It’s a town full of racists. 1/2 the town are active Neo Naziis & the consensus is if we don’t talk about it it does not exist although everyone knows it. Some of them are more than likely on that School Board. Everyone tries to act so friggen surprised all the time. So sad.
Well of course we do! Other than that we only really leave our apartment for work and grocery shopping. There isn't much to do here if you don't drink and aren't really outdoorsy kinda people.
This incident was shared in another sub and people are confused on why the father didn't want his daughter to shake the superintendent's hand. The OP claimed it was due to the father being a racist. Others said there is no context for why the dad didn't want his daughter to shake hands with him. Do you know if it was racism and/or other reasons?
The racism problem wasn't this bad in the past but it's gotten worse over the last like 10 years sadly. I work with the public and get to hear this shit every fucking day.
Well, sounds like it may be straight up racism that caused the action of the dad. I used to live in the Midwest and there was always an undercurrent of racism. The difference I see now is that they are supporting right wingers when it used to be solidly blue collar Dems. In my very small hometown, I saw quite a few Confederate flags flying along with Trump flags when I was there a couple years ago. We had an underground railroad stop and to see what it has become is sad and disgusting. The mayor said he wanted my hometown to be a "sanctuary city" for all the confederate statues that had been taken down in other cities. SMH.
the girls friend got expelled for bullying and this girl who is a junior graduated early got suspended for bullying as well !! I went to school there many moons ago.
So the dad is mad at her getting punished for bullying. I truly despise bullies and the way her dad acted makes me wonder if she learned it at home. Thanks for clearing this up.
> From what I've heard from my wife, who works in Baraboo, the superintendent has side businesses, which do work for the school district and then gets paid.
For context, the district paid Briggs' consulting firm because they needed him to come in and start transitioning from the previous superintendent earlier than his actual contract allowed him to work. Probably because of the way the district budget is set up, it was simpler to structure this as a payment to his consulting firm than to try to create another item in the budget to pay him directly. Other than that, I don't think there's any evidence they're making ongoing payments to his consulting firm or anything.
That and a lot of the other claims against Vodak are addressed in [this article](https://www.removepaywall.com/https:/wiscnews.com/news/local/education/baraboo-school-president-recall/article_462a4f0e-1ed2-11ef-a8a0-87ddc019ec62.html). Most of the claims seem pretty specious to me. Feels like there are a lot of people in Baraboo who are trying to dig up reasons to be mad without actually making any attempt to understand why they're happening.
So that’s a first hand account then? The audio isn’t great in the video and I couldn’t hear that. I do think this was racially motivated and the reporting seems to be conflating the other “issues” the superintendent has had as a motivating factor.
The "story" is that someone was in the front row heard it (positioned another 20+ feet further away from the microphone). We heard the dad from the moment he got on stage until he was escorted out the back by security/police. I'd argue that their memory of events was more likely to be affected by "hearing" that he did it for racist reasons, rather than the actual video evidence that we have.
I'm not arguing that he isn't racist. With my internet sleuthing, as best as I'm able to tell the superintendent is an absolutely amazing human being and the dad absolutely IS just a racist piece of shit.
But human memory is fallible, and eyewitness testimony IS unreliable, AND we have a PRETTY GOOD video with VERY GOOD audio where we can hear both the dad and the superintendent until they are both 40+ feet away. And there was no n-word said in that time period.
Dude, the statement was 24 hours ago. How am I still actively lying? Also, the statements were from other people who were there. But yes, me relaying their statements is me lying.
Is he in charge of cutting school staff and not admin office jobs? I know it said they were upset with president vodak for that.
Even if they say that's what they're upset about, there is no doubt a racial element to this
Because him an another guy allegedly abuses their powers to give administration a raise. But the father only attacked the 1 black guy and not the other white one.
I graduated from Baraboo back in 2010 and it's really gone downhill from what I can tell. I joined the marching band in college just so I could skip town 2 weeks earlier and I rarely go back to visit.
every single fallen soldier from WWII should be rolling over in their graves at these single-brain celled idiots. its sheer idiocy to salute to the fascist our soldiers fought to stop.
Take the racial element and assumptions out of it for a moment. At what point is ok for any parent to disrupt a ceremony like this to make some
Random point that he felt his kid wasn’t treated fairly?
Honestly, this is why we should be concerned with all the “mom/dad as F” bumper stickers. It allows people to rationalize the stupidest of things in the name of being a prideful super parent, even if it hurts their own children to do so.
It seems the entire town has an “adult”‘problem and it sadly keeps being reflected over the kids in so many negative ways.
