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(CNN)Native American elder Nathan Phillips, who has made headlines everywhere after a video showed him in a face-off with a Catholic school student in front of the Lincoln Memorial, spoke at length with CNN the day after the incident.
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Phillips: Oh, what I was witnessing was just hate? Racism? Well, hate. What I’m saying is that when these folks came there, these other folks were saying their piece, and these others they got offended with it because they were both just expressing their own views. And if it’s racism, that’s what it was because the folks that were having their moment there, they were saying things that I don’t know if I agreed with them or not, but some of it was educational, and it was truth, and it was history about religious views and ideologies, but these other folks, the young students, they couldn’t see it. They had one point of view, it seemed, and that was that their point of view was the only point of view that was worthwhile. And that’s now what I was feeling.
Phillips: I think so. I think that was the push, that we need to use the drum, use our prayer and bring a balance, bring a calming to the situation. I didn’t assume that I had any kind of power to do that, but at the same time, I didn’t feel that I could just stand there anymore and not do something. It looked like these young men were going to attack these guys. They were going to hurt them. They were going to hurt them because they didn’t like the color of their skin. They didn’t like their religious views. They were just here in front of the Lincoln — Lincoln is not my hero, but at the same time, there was this understanding that he brought the (Emancipation Proclamation) or freed the slaves, and here are American youth who are ready to, look like, lynch these guys. To be honest, they looked like they were going to lynch them. They were in this mob mentality. Where were their parents? Because they were obvious a student group. Where were their–
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Phillips: That was exactly the thing is that I was there. I seen the mass of people. I had realized where I’m at and what I was doing, and I realized there was other people with me and I didn’t want them to get hurt because there was 100-plus of these young men who were well-fed and healthy and strong and ready to do harm to somebody. And they just wanted that point of “This is it” and spring. If this young man thought that he was that point and what I was trying to do, I realized where I was at. I needed an out. I needed to escape. I needed to get away. I needed to retreat somehow, but the only way I could retreat at that moment, is what I see, is just to go forward, and when I started going forward and that mass of groups of people started separating and moving aside to allow me to move out of the way or to proceed, this young fellow put himself in front of me and wouldn’t move. If I took another step, I would be putting my person into his presence, into his space and I would’ve touched him and that would’ve been the thing that the group of people would’ve needed to spring on me. Because if I would’ve reached out with my drum or with my hands and touched him, that would’ve given them — I did that. I struck out, and that’s not what I was doing. The song I was singing, the reason for it, was to bring unity and to bring love and compassion back into our minds and our beings as men and as protector of what is right. I was raised away from my family. I was put in foster care and so I didn’t have a traditional indigenous upbringing. I was brought up just like these young guys were brought up. Well, maybe I wasn’t Catholic school, but I was public school. And when I went back home to my reservation and I ask questions — “Do you have an Indian name? Do you know where I could get some moccasins?” … I wanted to know, and that cousin of mine that was sitting there, standing there and I was asking him these questions. He says, Go home, white boy.” That hurt.
Phillips: When they said, “Let’s go hit the drum, let’s go sing, let’s reclaim our space here” because this was the Indigenous Peoples March rally, and when these two groups came together and started that and I was witnessing as it escalated from just two small groups, then the other one just went back and got more people, went back and got more people, went back and got more people until there were over 100 people, maybe 200 young men there facing down what? Four individuals? Why did they need 200 people there other than it’s hate and racism? They had their target. They had their prey. And so I wish somebody would’ve been able to stand in front of the 7th Cavalry and my relatives at Wounded Knee. I wish somebody would’ve stood there and said, “No, you can’t do this.”
Phillips: No, not happy go lucky. If they was happy go lucky, we would’ve been laughing and enjoying each other’s presence and company because that’s the kind of thing I like to do. I like to meet people. I like to find out where they’re from, what they’re up to, in a good way. But what was happening there, there was nothing happy go lucky about it. It was just, “Build the wall” and some of the things that I heard but can’t really say I exactly heard that because it was way over there, and they could say, “Oh, nobody said that. It wasn’t us who said that.” So it’s one of those he-said, she-said, things and what I’m saying is that they were very aggressive and they were very ready to hurt somebody. They just needed a reason. Whether I was the one who defused it or not, I wouldn’t have been able to do it with out my relatives that were with me at the time. My other brother that was singing and the (inaudible) that was standing with me at that time. There were sons of us that were indigenous, we stood together.