The Covington smile: Norms and forms of violence in the age of the White Awakening

• Author: Salazar, P.
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a9
• Published date: 05 September 2022
• Date: 05 September 2022
• Citation: 2022 Acta Juridica 198
• Pages: 198-219

198

https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a9

The Covington smile: Norms and

forms of violence in the age of the White

Awakening

PHILIPPE-JOSE PH SALAZA R*

In memory of one of my mentors, Professor Georges Dumézil

This essay is a detai led study of an event that took place i n Januar y

2019 in Washington DC on t he steps of the Lincoln Memoria l. It

was a confront ation between Catholic schoolboys returning from a

March for Life a nd mainly Native Amer icans led by an Omaha elder.

The ‘faceo ’ bet ween the two central protagonists, Nicholas

Sandmann and Nathan Phil lips, went viral as t he embodiment

and enactment of white racism. It occasioned m assive lawsuits for

defamat ion agai nst major media corporat ions. By applyi ng critical

rhetoric, th is essay intends to show that r epressed forms and nor ms of

rites, sac rice and relig ious artefacts wer e re-activated and per formed

anew duri ng this encounter.

I WHAT HAPPENED?1

On Friday, 18 January 2019, a verbal altercation broke out on the

wintr y steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.2 The

encounter involved three sets of protagonists, albeit not spar ring

with one another at the sa me time, but rather in a series of episod es

over a short span of time: a cluster of self-styled Black Hebrew

Israelites; an Indian American activist named Nathan Phillips,

who was part of an Indigenous Peoples March; and a group of

apparently al l-white schoolboys from a Catholic high school in

Covington, Kentucky, who had participated in a March for Life

against abortion.

* C entre for Rhetoric Stud ies, Faculty of Law, Univer sity of Cape Town.

1 T his ess ay, together wit h its compan ion piece (Ph-J Salaz ar ‘“I, Dylann

Roof” – W hite voice v. the force of l aw’ (2020) 27 Jav nost-The Public 369 ),

prolongs my book on ‘White Awaken ing’: Ph-J Salazar Suprémac istes (2020).

2 L EX18 ‘Coving ton Cathol ic student see n in vira l video sh ares hi s side

of the story’ YouTu be 21 January 2019, available at h ttps://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=ADlpHf hn5uQ. Thi s is one of many versions upl oaded to the interne t,

but it is seemi ngly the most factu al.

2022 Acta Juridica 198

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VIOLENCE IN T HE AGE OF THE WHITE AWAKEN ING 199

https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a9

Some of the scholars wore Trump First signature red campaign

caps bearing the Make America Great Again (MAGA) slogan.

The Black Hebrew Israelites were hectoring v isitors, African

Americans and whites. A small group of students stood watching

in the background. They were singled out, possibly because of

the caps, and were accused by the Black Hebrew Israelites of

‘worshipping blasphemy’ – among other expletives. A Catholic

priest was a lso spotted by the Black Hebrew Israelite s, who shouted

at him: ‘child molesters’! Phill ips arr ived two minutes later,

beating on a traditional drum, accompanied by other Indigenous

Peoples marchers.3 As the schoolboys, who had been chanting

a sing-along, joined in a ‘native’ song (presumably one sung by

the Indigenous marchers, although that is not entirely clear),

Phillips approached them – allegedly to defuse possible violence,

presumably between the boys and the Black Hebrew Israelites.

As he put it in an inter view, his intent had a broader scope. He had

‘fear for the next generations, fear where this countr y is going, fear

for their ... those youths, fear for their future, fear for their souls,

their spirit, their ... their what they’re going to do to th is country’.4

At that stage, the crowd got denser, and Phillips faced one tall,

thin boy, wearing a MAGA cap – Nicholas ‘Nick’ Sandmann.

The teenager stood motionless and smiled at Phillips, who

addressed him loudly (‘chanted’, it is alleged) at very close range,

surrounded by a throng of schoolboys, Phillips’s supporters and

passers-by. Phil lips got no response from Sandmann, neither

a gesture nor a word. There was no scue. Some people were

lming the event on their cell phones. After a while, the crowd

started to disperse as the boys boarded their bus back home.

Very soon after, Nicholas Sandmann’s smile had gone viral.5

The event had taken on an existence of its own, embodied by the

schoolboy’s smile – vilied as ugly white supremacist arrogance by

some, or extolled as a s ign of white self-contr ol by others. The media

immediately chose the former interpretation. The event became

3 E xtensive docu mentation rega rding Nath an Philli ps is presented as ex hibits

in a lawsuit , now settled out o f court, ag ains t the Washington Post. See Un ited

States Di strict C ourt of the E astern D istric t of Kentucky No rthern D ivision at

Coving ton Case No. 2:19-00019 (WOB-CJS).

4 YouTube (n 2).

5 A G ooglesearch (for lack of anot her tool) of ‘Covington sm ile Sandman n’

returned 477,000 result s on 25 July 2020.

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