Anna HayesIt is 2017 and some people still haven’t got the memo about equality. Especially this father who disowned his daughter for taking her black friend to prom.
Anna Hayes from Lake Village, Arkansas, took her friend Phillip Freeman to her high school prom – and was shocked to receive a barrage of hateful messages from her father after she posted the pictures on Facebook.
Anna, who has actually been dating someone else since 2013, and took Phillip to the prom as a friend, shared the disgusting text messages with Phillip.
Anna HayesPhillip shared the messages on his Facebook page and they quickly went viral as a shocking reminder of just how backwards some people’s thinking still is.
Here are the messages where a father actually disowns his own daughter because she went to a dance:
Anna HayesWe are done
I won’t be coming to your graduation. Nor will I pay for your college. Go live with the N****rs.Anna: I went to prom with a black guy so that’s a problem ? racist much
Yes I am your [sic] dead to me
Anna: K [savage Anna, full on savage ‘K’, love it]
Don’t ever contact me again we are through.
Go ahead be a FUCKIN [sic] whore leave me out of it.
I’m canceling [sic] your phone Monday you can’t do this I’m done with you.Anna: I didn’t do anything wrong
He continued:
Anna HayesShut the fuck up you have no right to talk to me anymore
Go live with the FUCKIN [sic] N****rs
Your pictures are already off my walls
You can go to hell
What the fuck is wrong with you?
I’m canceling [sic] your phone and your insurance we are done.
You want to mingle with Subhumans I’ll treat you accordingly.
That was intense. I feel like maybe taking himself out of Anna’s life might be the first responsible decision he has made for a while.
Anna hasn’t lived with her father since her early teens, which is why her dad didn’t know about her prom or her date.
She told Buzzfeed that it was quite an unusual environment growing up:
He had always been openly racist around me when I was growing up in his household, but it never really occurred to me what it exactly meant to be racist, when you’re a child you look at the world completely different
I can’t imagine growing up around such vile racism and still coming out the other side as a well balanced individual as Anna seems to have done.
Anna HayesAnna has been open in her disappointment at her father’s ignorant views, again speaking to Buzzfeed she said:
This just hurt more because I can not believe how anyone can hate someone they don’t even know because of their skin color.
Anna HayesDespite her frustration at her dad’s views and actions Anna has asked keyboard warriors not to contact her family on Facebook:
I would just like to say a few tings to clear up some of this mess… 1.) I have been in a relationship since 2013 but that relation ship is with Austin Starnes. This is not relevant to the situation at all but some of you thought it was.
Some places were incorrectly implying that Anna was dating Phillip, which is the assumption that her dad made. In fact, Anna was just taking Phillip to the prom as a friend because; ‘He is a great guy, he’s really funny.’
Posted by Anna Marie Ricks on Thursday, 9 February 2017
Anna also explained that she’s been unhappy with how some people have responded to the story:
2.) a few people have taken this and screen shot it and put it on their own social media, I nor Phillip are responsible for what someone else says and/or does about the situation.
Most people have been very understanding and very sweet about this whole ordeal, some people have been threatening other members of my family when the had NOTHING to do wit what my FATHER said. Do not inbox my father’s ex wife or even current wife threatening them about any of this because it was not them who said it in the first place.
She wants us to stay ‘peaceful and classy’ in the face of hatred and not meet like with like:
3.) there is a peaceful and classy way to fight for what you believe in. Threatening someone and calling them all sorts of terrible things makes you just as wrong as my father was. The whole point of this post was to show that sadly in 2017 racism is still around and that maybe someone would see this and have a change of heart or maybe share the because it is an important issue that still occurs. This is all I wanted to say and this is all I will say.
Bravo to Anna and Phillip for rising above the hatred and sharing a positive message in the face of bigotry.
