Sartell neighbors support family hurt by racist graffiti

by Dennis Dalman

editor@thenewsleaders.com

The Emmanuel family of Sartell returned home one evening from bowling and found hate-filled words and obscene pictures scrawled in yellow and orange paint on two of their cars.

To their fright, horror and disgust, here is what confronted them: The words “Nigah,” “Niglet,” “Bitch,” “Whore” and “F… You” painted on the vehicles, along with many crude drawings of penises and testicles. One car belongs to the father of the house; the other car is out of commission.

The husband and father, Icoro Emmanuel, is a nurse at the St. Cloud Hospital and hails from Nigeria. He has been a U.S. citizen for four years. He and his wife, Kelly, who was raised in St. Cloud and is white, have three daughters: Taisea, 15; Eliora, 9; and Idara, 3. That evening, the parents had brought just the two youngest children to the bowling hall.

When the parents saw the ugly words and drawings, they told the children to quickly go into the house. They soon learned Eliora, instead, walked around behind the house because, as she later explained, she was afraid to go into the house.

“We were shocked, disgusted and angry,” Kelly said. “We have lived in Sartell for eight years, and this has never been done to our cars before.”

In the past, however, there were a few other disturbing incidents. During the ebola-disease scare a few years ago, Taisea’s best friend, a white girl, was told by another white girl one day in class that she shouldn’t be friends with a black girl because “all blacks have ebola.”

When Taisea was in second grade, her father came to school to pick her up, and one of her classmates started laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Taisea asked.

“Your dad is black,” she said.

On Nov. 9, after finding the hate-filled graffiti on their cars, the Emmanuels called the police. They asked the family if they have any known enemies and many other questions that could lead to a suspect. The family, however, couldn’t come up with any leads.

Later, Taisea mentioned the graffiti incident on social media. The very next day in school, a boy in Taisea’s class walked over to her and told her he knew who scrawled the graffiti and gave her the names.

That early evening two parents drove up to the Emmanuels, with their children in their cars. The man’s son was a 17-year-old; the mother’s daughter, a friend of the 17-year-old, was a girl, age 14.

The parents apologized and told the Emmanuels how appalled and disgusted they are their children would do such a hateful thing. Both children live in Sartell, not the same neighborhood where the Emmanuels live.

“Well, they’re just lucky I didn’t catch them doing it!” Kelly told them, still angry about the incident.

Then the visiting parents offered to have their teenagers come into the house to apologize. Kelly declined the offer, saying she did not want to blow up emotionally at the kids, which is what she feared she might do. She said she would only be able to accept an apology once she calms down, at some future time.

“I believe it (the incident) was a bullying tactic against my 15-year-old daughter,” Kelly said.

The next day, the Emmanuels were stunned when they saw at least two dozen people walking toward them, approaching their home. They soon learned they were their neighbors who’d heard about the incident, organized and in a show of solidarity on behalf of the Emmanuels decided to tell them in person they are sorry for what happened to them, that they like them very much and honor them as valued neighbors.

“We gave them a big thank you,” Kelly said. “I was moved to tears by their kindness.”

The Emmanuel parents still have not decided what kinds of charges to request to bring against the teenagers, but Kelly said she wants to be sure whatever punishment they receive, they will learn something from it. She said she would like to see them do many hours of community service at a place where they must work closely with children of other races.

“I keep reminding my kids people are mostly good and just a few bad people do stupid, mean things,” Kelly said. “Racism is a learned thing. Kids’ minds are like little sponges. Even if kids don’t mean to be mean, they are learning that from someone, somewhere.”