Alyssa Milano, who has been extremely open about her political beliefs, has drawn an unequivocal parallel between supporters of President Donald Trump and… members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
The Hollywood actress earlier tweeted a video, which was largely shared by mainstream media, claiming that Nathan Phillips, a 64-year-old Native American and a Vietnam War veteran, had been harassed by a group of white private high-school students wearing MAGA-branded clothes and red hats.
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Since the now-viral video has led to widespread condemnation of the teens’ behaviour, one of the boys, Nick Sandmann, has released a statement to say that their actions had been wrongly interpreted as racist:
I am “mortified that so many people have come to believe something that did not happen – that students from my school were chanting or acting in a racist fashion toward African-Americans or Native Americans. I did not do that, do not have hateful feelings in my heart and did not witness any of my classmates doing that”.
Shortly after, a new video was unearthed on 20 January showing what happened before and after the encounter: another group had taunted the students from the private Catholic school, using vulgar language.
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The group of black men, who identify themselves as members of the Hebrew Israelites, a movement that believes some African Americans are the descendants of an ancient Israelite tribe, also yelled slurs at participants of the Indigenous Peoples Rally and other people passing by.
The camera cuts to the group, catching the first glimpse of the teenagers, with at least one wearing a MAGA hat.
"How you gonna have peace to this land… when you got this madman in the White House? […] Then you got those pompous bastards over there wearing Make America Great Again hats. Why you not angry at them?" one voice is heard saying.
The protesters targeted Sandmann and other students, calling them “racists”, “bigots”, “white crackers”, and “incest kids” for wearing MAGA hats to a rally for indigenous communities.
"A student in our group asked one of our teacher chaperones for permission to begin our school spirit chants to counter the hateful things that were being shouted at our group. The chants are commonly used at sporting events. They are all positive in nature and sound like what you would hear at any high school", Sandmann said in his statement.
The boy, however, denied that he blocked Phillips path, and maintained that he was not making faces at the protester, he simply smiled “at one point” in order to let Phillips know that he was not “going to become angry, intimidated or be provoked into a larger confrontation”.
Social media users appeared to be unimpressed by Milano’s “first thoughts” in the morning.
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While many suggested that she was merely trying to stay “relevant”…
…others pointed out that she was “colour blind”:
A vast number of netizens suggested that she needed to learn the full story before judging the boys and that she should apologise: