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.
I wish the Headline was more accurate.
Reading the story, he wasn’t arrested for blocking a handshake, he started forcibly dragging the superintendent to the back of the stage
That’s also called assault. Even blocking the hand would have been assault.
It’s more likely battery than assault. Battery is just putting hands on. Assault generally needs higher threat level and/or more violent actions.
assault and battery are both vaguely termed legal definitions that depend on what state you’re in.
in MN, there’s no legal definition for battery, with assault being defined with multiple levels ranging from ‘mere’ threats through “poked me on the arm” to beating the shit out of someone.
In WI, where this happened, it seems they’re the opposite with the only mention of ‘assault’ be related to sexual assault. and battery being similar to MN’s assault charges. Though, I only took a cursory look through their laws.
not “than”, but “and”.
Assault is getting in the way.
Battery is touching him.
(though, as mentioned, laws vary by location, but generally speaking…)
That’s absurd
If you did the same to a police officer you can be sure they’d charge you with assault, after taking you to the ground and pummeling you no doubt.
Well yeah, but, they are above the law
Battery.
Oh agreed it’s still could be a crime, but the headline makes it sound like all he did was block a handshake, when really he did a lot more
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.
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.
Both are victims
Even if the community doesn’t hold it against her, and I hope they don’t, she’ll never be able to forget.
He’s probably gonna get free beers for the next month.
it is Wisconsin.
perhaps more pertinently, small town Wisconcin. Baraboo has like 12k. Sauk County has 60k
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.
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.
And if the father was black and it was a white cop on stage, the father would be dead.
They’d have shot him. They would have escalated the fight and then shot him if they were losing.
…. that never perfectly hit the corner. Ever.
The article also mentions that it may have happened because the father was unhappy with how the superintendent had dealt with the daughter being bullied.
I mean, that’s what he said.
But he didn’t care about the white principal…
And he didn’t just stop a handshake, he bullrushes the guy off the stage.
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Superintendents don’t really get involved with things like bullying or discipline unless some felony level laws have been violated. That’s something handled at the school level
Then why specifically the superintendent? Even if this was a bullying issue with an unsatisfactory conclusion, there’s no way he would have engaged with the superintendent of the district without engaging with the principal first. They would both have failed to resolve the problem, so why would he have gone after the superintendent specifically and left the principal there to shake his daughter’s hand?
And, of course, the other issue is, even if that was true, that doesn’t make what he did OK. He’s marginally less shitty by virtue of not being openly racist, but he still made sure that his daughter’s last memory of high school is him getting arrested for assaulting the district superintendent and embarrassing her in front of the entire graduating class and their families.
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Because even a moment’s consideration will tell you a situation where the district superintendent and only the district superintendent is responsible for poor handling of a disciplinary situation is extremely fucking unlikely.
You are going out of your way to give a psychotic parent who assaulted a school official benefit of the doubt that he has not earned.
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Again, you’re giving massive benefit of the doubt by assuming the psychotic parent is not racist and that he’s telling the truth about the bullying situation, especially when his actions don’t seem to match his words.
Just because he says he’s not racist, doesn’t mean he’s not racist. And his actions look pretty damn racist.
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.
“Social media comments” = some redditors making shit up because they can’t admit that racism exists.
It doesn’t matter the source. Could be Facebook friends of the racist. A school superintendent does not handle bullying issues other than setting a general policy, being in the loop for expulsion/lawsuits, and firing negligent principals. It’s horse shit however you slice it. I think I met a superintendent once or twice.
And of course every school district is identical.
Bottom line, we don’t know shit about his motive. But ooh soo many people are so sure they somehow know.
If that’s the case he picked a pretty bad time, place, and method of dealing with it.
Thank you for being one of the only people to show they actually read the article. You can remove black from the headline and this changes how everyone will react. It’s hard to tell if it’s racially motivated or he and this guy have had beef and he didn’t want the guy in the video/picture they were gonna hang on the wall.
Yeah I was looking for someone to mention this… Like, sure, the guy could be a frothing at the mouth racist, that’s certainly possible. Or… There is some personal beef, without more information I dunno how everyone is so sure. He doesn’t say anything overtly racist, we know what it looks like but that isn’t the only possibility. Is there something I missed that justifies everyone’s confidence here?
blocking black superintendent from shaking daughter’s hand
is something of an understated headline. Looks like he straight up assaulted the superintendent.
Yeah if the roles were reversed it probably would have been worded very differently.
if it were reversed he’d be on the ground with a knee on his head.
*neck
What are the odds he has the word “blacked” in his PornHub search history?
Better than 50%
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Cortisol is a good chemical that helps you cum hard.
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.
It’s a distinct pattern, and taking them seriously does nothing for their condition.
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.
This just makes me sad because until today my only association with Baraboo was whimsical childhood memories of the circus there.
My god, that level of racism is stunning. I just can’t believe it.
have ya met maga folks? they cray
You can’t believe it, because it’s probably not what happened. The real story is probably stupid and boring. This story however, gets clicks.
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?
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.
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.
In searching for the video, (already provided in this thread) I amazingly found that this appears to be the same school where a selection of boys from the class of 2018 posed for a gleeful photo of them throwing up the nazi salute.
Yep, which is why dad will have no consequences. Whole town is fucked.
Fortunately it doesn’t look like there were no consequences.
No word yet on legal consequences, but the court of public opinion has already sentenced him.
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.
Racists are getting way too emboldened
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.
The girl looks confused and mortified. Poor kid just wanted to graduate…
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.
From a scientific standpoint I’d love to know what was going through the racist dad’s head in that moment
From someone who grew up with a racist father, it was likely a juxtaposition of the handshake with stereotypes of hypersexuality and uncleanliness among black men mixed with sexist ideals of young women and their purity.
Ah, so the drain the pool after Sammy Davis Jr swims level of racism
This is my opinion too. I dont have racist parents (anymore than anyone can be said to have some degree of inherent racism we try hard to be mindful of and eliminate as we become more aware), but I did grow up around a lot of racists. I was always surprised that people I knew, even ones who had black friends and were otherwise fine towards other races, would get really weird about a white woman and a black man having some sexual relationship.
Then the guns came out and it was all kinds of horrific slurs towards the black man and the white woman both. I specifically remember the common understanding for these people was that a white woman was “ruined” beyond repair after being with a black man. Even when I was young, it just screams of an outrageous level of insecurity
Too many facebook posts ending with “And Everyone Clapped”.
In fairness, security dragging that guy off did elicit some applause.
His wife probably made a comment about how handsome the SI is, and he spiraled inside his tiny head.
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Disorderly conduct? Shouldn’t that be assault?
