Isaac Phillips is an eighth grader who plays on the Lunenburg High School football team in Massachusetts. His mother is white and his father is black, and that was enough for someone to graffiti his home with a racial epithet.
”Knights don’t need n******,” read a message spray-painted across one of the home’s exterior walls.
"I don't really understand why someone would even do something like this," Phillips told WCVB.com. "I have two younger brothers and another sister. This is our house, this is where we live. Eventually they're going to see it."
Phillips’ mother, Andrea Brazier, alerted local police, who alerted the school. WCVB reported the team’s players were given an opportunity to come forward with information about the incident, but none did, and superintendent Loxi Jo Calmes canceled Friday’s football game as a result.
Phillips also found his cleats had been thrown in the trash and the tires on his bike he rides home had been slashed.
"That was like my ride home," he said.
Various police agencies, including the FBI, are investigating.
"As a community we offer our deepest support to the player and his family, and want to emphasize that Lunenburg is an inclusive, supportive community and this is not the sort of behavior we foster or tolerate,” Lunenburg police said in a statement. “The nature of this crime has deeply impacted the team, the school and the entire community.”
