This is stunning.
Souperman,
Stunning in what way ? Are you really surprised that over thirty years ago there was still overt racism ?
Are the Buichs’ Jewish? One of my friends from about 10 y.o. was disowned and never had contact with her father again, as his only child, because she married a non Jew, who was Irish. This was/is a very common attitude, especially among devout and orthodox Jews having to do with worries about dwindling numbers of Jews due to intermarriage.
Of course, they could just be racists plain and simple.
Gene Upshaw was a really strong, intelligent, focused and articulate advocate. Any family would be lucky to have him join them.
I’m 74 years old and I certainly know what attitudes existed 32 years ago (15 years after the Civil Rights act, FWIW). Disowning the daughter for such a reason would have been seen as an ugly act by most San Franciscans in the early 80s when it occurred, and it’s made even more ugly by the fact that the Buichs never got past it and reconciled with their daughter.
I meant stunning in the impact it will have on the reputation of a beloved institution. I, for one, will certainly never spend another dollar at Tadich there as long as the Buichs still own it.
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Shunning a child is heinous, I agree.
See this is what I find very troubling about stories like this one. Nowhere in the article does she flat out say or claim that race is the her family banished her. Let’s take a look at a few facts here, the only place in the article that she claims race was the problem is here:
“When she told her father that she had decided to follow the black man she loved to Washington, she says, “he told me that’s it — you’re out of the family. Change your last name, and don’t ever call us again.””
Please notice it is HER that is injecting race into the sentence there, the quote from her father is not; " You and your black lover are out of the family"…there is NOTHING attributing race was the reason for his reaction besides her claiming it is.
As Stone Soup indicated, maybe it was marrying outside of religion that was the source of scorn. Or maybe…just maybe it was the face Gene Upshaw was already married to another woman at this time!!! Ohhhhh wait!!! She didn’t go on the record to say she was involved with a man who was already married to another woman at the time?? Hmmmmm interesting thing to over look isn’t it?
Now can we all admit there is an equal chance of parents being upset that their 20 something year old daughter would be running away with a married man, as it is an equal chance it has to do with race? Could it be that the reason the parents aren’t returning calls is because they didn’t want to say their thought their precious little girl was a home wrecker? I don’t know any of these people, nor do I know the facts of what happened, but I know I live in a glass house and I try not to throw stones without knowing what exactly I’m aiming for.
Everyone wants to assume the absolute worst about everyone else, without drawing a complete or fully informed decision. “Oh he was a black man” they are racist!! Even though the daughter herself, in her own words, never actually says the parents say that. She even admits herself. she doesn’t remember all the facts; " She thinks her mother and siblings were crying, but it has been so long", she can’t remember the material facts of if they were crying, but she can remember without stating it, their outrage was race based.
Here is the full story from the Washington Press:
Here is a quick Google Search on Gene Upshaw:
https://www.google.com/#q=Gene+Upshaw
Let me copy paste this section from his personal section:
Spouse: Teresa Buich (m. 1986–2008), Jimmye Hill (m. 1967–1986)
In the article you will see the story she is reciting took place in 1983, that would be 3 years PRIOR to his divorce from his first wife.
But let’s just go with it was strictly racial on her parents behalf.
Kind of surprising this story has been out 4 days, yet no ex-employees, customers or business associates have come out to jump on the racist bandwagon…
Just my $ .02
I don’t know that my conclusions are correct, but I do hope they are.
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I think you are reaching.
Since the family refuses to comment, I can only take Teresa at her word.
Souperman, why am I reaching when I provided evidence the man was married when she ran away with him, a far more egregious offense than being black. Silence is indicative of guilt? I’m just curious why you or anyone would just jump to assume one persons word is absolute, without any other corroborating proof or evidence?
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Thanks for that research. It seems that lots of people are jumping to conclusions these days without having sufficient information to form an “informed” opinion.
Myself included
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Actually doing some additional research on this (clicking to page two of Google) found this article:
I think this is the statement from the father you were asking for;
“This has never been a matter of race, but rather the sanctity of marriage and personal judgment of character. Simply because a dispute involves people of different races does not mean that the dispute is racial in nature.”
That seems pretty clear to me.