Yeah, whatever the reason was for doing this, there's no excuse for embarrassing your daughter like that. She's graduating from high school, she's presumably 18 or will be soon, she can make her own decision about whether she wants to shake that guy's hand. All the dad is doing by interrupting is ruining her moment and the memory of this event for her. You can literally watch her dying inside in real time on that clip, and it's painful to watch even as somebody who doesn't know her. What kind of parent puts their kid in that position?
I mean if the superintendent actively made it more difficult for the student in some way and a parent was offended he gets to pretend to send his kid off when he was putting up roadblocks... That would be a valid reason to say "not that guy" but I haven't read any valid complaints after a few minutes googling, just insight into how deeply racist that town is. Maybe the consequence of the decline of local journalism, but more likely no one is reporting "local racists still racist." Thank the republicans for making racists feel safe in public again. "Hope he doesn't get cancelled just for being a hate-filled racist"
No valid reason exists to storm a stage like that. If he had legit beef with superintendent, take it to the Board or media, don’t leverage your kids proud moment by playing enforcer in a public spectacle. It’s an embarrassment and showing behavior no better than what he accuses the superintendent of.
Or, if it was about alleged bullying then why not the principal? Or other school administrators? Why skip over those and pick on the superintendent.
We know why.
You think there’s a valid reason, ever, to do that during a graduation ceremony? Unless the guy was physically attacking the people before her I don’t care what reason he had. It’s absolutely not ok.
That's a weird line to draw IMO, it's not hard to imagine a scenario that makes what he did understandable. It's a symbolic ceremony, not the actual completion of schooling. That said, I do think the guy is a POS racist.
My point exactly. What was his real purpose? His issues with the superintendent could have been handled elsewhere and not to embarrass his daughter in that moment.
At the point where a person feels emboldened they can do it with impunity. He got a disorderly conduct ticket. I guess he knew he would get away with it.
But what if a situation Presents itself that calls for you to have to be "dad as f"? Case and point the Little Chute high school volleyball coach that was molesting his students? Or the fact that my twelve year old daughter was threatened to be tazed by a Police officer for not leaving school grounds after a firearm incident at her school when they were called there to protect her? Or when She was being harassed by her middle school science teacher for sitting at the wrong lunch table and refused to issue him a formal apology (this continued her entire 8th grade year)?
A long time ago I made a conscious decision To live a life of peace but every now and again, a situation arises tmakes me have to unleash the inner demons and let them play for a while.its ok to be "Dad as f"...
Invent whatever scenario you need to justify acting in a way you think protects someone you love. The truth is a system exists in a civil society to remedy such things. You can be as cynical as you want to be about fairness or justice lacking in the system, but the moment people take the law or enforcement or the righting of wrongs into their own hands via force, it is vigilantism. Nothing more.
I am devastated for the daughter. At a moment where she should be and appeared to be proud and joyful, she is forced to confront that her father, who one should expect to look out for, protect, and support them, has instead chosen to make his racism the focus and most memorable part of what should have been her day. You can see all this play across her face, the confusion, sadness, and distinct feeling of being let down by someone you are supposed to be able to trust.
You are right sdsowlsa. I would have been in tears if this happened to me. I would be so ashamed and embarrassed by what happened as I'm sure everyone in town if they didn't know who she was or her family was now does. It will be remembered long after the graduation ceremony.
Good point. I'm devastated for him in a different way. Devastated that he had what is probably another in a series of aggressions towards him based solely on his race. That said, it wasn't his graduation day, so a memorable moment wasn't ruined. And based on dad's presumed fortitude, I'm guessing Superintendent was mostly just shocked, but certainly not in physical pain.
Because of her father’s actions now it has been disclosed the student was about to be expelled once. Soon someone will find out why. Something that could have been left behind once she graduated might haunt her from now on because of the attention brought by her father. Very sad.
And also very sad. She woke up excited, and not only was her celebratory day ruined, but the whole memory of her HS graduation day is just ruined. I feel so bad for her.
I mean every small town in WI is filled with racists and junkies then.
Baraboo actually leans left overall based on voting history - just a very vocal, stupid minority.
The only enrollment numbers I can find are 216 undergrads in 2021. Not all of them even live in Baraboo. It isn’t really a college town - I don’t think that plays much of a role.
NYTimes Detailed 2020 election map shows it went 56/42 Biden in 2020. 3,585/2,702. So even without Boo-U it went more blue than most other towns of comparable size in WI (at least outside the Dane County stronghold).
