President Trump’s tweet defending the Covington students. Omar wrote, “The boys were protesting a woman’s right to choose. They were taunting 5 black men before they surrounded Phillips and led racist chants. (they were singing their school song). Rep. Omar was compelled to remove her erroneous tweet.

 Nathan Phillips is not an innocent in this matter. He repeatedly lied about what actually happened to the Washington Post and other media outlets which reported everything he said. The New York Times Headline was “Boys in Make America Great Again Hats Mob Native Elder at Indigenous People’s March”. But Phillips was the aggressor in the situation.  The Times had zero evidence that the boys surrounded Phillips except a claim made by Phillip’s himself that he later retracted.  (So much for the Times providing news “fit to print”). The students actually made a path for the elder to go through instead of being “terrified” as he indicated to go up the Lincoln Memorial steps.

 Last Friday’s fracas at the Lincoln Memorial should give us all pause. What if Jewish kids were the boys involved? What kind of ant-Semitic “chiliul Hashem” would have transpired?

It is incredulous to believe and rather frightening that a  truncated video set the internet on fire because it claimed in show the students mocking and harassing  a senior Native American who was banging on a small drum. This was really a non-event not worthy of any media attention .These boys were in control under the guidance of chaperones. There was no violence not even pushing or shoving which could have easily happened under the best of circumstances.

The only crime that these kids committed was that they were white, pro-life. and had Trump hats on. That made them fodder for social media hate especially anti-Trump venom. Suddenly the non-event became front page indignation from the left. The students were threatened with violence and their school had to close for security reasons. Some called for the school to be burned down with the students in it.

Something   is wrong in our country in particular with social media if an innocuous incident could spark such a dangerous reaction. Trump hating was an integral part of it.  It is disconcerting to think that this incident might not have occurred if the boys wore school hats and not MAGA ones. To quote Michael Goodman, “This time the focus was on high school kids who did no great harm. Yet, they were targeted as if they were Public Enemy No 1. What will spark the next bonfire of outrage? Who will be the target? “It is frightening to think what nefarious deeds the haters of President Trump will conjure up in the social networking arena that could further damage anybody who supports him.

The liberals who are leading the anti-Trump brigade have forgotten that they used to stand for tolerance and now have become totally intolerant of anyone who does not think like them. They have also lost sight of the concept of freedom of speech that is one of the hall marks of our constitution.

Social networking must become responsible for the actions done on social media. No one should be allowed to destroy those they do not agree with them without impunity. There is something un-American about that.

By Cynthia Zalisky

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Cynthia Zalisky is the Executive Director of the Queens Jewish Community Council. She can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.