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I promise I’ll stop reaching after this one. Here is an interesting article about the poor victim of her families scorn Terri, on how she was involved in falsifying Gene’s deathbed will, to exclude the son of the first marriage. She seems to have been involved in several area’s of fraud, but only decided to settle the law suit once the two “witnesses” to the will recanted their story and admitted Gene never signed the will that Terri tried to file.
This obviously has nothing to do with the race issue, but it does speak volumes to me about the quality of her character. You can continue to take her word(s) at face value though.
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Wow, and a lot about Upshaw’s character wrt what he took from the player’s union… Had no idea.
Hi, NotJr:
Your alternate theory that the Buich’s daughter was shunned by her family for committing adultery, while marginally plausible, is rendered highly implausible given the fact that Gene Upshaw divorced his then-wife, and then married their daughter. The WaPo article suggests the Buich family is Christian, but the lack of forgiveness (not to mention literally punishing sons for the sins of their father) is beyond the Christian pale. Even if your stretch is what actually happened, shame on the Buich family.
IMO, there really is no plausible explanation for her banishment other than racism. The more interesting question to me is where money fits into the story.
Aloha,
Kaleo
Kaleokahu,
I’ll assume you didn’t go through all the posts (I know I made several) but here is a quick google search that shows he divorced his first wife in 1986, the same year he married Terri. BUT (there’s always a but) Terri says the conversation and subsequent banishing by her family took place in 1983, when she told her family she was leaving with Gene. That would be 3 years prior to his divorce.
Unless you have information other than this, this is what I have found on google.
Hey, NotJr:
The sfgate article actually answers your question upthread: The daughter has plainly said it was only over race. That doesn’t make it true, but the media haven’t taken this in a different, unintended direction.
While true on its face, everyone needs to accept that this canard has been a safe hiding place for racists. This superficial truth is zero help in deciding whether any individual or act is racist. In fact, the canard is so frequently used by true racists, that it’s a decent indicator of something…
Aloha,
Kaleo
No, I read them all. IMO, whatever upset the family had about their daughter “shacking up” with a married man should have been forgiven when he divorced and they married, making an “honest woman” of her. Frankly my skin crawls at using those terms, but it also points up the real possibility that Daddy Buich is a sexist and a racist.
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No, what you provided was evidence of what year a divorce was finalized. It really says nothing about how the people in that marriage viewed their relationship, or whom left whom, etc.
I think this is only one side of the story, so none of us in a position to know the truth. However, I’m not much impressed by people bringing up unrelated issues and saying because they acted poorly in another circumstance, it makes her story less likely. She could be a creep, and the family who disowned her could still be racists.
Even if they are, it is hardly unique to the Jewish community to oppose interracial marriage to the point of disowning family members. I’ve known of cases in Asian families, Irish families, Italian families – and yep – black families.
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If the divorce was finalized in 1986, then what year were the married until? I’m not claiming they were living in marital bliss until 1986, all I claimed was per google he was married when she told her family she was running away with him in 1983. I’ve made no other claims. kaleoukahu claimed my “theory was plausible” it’s not a theory, he was married at the time.
I’m sure your convincing yourself, but I think the possibilities are really nearly infinite as to what the condition of the marriage was, and whether anybody was “running away with” somebody (rather judgmental language). For some people, unless the guy has finalized divorce papers in his hands, it doesn’t matter if his “wife” moved in with somebody else years before or daily expressed pure hatred for him while refusing to divorce. I don’t take that view. I am certain you have no idea when they separated or what the ex-wife’s attitudes were toward divorce or toward marriage.
I do agree with you that what the WashPost reported is one side of the story. You thought up an alternate version. I can think up an alternate version to yours. With enough time and imagination, we could write 20 different scripts about this and havel all of them be plausible. There there is always the possibility that this all comes down to a family misunderstanding (this family doesn’t sound too great at listening).
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I’m not convincing myself of anything except as you have indicated there could be 20 reasons why this woman and her family have had a falling out, and I don’t see racism as the clear cut reason. That’s all…I could truly care less, except as I’ve stated somewhere, it’s a pet peeve of mine for people to jump on the racist bandwagon without anything more than “he said vs. she said” evidence.