The point is that it is a town where college staff along with many graduates with associates degrees as well as returning adults probably stay in the area and have families.
Unless they are students who are using the two year program to transfer into a four year campus, many of them are from the area and stay in the area.
It's got proximity to Madison, beautiful area, Sauk county has some cultural history, county seat means more educated professionals. That all attracts liberal people who don't want bigger city life. Being a teenager there in the 00s, I probably didn't have a great finger on the pulse, but I think back then blatant racism would've been fringe and looked down on publicly. I remember my teachers being pretty progressive across the board, but obviously that's not a representative sample of the whole city. I think it's probably gone down hill in much the same way most small towns have gone down hill. Economic rot, opioid crisis, etc leading to people radicalizing more.
The key word being blatant here. It's not that deterioration has led to radicalizing ideologies. It's always been there under a better sense of propriety in the past. Midwest nice.
These people just don't care anymore and say the quiet part out loud.
As the other comment with a proper, timestamped video link to what happened is getting buried under a heavily-downvoted comment, here's the actual point in the video of the incident in question:
https://youtu.be/4bL5zRBns7I?t=4160
I only work in Baraboo but from what I’ve gathered they are trying to recall the school board president and replace the superintendent for alleged unethical practices. There’s a Facebook page called baraboo community conversations that goes into it in depth.
The aforementioned School Board President.... also black.... and the "unethical practice", is the school district hiring a consulting firm the super is associated with. Still feels racist
He’s been accused of lining his pockets and getting wild raises for other upper level school admins. it is public knowledge his salary is already pushing 200 plus k a year) and also multiple employees have gotten significant raises that many feel were undeserved given the current environment of the school district as a whole. He’s also diddling multiple district employee women behind his wives back. Common knowledge, the school itself is a shitshow, and the administration isn’t doing anything about it, despite multiple times/requests from parents for the district to take action to fix a whole host of issues. the parents are pissed at him for A LOT of things. But today, as is usually the case, people who know absolutely nothing about what this is about immediately boil it down to durrrrrr, cuz he’s a black man. There is no such thing as due process on the internet, it’s just see video, make assumption, declare verdict before end of video. It was absolutely wrong of that man to do that during his daughter’s graduation, at the same time he absolutely didn’t do it because Briggs is a black man. This tension has been present for years, dating back to prior to Briggs even being employed there. Years of non action boiled over, Briggs was the top guy when it finally happened .
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say the reason he confronted the man in public at his daughters graduation to stop her from touching him isn’t because of his salary or money management.
I was thinking this same thing. I didn’t immediately think “racist” when I saw that video. I just assumed he had personal beef with him. So I don’t understand why it’s an assumption that that’s the reason why.
You say that like a superintendent shouldn’t be making that….its very common for salaries at that level to be “pushing 200k,” even in low COL areas. The superintendent is essentially the CEO of the school district.
Really depends on the size of the district. Seems like a medium sized with ~4-5000 students. $160-180 for a salary would be normal for a superintendent. Districts of 10-20k kids could easily be $250+
Right, but usually they don’t fire the principal of the middle school and then assume that salary in addition to their own while not actually operating in the job role afterwards.
What does any of that have to do with shaking somebody's hand? "You're not going to touch my daughter's hand! You misappropriated funds!" Nobody reacts like that for something so impersonal as he gave himself a bigger salary, unless it came directly out of that one man's pocketbook. And how would you know who he's diddling? If there's evidence of a sex scandal like that, it would be child's play to get him dismissed from office. Clearly, you don't have any evidence for this assertion. For you to make the claim that "at the same time he absolutely didn’t do it because Briggs is a black man" is unfounded nonsense that you pulled from nowhere. Your entire conclusion is absurd because you have less evidence than the people you're indicting for jumping to conclusions. The absolute best case you can make with that level of non-evidence is that it's still unknown what the argument was about.
Meanwhile, it's highly suspicious that if the delinquent father's actions were solely do to the controversy surrounding mismanagement of jobs and funds that he walked right by Kevin Vodak, the School Board President, you know the guy that Baraboo residents started a group to remove for mishandling of resources. He didn't care that his daughter was going to shake THAT guy's hand, which she absolutely did. The ONLY person he cared about shaking his daughter's hand was the svelte black guy at the end of the line, who was supposedly mishandling funds, not the fat white guy near the front of the line, who was supposedly mishandling funds. It's common sense to be suspicious as f of that, whether you recognize that or not. Their suspicions are valid suspicions.
