Racist dad: 'Don't touch my effing daughter!'
BONUS: A story of partial redemption
Every now and then, you see an uplifting incident that reaffirms your faith in humanity. But almost as often, it seems, you witness a spectacle that does the opposite.
If you want to get your blood boiling, look no farther than Wisconsin’s Baraboo High School, where a white father charged the stage last week during his daughter’s high school graduation to prevent her from shaking hands with the school district’s superintendent, a Black man.
There are several things about this incident that are disturbing, some of which harken back to my childhood (more on that later). Right off the top, the fact that any parent would set such a poor example for his child is appalling.
A local television news station reported that comments on social media suggest “the parent did this in protest of how the superintendent and the district handled bullying incidents relating to his daughter.”
This strikes me as revisionist damage control. If the parent was truly upset by how the administration had handled bullying allegations, then why could he be heard shouting, “I don’t want her touching him,” after he had strong-armed the superintendent away from the stage?
You can view the video below courtesy of the school district. The parent, Matthew Eddy, is wearing a white shirt and a baseball cap with sunglasses perched on the visor. His daughter can be seen happily shaking hands along the receiving line, initially unaware of what her father was doing. When she realizes what has happened, the embarrassment on her face is evident. It’s as if she had feared all along that her dumb dad might pull a stunt like this.
According to WiscNews.com, the Black superintendent is now seeking a restraining order against the father, who was detained by police and cited for disorderly conduct. In his restraining order request, Superintendent Rainey Briggs wrote that Eddy told him that he is “not going to touch my (expletive) daughter.” Possible criminal charges against Eddy are also pending in the county district attorney’s office.
The incident follows tension within the school district between a group of residents, school administrators and the School Board, as well as a recall effort against the board president.
The kicker is that this is the same school district where in 2019, dozens of male students posed for a junior prom photo at the school while performing Nazi “Seig-Heil” salutes and gesturing with white supremacist hand signals. The photo was captioned on Twitter: “We even got the black kid to throw it up.” The photographer who took the photo later said he had only asked the students to wave goodbye to their parents. Right …
So why did I rant about some bigoted jerk in Wisconsin? Racism has a special meaning to me. No, not because I was ever was victim of it. I’m a white guy who turns 67 tomorrow. Life has treated me pretty well. My children are both nonwhite, however, and have experienced episodes of prejudice and hate as a result.
But my first brush with racist behavior happened when I was a kid growing up in the 60s in Dallas, Texas. My grandparents on my father’s side loved me, but they hated black people. The N-word was thrown about regularly in their house. As those who have studied the JFK assassination will tell you, through the 60s, Dallas was a hotbed of white supremacy. Some called it the “most racist city in America.” It was surely one of the reasons my father pulled up stakes and mercifully moved us to Chicago in 1968.
As Dallas slowly began to integrate in the 60s, Black people moved into my grandparents’ neighborhood. They responded by moving to a new subdivision that was all-white. Over the next two or three years, Black people began moving into that neighborhood, too. So my grandparents relocated yet again. When Black people began moving into the new neighborhood, my grandparents finally gave up.
My father, my sister and I returned to Dallas in 1983. I did not hear the N-word even once. I heard no complaints about how Black people had ruined the neighborhood. It was as if my grandparents had resigned themselves to living among people who didn’t look like them and it wasn’t as bad as they had expected.
That was the last time I saw Gaga and Gramps. Given their bigoted and intolerant past, it feels like a great gift to remember them in such a redemptive light.
Next time you watch that graduation-stage video, zero in on the young woman's face as she slowly realizes what Dad has done to her moment. Her misery, resignation, defeat ... are just crushing. That's where hope lies, for Baraboo and for us -- she's not going to do this to the next generation.
As a neighbor observing the growth of your children from little tots to flourishing, productive adults, all I can say is that you and Laura have always been superb, model parents. Would that all followed your lead!