Video of White Toddler Being Bullied by Black Neighbors Goes Viral; Toddler’s Father Says He’s ‘Disgusted’

Video of White Toddler Being Bullied by Black Neighbors Goes Viral; Toddler’s Father Says He’s ‘Disgusted’
A white toddler being bullied by two black girls and their older brother in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Screenshot/LiveLeak)
Zachary Stieber
8/27/2013
Updated:
7/18/2015

A video showing a 3-year-old white girl being bullied by two older black girls with the help of a 12-year-old boy has gone viral and prompted a flood of calls to the bullies’ father.

The video shows MacKenzie wailing after she tried to play with two black girls and they started making her hit herself. A boy holding a camera says “Why you hitting yourself? Why you hitting yourself?”

The girls then take her toy and throw it on the ground after the MacKenzie tries to share it with them.

The video was originally uploaded to Facebook but taken down. However, someone grabbed it and uploaded it to LiveLeaks, prompting a flood of comments and also calls to the bullies’ father. The video has been viewed more than 500,000 times as of August 27.

Eddie, the father of the bullies,  subsequently went over to Shawn, the father of the girl who was bullied, and apologized to him. Shawn hadn’t realized that it was his girl who was being bullied until the apologies. 

“I am disgusted with it,” Shawn told Fox’s Twin Cities bureau. At the same time, though, he says the father of the bullies is taking care of it.

“Trust me,” Shawn said. “He’s a good father and everything like that, so I’m not worried about what he’s doing over there.”

Eddie, the father of the girls involved, said that he doesn’t know where that mindset came from.

“I honestly don’t know where it comes from. We don’t teach that in our household,” Eddie said. “We’re not racist, none of that.”

“When I seen it, I was disgusted with the video,” he said.

Eddie’s 12 year-old son who originally uploaded the video to a fake Facebook page, was behind the camera and encouraging the bullying.

His son is “completely ashamed” and “he understands it was wrong.”

“He’s punished and getting dealt with,” Eddie said. “Internet, everything -- privileges taken away. We’re dealing with it as a family.”

Eddie has gotten hundreds of calls from people saying he’s a bad father. But both fathers say the situation has been made into something bigger than it actually was and that their daughters play together a lot.