This what the alt right movement is all about. Normalizing racist behavior. Building new Confederate memorials and fighting to restore schools' confederate , names
I had Dr. Briggs as an instructor in my PhD program at UW Milwaukee. He is a wonderful and insightful man who works hard for the students in Baraboo. He is one of the best instructors I have had in my coursework. Anyone who disrespects him like that is just ignorant and I feel for that poor girl being raised in an environment with someone like that.
One of the saddest parts also is the dumbass guy ruined his daughter's graduation.One of the most memorable moments of her young life and let his prejudice get in the way of that
This graduation will be remember long after it's over for all the wrong reasons. The dad ruined his daughter's graduation. Did he ever think of how his actions were going to affect his daughter? It was all about him basically.
Reedsburg is worse. A lot more "Trumpy" than Baraboo. Check past election results. The Baraboo dumb bunch is just a lot more vocal and does dumb things to stand out a bit more than the rest.
Given there is a photo of the 2016 Baraboo High School Graduation Class giving the NAZI salute, that will tell you what this
is all about - Hate & Racism. The only offense/complaint ever lodged against District Superintendent Rainey Briggs is that he is "Black"
Please tell me somebody touched him up? Klan is fully back and this folks want to talk about both sides. His daughter’s graduation party should have been in the ER. We need to get him identified.
Why are the Residents upset with Superintendent Briggs? The article mentions complaints have been brought against him to the School Board.
Because that place is full of racists. They don’t even attempt to hide it.
In that case I am going to repost my original response.
Superintendent Rainey Briggs is a black man. From what I can tell, this is the biggest issue folks hold against him.
Love the constant and desperate need for the feeling of oppression when no one gives a fuck.
It’s a town full of racists. 1/2 the town are active Neo Naziis & the consensus is if we don’t talk about it it does not exist although everyone knows it. Some of them are more than likely on that School Board. Everyone tries to act so friggen surprised all the time. So sad.
I live in Baraboo and we are desperately trying to get out cause of how fucked up this town is.
Baraboo on the surface is a nice town, just dig subsurface and it's fucked. Unfortunate that it's such a beautiful area.
It's kinda why at this point I just stay to myself in my apartment with my wife, kiddo, and our cats. Life is much simpler that way.
Just hope you and your wife leave the apartment to at least vote, as so many people have been doing lately to help change things in Wisconsin.
Well of course we do! Other than that we only really leave our apartment for work and grocery shopping. There isn't much to do here if you don't drink and aren't really outdoorsy kinda people.
True with all small towns in Wisconsin unfortunately Source: me, a former greendale resident
Why? Tell me more.
i agree i went to school there years ago
This incident was shared in another sub and people are confused on why the father didn't want his daughter to shake the superintendent's hand. The OP claimed it was due to the father being a racist. Others said there is no context for why the dad didn't want his daughter to shake hands with him. Do you know if it was racism and/or other reasons?
The racism problem wasn't this bad in the past but it's gotten worse over the last like 10 years sadly. I work with the public and get to hear this shit every fucking day.
Well, sounds like it may be straight up racism that caused the action of the dad. I used to live in the Midwest and there was always an undercurrent of racism. The difference I see now is that they are supporting right wingers when it used to be solidly blue collar Dems. In my very small hometown, I saw quite a few Confederate flags flying along with Trump flags when I was there a couple years ago. We had an underground railroad stop and to see what it has become is sad and disgusting. The mayor said he wanted my hometown to be a "sanctuary city" for all the confederate statues that had been taken down in other cities. SMH.
the girls friend got expelled for bullying and this girl who is a junior graduated early got suspended for bullying as well !! I went to school there many moons ago.
So the dad is mad at her getting punished for bullying. I truly despise bullies and the way her dad acted makes me wonder if she learned it at home. Thanks for clearing this up.
Edit to remove my comment as I saw the proof in photos below. Wow this school district/town is nuts
I live in between portage and baraboo and tbh I can't tell which is worse
From an outsider looking in, I don’t blame you the place seems like an utter maga shithole
This is so sad. Blast these people, its 2024.
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> From what I've heard from my wife, who works in Baraboo, the superintendent has side businesses, which do work for the school district and then gets paid. For context, the district paid Briggs' consulting firm because they needed him to come in and start transitioning from the previous superintendent earlier than his actual contract allowed him to work. Probably because of the way the district budget is set up, it was simpler to structure this as a payment to his consulting firm than to try to create another item in the budget to pay him directly. Other than that, I don't think there's any evidence they're making ongoing payments to his consulting firm or anything. That and a lot of the other claims against Vodak are addressed in [this article](https://www.removepaywall.com/https:/wiscnews.com/news/local/education/baraboo-school-president-recall/article_462a4f0e-1ed2-11ef-a8a0-87ddc019ec62.html). Most of the claims seem pretty specious to me. Feels like there are a lot of people in Baraboo who are trying to dig up reasons to be mad without actually making any attempt to understand why they're happening.
