Mark and Patricia McCloskey, who confronted peaceful protestors passing in front of their home while heavily armed and screaming, followed up with the amazing claim that they support the Black Lives Matter movement. This claim was amazing because the peaceful protestors they confronted on June 28 were a diverse group visibly affiliated with that movement.
If the McCloskeys have, in fact, embraced the Black Lives Matter movement, this was a dramatic shift from their position in the mid-1990s, when they advertised for a live-in nanny for their child, according to someone who applied for the position.
The McCloskeys’ former nanny candidate, who did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation, shared with The American four pages of typed instructions she said the McCloskeys gave her at the time of her interview. (She said she kept it as a memento because she thought it was so outrageous.)
The American reached out to the McCloskeys via their attorney, Albert Watkins. They denied that the document is authentic and described it as “a hit job.”
If black lives mattered to the McCloskeys then, they certainly did not want black lives or culture to matter to their daughter, if the document is authentic.
According to the document, their daughter was allowed no more than one hour of monitored TV time per day – and it was explicitly to include no “black culture,” which appears in a revealing list of forbidden television experiences: “no violence, sex, drugs, rap music, black culture, MTV or talk shows.”
Their daughter also was forbidden to use “modern slang like ‘cool,’ ‘radical,’ ‘awesome’” or to exchange high-fives, according to the document. “She should learn alternative words and learn how to shake hands instead,” the document states.
Given that the McCloskeys’ defense of their mansion in an exclusive private neighborhood in the heart of St. Louis has gone viral as a meme of unhinged defense of white privilege, the instructions to where their daughter is allowed to travel is interesting, according to the document. It’s delivered all in capital letters for emphasis: “REMEMBER DON’T GO NORTH OR EAST OF THE HOUSE AS IT CAN BE DANGEROUS EVEN DURING THE DAY. EUCLID DURING THE DAY IS OKAY, HOWEVER.”
Portland Place, where the McCloskeys live, is seven blocks south of Delmar Boulevard, the notorious Delmar Divide between white south and black north St. Louis. It also is just inside the City of St. Louis limits, two miles east of the whiter St. Louis County. The McCloskeys were telling their nanny to keep their daughter away from the blacker areas of the city, according to the document. Euclid Avenue, however, which is one block east, is “okay,” presumably because it is lined with restaurants and shops.
Most telling, though, is the statement of “PERSONAL VALUES” with which the job description ends. “We think it is important that [our daughter] learn the value of traditional western, Christian, white, heterosexual, family oriented lifestyle,” the document states. “We are opposed to ‘cultural diversity’ or alternative lifestyle propaganda and would like [our daughter] to accept as normal and proper traditional American family values.”
Again, the McCloskeys deny that they are responsible for writing this document. The American also left a message at a number for their daughter, whose name was redacted to respect her privacy, and will report her response when received.
