Editorial: Lessons from a viral confrontation whose real meaning we may never know

We were not in Washington, D.C., over the weekend to see what led to and followed an infamous confrontation between a white 15-year-old boy wearing a MAGA hat and an elderly Native American in traditional dress pounding a small drum a few feet from his face, so we're loath to speculate about exactly what that encounter represented or even involved.

What we do know is that the events that consistently have drained throughout social media and into traditional media since the confrontation have done little to nothing to help define it but very much indeed to illustrate the dangers of jumping to conclusions about what we see and hear in shared social media posts and, to a degree, even traditional news reports.

In the rush to judgment and the rush to broadcast or publish, truth often falls like Humpty Dumpty to the ground, and putting it back together can be tricky - or, as perhaps in this case, impossible. That, one suspects, may be precisely what the person or people who pushed this little confrontation into the national psyche intended.

Let's be plain about what we know. A situation that has become emblematic of the social conflict rending our nation started as a silly engagement between five members of a recognized hate group - the Black Hebrew Israelites - and the Covington students they were taunting. When, for whatever reason, Omaha Nation elder Nathan Phillips appeared on the scene, someone saw the chance to make a statement.

A minute-long video of a faceoff between Phillips and a Covington student was posted from a Twitter account known as @2020fight along with disparaging remarks related to President Donald Trump. It quickly captured 2.5 million views and inspired more than 14,000 retweets.

The @2020fight post did not show anything leading up to the confrontation nor provide any context. Suddenly, an unfortunate chance moment had become the flashpoint for criticism from any point of view.

When broader but still incomplete truths became known - largely through more-thorough news reporting and additional social media posts - it became a rallying point for cries of "fake news." As the fame spread of various small-time players, it remained a showpiece of white privilege and misbehavior.

Twitter took down the @2020fight account with the simple statement that, as quoted by CNN Business, "Deliberate attempts to manipulate the public conversation on Twitter by using misleading account information is a violation of the Twitter Rules."

So, what did it really mean when an old man demonstrating for Native American rights and a young boy demonstrating against abortion encountered each other on the National Mall in Washington, D. C.? The only thing we know for sure is that the first impression was greatly misleading. To whatever extent it will ever be known, the truth will come only over the course of time and through the unfolding of further events and deeper reporting. Along the way, it is important that we all tread carefully, explore a variety of sources for news and know the sources of the information we are evaluating. Only then, if then, can we draw reasonable conclusions about such events.