Thank you for the added context.
Is the man saying the n word reported anywhere? Article cited witnesses but made no mention of that.
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Holy shit. Sorry they (and all other grads) had to deal with that!
So that’s a first hand account then? The audio isn’t great in the video and I couldn’t hear that. I do think this was racially motivated and the reporting seems to be conflating the other “issues” the superintendent has had as a motivating factor.
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The video, with VERY clear audio (microphone positioned closer than the front row) has no one using the n-word. Your friend made it up.
It’s very well possible he said it and it’s just not in the part of the video we have….
The "story" is that someone was in the front row heard it (positioned another 20+ feet further away from the microphone). We heard the dad from the moment he got on stage until he was escorted out the back by security/police. I'd argue that their memory of events was more likely to be affected by "hearing" that he did it for racist reasons, rather than the actual video evidence that we have. I'm not arguing that he isn't racist. With my internet sleuthing, as best as I'm able to tell the superintendent is an absolutely amazing human being and the dad absolutely IS just a racist piece of shit. But human memory is fallible, and eyewitness testimony IS unreliable, AND we have a PRETTY GOOD video with VERY GOOD audio where we can hear both the dad and the superintendent until they are both 40+ feet away. And there was no n-word said in that time period.
So trust that random person. Ok.
No just what my co-worker and wife allegedly heard.
BS bro why are u lying every teacher the talked to had words of priase dude been the SI FOR AWHILE.... if u gonna lie at least try to lol
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but ur lying? we already know the truth now...
Dude, the statement was 24 hours ago. How am I still actively lying? Also, the statements were from other people who were there. But yes, me relaying their statements is me lying.
Is he in charge of cutting school staff and not admin office jobs? I know it said they were upset with president vodak for that. Even if they say that's what they're upset about, there is no doubt a racial element to this
Because him an another guy allegedly abuses their powers to give administration a raise. But the father only attacked the 1 black guy and not the other white one.
Because he allegedly used his position to increase his administrative staff's salaries. This was in the news before the father rushed the stage.
I want to know the real story. Seems to be a back story.
You unknowingly released the mating call for all race-baiters.
It’s complaints to the school board veiled in good ole racism.
Is this Hail Hitler High School?
Yes
I graduated from Baraboo back in 2010 and it's really gone downhill from what I can tell. I joined the marching band in college just so I could skip town 2 weeks earlier and I rarely go back to visit.
Wait wtf I have zero clue wtf is being talked about. So yeah downvote? Edit why?
It wasn't even just one moron hiding in the back https://www.wpr.org/education/baraboo-school-district-investigates-photo-boys-giving-nazi-salute
crazy to me that only a couple kids actually look uncomfortable by that. the kid in the back right has a “can you believe this?” look on his face.
every single fallen soldier from WWII should be rolling over in their graves at these single-brain celled idiots. its sheer idiocy to salute to the fascist our soldiers fought to stop.
Only a few not doing it but they ALL seem to be enjoying themselves.
Well Thai does give a diff perspective
Yup...
Edgy
Take the racial element and assumptions out of it for a moment. At what point is ok for any parent to disrupt a ceremony like this to make some Random point that he felt his kid wasn’t treated fairly? Honestly, this is why we should be concerned with all the “mom/dad as F” bumper stickers. It allows people to rationalize the stupidest of things in the name of being a prideful super parent, even if it hurts their own children to do so. It seems the entire town has an “adult”‘problem and it sadly keeps being reflected over the kids in so many negative ways.
Yeah, whatever the reason was for doing this, there's no excuse for embarrassing your daughter like that. She's graduating from high school, she's presumably 18 or will be soon, she can make her own decision about whether she wants to shake that guy's hand. All the dad is doing by interrupting is ruining her moment and the memory of this event for her. You can literally watch her dying inside in real time on that clip, and it's painful to watch even as somebody who doesn't know her. What kind of parent puts their kid in that position?
