The father of a Baraboo High School graduate blocked his daughter from shaking the hand of the Black superintendent as she graduated, video of the incident shows.The school district, which has had repeated problems with racism and antisemitism, held its graduation Friday. The father was arrested and...

The father of a Baraboo High School graduate blocked his daughter from shaking the hand of the Black superintendent as she graduated, video of the incident shows.

The school district, which has had repeated problems with racism and antisemitism, held its graduation Friday. The father was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, Wisconsin News reported.

The father, who has been identified as 49-year-old Matt Eddy, jumped on stage, grabbed the superintendent and began dragging him to the back of the stage.

  • nkat2112@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    914·
    6 months ago

    So glad to hear the racist was arrested. Beautiful news!

    I feel sorry for his daughter, because she’ll be remembered in the community for having a racist father. I imagine there will be lasting harm from that.

    • ALQ@lemmy.world
      463·
      6 months ago

      I mostly feel sorry for the man who was attacked, and glad he wasn’t further harmed. I also feel bad for the daughter, but I think it’s sad that most of the comments on the YT video don’t even mention the victim while sympathizing with the daughter.

  • barsquid@lemmy.world
    623·
    6 months ago

    That sounds like more of an assault than a disorderly conduct.

    I cannot imagine being so racist that I would leap on stage to stop a handshake. I also have to wonder at the misogyny, like does he think a handshake will defile his daughter? Must be dozens of delusional ideas just bouncing around in a racist’s head like DVD logos.

    • TurtleJoe@lemmy.world
      12·
      6 months ago

      That sounds like more of an assault than a disorderly conduct.

      This is one of those situations where I like to imagine what would have happened if the guy did that to a cop. Likely a litany of charges, including assaulting an officer, and would have had the shit beaten out of him.

      • j4k3@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        6 months ago

        And if the father was black and it was a white cop on stage, the father would be dead.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
        1·
        6 months ago

        They’d have shot him. They would have escalated the fight and then shot him if they were losing.

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
    401·
    6 months ago

    blocking black superintendent from shaking daughter’s hand

    is something of an understated headline. Looks like he straight up assaulted the superintendent.

  • JPSound@lemmy.world
    321·
    6 months ago

    So, I’m from Baraboo. Though I haven’t lived there in well over 10 years now, I still have friends and family who reside there still. The day after this happened, the video was already making its rounds in our various discord servers, getting texts from family members with the original video link and it was all around big deal. Everyone was fucking pissed at this guy and there were soooo many people in my circles that wanted to see him named, shamed and royaly buttfucked by the court of public opinion. It didn’t take long at all for someone to go, “hey, I know that guy. He works at so and so” and I’m happy to see that the cat is out of the bag here. It seems he has been fired. His employer is well aware at this point and have scrubbed all mention of him from their website.

    The one and only way to unfuck my hometown’s garbage residents is to hang them out to dry in public and I’m glad this is national news. When someone wants to pull some racist shit, let it be known that we’re gunna make sure their racist bullshit will be put on display for all the world to see and the consequences shall be their’s and their’s alone to bare for their stupid bullshitery. Baraboo is such a cute little town but GODDAMN some of these motherfuckers are an embarrassment to our town, our state and our county.

    • Kayday@lemmy.world
      3·
      6 months ago

      This just makes me sad because until today my only association with Baraboo was whimsical childhood memories of the circus there.

    • Vespair@lemm.ee
      78·
      6 months ago

      This whole “all the homophobes are closeted gay men|all the racists secretly fetishize black men” thing is reductive, unrealistic, and unproductive. This dude is gross as fuck and I’m glad he’s getting charged with something at least, but chocking these things up to underlying latent sexual urges is weird and doesn’t solve anything. I’m going to pivot to homosexuality as it think it’s a clearer example now: yes there have been a number of bigots who have turned out to be closeted gays in denial, but concluding from that that all bigots are closeted muddies the water and prevents us from tackling the real root causes of bigotry and, frankly, makes “our side” (for lack of a better term) seem unnecessary sexually-obsessed.

  • SeaJ@lemm.ee
    251·
    6 months ago

    Local station News 3 claimed that social media comments say that the father was angry at the way the district handled bullying issues related to his daughter.

    I don’t buy that. She seems surprised and embarrassed. And I would think you would have an issue with the principal rather than the superintendent.

    Also, whose social media comments? His? Random people?

    • GroundedGator@lemmy.world
      32·
      6 months ago

      Not saying it’s justified to bully anyone, but maybe the fruit has rotted with the tree.

      A more hopeful part of me believes that she’s been saddled with a toxic family and has suffered for it. And now she’ll be able to escape and be free.

      • SeaJ@lemm.ee
        6·
        6 months ago

        I tend to think the latter considering she at least had the social intelligence to just GTFO of there after putting her hand on her forehead in embarrassment.

  • 🔰Hurling⚜️Durling🔱@lemmy.world
    241·
    6 months ago

    That poor kid, I trully feel for her since this day was a huge deal and her Racist dad just permanently stained it for her, on top of the embarrassment that girl had with her peers.

  • CoffeeJunkie@lemmy.world
    193·
    6 months ago

    I call bullshit on the claim it’s “because of how bullying cases were handled”. Looks pretty straightforward, racist AF to me.

    And even if that were true, or more likely he was a racist dickhead, either way: if he had such a big problem, if he wanted to protest…you don’t have to publicly cross the stage at graduation. Not that he’s smart enough to reason this out. But crossing the stage is a privilege, it is public recognition, it is a community event. The graduate need not be compelled to participate; she could have received her diploma in the mail (like most do, anyway) & stayed home.

    Although judging by the girl’s reaction, her father was acting off-the-cuff, alone, and without her knowledge. I’m hoping that’s the case. Racism is fucking stupid.

    • Huckledebuck@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      6 months ago

      All he had to do is wait it out one more night and they would never have to see the scary man again. Instead, he announced to the world what is going on in his head and there’s nothing good in there.