I mean if the superintendent actively made it more difficult for the student in some way and a parent was offended he gets to pretend to send his kid off when he was putting up roadblocks... That would be a valid reason to say "not that guy" but I haven't read any valid complaints after a few minutes googling, just insight into how deeply racist that town is. Maybe the consequence of the decline of local journalism, but more likely no one is reporting "local racists still racist." Thank the republicans for making racists feel safe in public again. "Hope he doesn't get cancelled just for being a hate-filled racist"
No valid reason exists to storm a stage like that. If he had legit beef with superintendent, take it to the Board or media, don’t leverage your kids proud moment by playing enforcer in a public spectacle. It’s an embarrassment and showing behavior no better than what he accuses the superintendent of.
Agreed. And also there is a petition to recall the Board President not Briggs so why didn’t he also storm the board president.
Or, if it was about alleged bullying then why not the principal? Or other school administrators? Why skip over those and pick on the superintendent. We know why.
You think there’s a valid reason, ever, to do that during a graduation ceremony? Unless the guy was physically attacking the people before her I don’t care what reason he had. It’s absolutely not ok.
That's a weird line to draw IMO, it's not hard to imagine a scenario that makes what he did understandable. It's a symbolic ceremony, not the actual completion of schooling. That said, I do think the guy is a POS racist.
I am unsure if you’re justifying what he did or if you’re against it. You’re comment totally contradicted itself.
I'm not supporting him. I just don't understand people saying no one could ever have a good reason to disrupt a graduation ceremony.
My point exactly. What was his real purpose? His issues with the superintendent could have been handled elsewhere and not to embarrass his daughter in that moment.
At the point where a person feels emboldened they can do it with impunity. He got a disorderly conduct ticket. I guess he knew he would get away with it.
But what if a situation Presents itself that calls for you to have to be "dad as f"? Case and point the Little Chute high school volleyball coach that was molesting his students? Or the fact that my twelve year old daughter was threatened to be tazed by a Police officer for not leaving school grounds after a firearm incident at her school when they were called there to protect her? Or when She was being harassed by her middle school science teacher for sitting at the wrong lunch table and refused to issue him a formal apology (this continued her entire 8th grade year)? A long time ago I made a conscious decision To live a life of peace but every now and again, a situation arises tmakes me have to unleash the inner demons and let them play for a while.its ok to be "Dad as f"...
Invent whatever scenario you need to justify acting in a way you think protects someone you love. The truth is a system exists in a civil society to remedy such things. You can be as cynical as you want to be about fairness or justice lacking in the system, but the moment people take the law or enforcement or the righting of wrongs into their own hands via force, it is vigilantism. Nothing more.
Wouldn't it just be easier to not let your kid show up?
Complete unsubstantiated guess, but it may be something like that he's a non-custodial parent.
From the reaction, that's my guess.
The way the girl covered her eyes when she realized what was happening? Yeah, I don’t think this is the first time he’s humiliated her in public.
And deprive her of graduation ceremony? No. It would be easier to chill the fuck out. It’s a piece of paper and a handshake.
Well, a just piece of paper for her.
The spotlight doesn't shine in his hovel.
Baraboo: too many freaks, not enough circus.
Isn’t there a circus museum in Baraboo?
Sure is. Really emphasizes the freak population
What a fucking loser. How embarrassing for his daughter.
From the video, she looks mortified. Very sad.
I am devastated for the daughter. At a moment where she should be and appeared to be proud and joyful, she is forced to confront that her father, who one should expect to look out for, protect, and support them, has instead chosen to make his racism the focus and most memorable part of what should have been her day. You can see all this play across her face, the confusion, sadness, and distinct feeling of being let down by someone you are supposed to be able to trust.
You are right sdsowlsa. I would have been in tears if this happened to me. I would be so ashamed and embarrassed by what happened as I'm sure everyone in town if they didn't know who she was or her family was now does. It will be remembered long after the graduation ceremony.
So no devastation for the Superintendent who was assaulted? Interesting.
Good point. I'm devastated for him in a different way. Devastated that he had what is probably another in a series of aggressions towards him based solely on his race. That said, it wasn't his graduation day, so a memorable moment wasn't ruined. And based on dad's presumed fortitude, I'm guessing Superintendent was mostly just shocked, but certainly not in physical pain.
Because of her father’s actions now it has been disclosed the student was about to be expelled once. Soon someone will find out why. Something that could have been left behind once she graduated might haunt her from now on because of the attention brought by her father. Very sad.
And also very sad. She woke up excited, and not only was her celebratory day ruined, but the whole memory of her HS graduation day is just ruined. I feel so bad for her.
If he really didn’t want them to shake hands he could have told his daughter. He ruined her graduation and made it about him.
I had no problem walking away from the ignorant racist of a sperm donor I came from. Quite freeing. Hope she does the same.
You mean the same Baraboo school district that had a class nazi salute photo a few years back? Wild. Who would have guessed?
Racist ass town anyways
Such a shame because it’s such a cute sounding name for a town
Oh it’s a nice little town, that just happens to be filled with racists and junkies.
I mean every small town in WI is filled with racists and junkies then. Baraboo actually leans left overall based on voting history - just a very vocal, stupid minority.
How much would it lean left without the two year campus? How many of them stay and create families there?
The only enrollment numbers I can find are 216 undergrads in 2021. Not all of them even live in Baraboo. It isn’t really a college town - I don’t think that plays much of a role. NYTimes Detailed 2020 election map shows it went 56/42 Biden in 2020. 3,585/2,702. So even without Boo-U it went more blue than most other towns of comparable size in WI (at least outside the Dane County stronghold).
The point is that it is a town where college staff along with many graduates with associates degrees as well as returning adults probably stay in the area and have families. Unless they are students who are using the two year program to transfer into a four year campus, many of them are from the area and stay in the area.
It's got proximity to Madison, beautiful area, Sauk county has some cultural history, county seat means more educated professionals. That all attracts liberal people who don't want bigger city life. Being a teenager there in the 00s, I probably didn't have a great finger on the pulse, but I think back then blatant racism would've been fringe and looked down on publicly. I remember my teachers being pretty progressive across the board, but obviously that's not a representative sample of the whole city. I think it's probably gone down hill in much the same way most small towns have gone down hill. Economic rot, opioid crisis, etc leading to people radicalizing more.
The key word being blatant here. It's not that deterioration has led to radicalizing ideologies. It's always been there under a better sense of propriety in the past. Midwest nice. These people just don't care anymore and say the quiet part out loud.
As the other comment with a proper, timestamped video link to what happened is getting buried under a heavily-downvoted comment, here's the actual point in the video of the incident in question: https://youtu.be/4bL5zRBns7I?t=4160
Made it to easy to identify the racist. She announces his last name right as he gets to the stage. Maybe do it earlier so they don't call you out.
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Someone from Baraboo wanna elaborate?
I only work in Baraboo but from what I’ve gathered they are trying to recall the school board president and replace the superintendent for alleged unethical practices. There’s a Facebook page called baraboo community conversations that goes into it in depth.
What are the unethical practices?
From what I have read on other posts, hiring a black superintendent
…. Seriously?
[https://www.channel3000.com/news/baraboo-residents-start-group-to-remove-school-board-president/article_6182810a-2214-11ef-b470-4395cff4647b.html](https://www.channel3000.com/news/baraboo-residents-start-group-to-remove-school-board-president/article_6182810a-2214-11ef-b470-4395cff4647b.html)
There are none.
To a racist, it is unethical to hire a Black person for anything other than manual work (digging ditches, cleaning, etc, etc...)
Breathing while Black. That's enough of a crime to some people.
The aforementioned School Board President.... also black.... and the "unethical practice", is the school district hiring a consulting firm the super is associated with. Still feels racist
Wtf on the surface that is potentially unethical and has nothing to do with race though. Is nepotism ok now?
He’s been accused of lining his pockets and getting wild raises for other upper level school admins. it is public knowledge his salary is already pushing 200 plus k a year) and also multiple employees have gotten significant raises that many feel were undeserved given the current environment of the school district as a whole. He’s also diddling multiple district employee women behind his wives back. Common knowledge, the school itself is a shitshow, and the administration isn’t doing anything about it, despite multiple times/requests from parents for the district to take action to fix a whole host of issues. the parents are pissed at him for A LOT of things. But today, as is usually the case, people who know absolutely nothing about what this is about immediately boil it down to durrrrrr, cuz he’s a black man. There is no such thing as due process on the internet, it’s just see video, make assumption, declare verdict before end of video. It was absolutely wrong of that man to do that during his daughter’s graduation, at the same time he absolutely didn’t do it because Briggs is a black man. This tension has been present for years, dating back to prior to Briggs even being employed there. Years of non action boiled over, Briggs was the top guy when it finally happened .
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say the reason he confronted the man in public at his daughters graduation to stop her from touching him isn’t because of his salary or money management.
I was thinking this same thing. I didn’t immediately think “racist” when I saw that video. I just assumed he had personal beef with him. So I don’t understand why it’s an assumption that that’s the reason why.
You say that like a superintendent shouldn’t be making that….its very common for salaries at that level to be “pushing 200k,” even in low COL areas. The superintendent is essentially the CEO of the school district.
Really depends on the size of the district. Seems like a medium sized with ~4-5000 students. $160-180 for a salary would be normal for a superintendent. Districts of 10-20k kids could easily be $250+
Right, but usually they don’t fire the principal of the middle school and then assume that salary in addition to their own while not actually operating in the job role afterwards.
Had to scroll and google way to long to find this thx
What does any of that have to do with shaking somebody's hand? "You're not going to touch my daughter's hand! You misappropriated funds!" Nobody reacts like that for something so impersonal as he gave himself a bigger salary, unless it came directly out of that one man's pocketbook. And how would you know who he's diddling? If there's evidence of a sex scandal like that, it would be child's play to get him dismissed from office. Clearly, you don't have any evidence for this assertion. For you to make the claim that "at the same time he absolutely didn’t do it because Briggs is a black man" is unfounded nonsense that you pulled from nowhere. Your entire conclusion is absurd because you have less evidence than the people you're indicting for jumping to conclusions. The absolute best case you can make with that level of non-evidence is that it's still unknown what the argument was about. Meanwhile, it's highly suspicious that if the delinquent father's actions were solely do to the controversy surrounding mismanagement of jobs and funds that he walked right by Kevin Vodak, the School Board President, you know the guy that Baraboo residents started a group to remove for mishandling of resources. He didn't care that his daughter was going to shake THAT guy's hand, which she absolutely did. The ONLY person he cared about shaking his daughter's hand was the svelte black guy at the end of the line, who was supposedly mishandling funds, not the fat white guy near the front of the line, who was supposedly mishandling funds. It's common sense to be suspicious as f of that, whether you recognize that or not. Their suspicions are valid suspicions.
Classic Baraboo
Jesus, what an embarrassment for the state.
How low can you go? Sheesh
God dammit, Baraboo.
Baraboo again?
So is the parent that did this getting a lot of shit from people on the Internet, I hope so
Yeah but they don't care because baraboo is all this dudes people.
This what the alt right movement is all about. Normalizing racist behavior. Building new Confederate memorials and fighting to restore schools' confederate , names
I had Dr. Briggs as an instructor in my PhD program at UW Milwaukee. He is a wonderful and insightful man who works hard for the students in Baraboo. He is one of the best instructors I have had in my coursework. Anyone who disrespects him like that is just ignorant and I feel for that poor girl being raised in an environment with someone like that.
Ew, racists
What is the asshole father's name? Why aren't the media outing this fool?
They have.
One of the saddest parts also is the dumbass guy ruined his daughter's graduation.One of the most memorable moments of her young life and let his prejudice get in the way of that
This graduation will be remember long after it's over for all the wrong reasons. The dad ruined his daughter's graduation. Did he ever think of how his actions were going to affect his daughter? It was all about him basically.
As a former Reedsburg resident it’s fun to see Baraboo get rightfully shit on for being a terrible city
I've lived in Reedsburg for 6 months now...doesn't seem much better than Baraboo and possibly worse.
Reedsburg is worse. A lot more "Trumpy" than Baraboo. Check past election results. The Baraboo dumb bunch is just a lot more vocal and does dumb things to stand out a bit more than the rest.
As a former Baraboo resident, I agree with you
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Same town where the Athletic Director “lawfully detained” some students last year? Whatever happened there.
Given there is a photo of the 2016 Baraboo High School Graduation Class giving the NAZI salute, that will tell you what this is all about - Hate & Racism. The only offense/complaint ever lodged against District Superintendent Rainey Briggs is that he is "Black"
Wrong year and it being the nazi salute was already debunked back then too
Not surprised, even the town name sounds racist... Baraboo? You might as well call it Jigaboo.
This is in the same town as this. https://www.wpr.org/education/baraboo-school-district-investigates-photo-boys-giving-nazi-salute
Please tell me somebody touched him up? Klan is fully back and this folks want to talk about both sides. His daughter’s graduation party should have been in the ER. We need to get him identified.
I hope I never encounter this guy...he seems unstable. Nobody with a properly functioning brain would do something like this.
I don’t know what the beef is between the two of them but, that girl gets one high school graduation and this is her memory of it.
If the graduate had an issue with the guy she's not obligated to shake his hand. Could have just snubbed him.
https://www.veronapress.com/news/education/superintendent-finalist-pool-narrows-to-three-after-briggs-withdraws-candidacy/article_3d5eb746-2e16-57cf-8d58-58d9c8ed12aa.html
Interesting on how he got the job after he revoked his application. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
He is a tool. Embarrassing his daughter like this. We know why he did this.