I am a member of the Board of Our Community Cares Camp, a non-profit service organization that supports children in our school district with a free camp experience, both in person at Camels Hump Middle School and in virtual sessions. OCCC Board Members want to develop a process for examining our work for systemic inequity and we want to inform our community that we think this is important and are working on it.
We are seeking examples of ways to express this. One example that Jana Brown found (also a member of the OCCC Board and this discussion group) is from Building Bright Futures, which created a two page document (a statement and a graphic of Four Levels of Change) to explain its interest and intention. I’m putting the document in our “Files” collection and the first statement it makes below. I am requesting your feedback: how does this sound to you? Is it missing anything? Do you have other examples? If so, please post to the Files location of this website.
Here’s the starting statement:
“Racism is a public health crisis. As an organization, Building Bright Futures is committed to supporting the well-being and development of each and every young child and family in Vermont. As an early childhood community, we must collectively address systemic injustice and strive to do better for our youngest and most vulnerable children and families. We are committed to listening, learning, elevating inequities and taking action to dismantle racism in our organization and in Vermont’s early childhood system.”
This is a data rich resource for our discussions about priorities, public safety, community health, and the ways in which budgets serve as moral documents. The authors of this study and project explain:
“If ‘money talks,’ then budgets tell a story about a community’s investment priorities. At a time of renewed interest in budget priorities, there is a need for a holistic approach that moves beyond a myopic focus on policing. Law enforcement functions as the primary, but not the only gateway into an expansive system of punishment and control that includes prosecutors, courts, jails/prisons, community supervision, and other elements.
The Carceral Resource Index (CRI) is designed to measure a government’s fiscal commitment to carceral systems. This statistical coefficient contrasts investments in systems of punishment and control relative to spending on health and supportive services that prevent criminal justice involvement. As inputs, CRI captures government budgetary outlays in three categories: 1. Carceral (police, courts, prosecutors, corrections, community supervision); 2. Health (health and human services, public health, parks and recreation); and 3. Social Support (housing assistance, employment assistance, civic and community engagement, arts and culture). Actual composition of budget outlays in each CRI category will vary by local government design. Expenditures that do not fall squarely into these three categories are excluded.”
My name is Jay Furr and I’m a resident of Richmond, Vermont. I’ve lived here since 2002 and in Vermont since 1998. But prior to that, I was as Southern as one could be; my mother descended from generations of dirt-poor central Floridians and my father’s folks had been in the Piedmont of North Carolina since the mid-1700s. I grew up in the hills of Virginia, received my undergraduate degree at the University of Georgia, and lived for years in Durham, North Carolina. My hometown in Virginia was a college town and we didn’t have housing projects, disadvantaged neighborhoods, or any of the normally visible signs of institutionalized racism. However, when I attended the University of Georgia (1985 through 1988) it was another story entirely.
Athens, Georgia in the mid-1980s had plenty of signs of racism; housing projects that had definitely seen better days, “good” elementary schools and “bad” elementary schools, high unemployment among minorities. But that said, it was considered a progressive town — “Not as bad” as the truly scary places elsewhere in Georgia.
One such place was Forsyth County, Georgia. Just north of Atlanta on the edge of the Atlanta metro area, the county of approximately 38,000 citizens had zero (0) persons of color living there. It was a classic “sundown” county. If you were Black, you could not buy property there; if you were Black and found within county limits after dark you could expect at a minimum a very hard time from local police if not actual assault, battery, and contrived charges and imprisonment. The county had once had over a thousand Black residents, but in 1912, local whites rose up and destroyed Black homes and businesses, lynched Black residents, and drove the survivors out of the county entirely. You can listen to an NPR story (from Terry Gross and “Fresh Air”) on the 1912 “cleansing” here. From 1912 onwards, Forsyth County was 0% Black.
So: in 1987 a white resident named Charles Blackburn, who had moved to the area from San Francisco, decided that there should be a “Brotherhood March” in Forsyth County. After threats and attacks, Blackburn had to withdraw from the event. However, the march (dubbed the “March Against Fear and Intimidation”) took place anyway, on January 17, 1987, led by Atlanta city council member (and famous civil rights activist) Hosea Williams. 75 to 90 marchers showed up and found themselves confronted by an angry, rock-throwing mob of over 500 Ku Klux Klansmen. The police escort assigned to protect the marchers were vastly outnumbered by the counterprotestors, and the Klansmen surged through and attacked the marchers. Eight of the most violent Klansmen were arrested; all but one were local residents.
The violence and hate, captured in photographs and news footage, sickened and alarmed people across the state and across the country. The bad publicity caused Mead Corporation to cancel plans to build a 5,000-employee plant in the county. As a result, the local chamber of commerce took out full-page ads in newspapers proclaiming that the attacks and counterprotestors did not “represent Forsyth County”.
So: a second march took place in Forsyth one week later. This time around there weren’t 75 to 90 protestors. There were twenty thousand. And there were two thousand Klansmen and other angry whites waving Confederate flags and waving hate-filled signs and banners. On top of that there were seventeen hundred National Guardsmen and five hundred law enforcement officials. There were also over a hundred local church leaders (and bear in mind — these would all have been white churches) and miscellaneous county officials there to greet the marchers, to say nothing of both of Georgia’s United States Senators (Sam Nunn and Wyche Fowler). And, as it happened, also present were a bunch of my friends from the University of Georgia. I had to work that morning or I’d have been there too. I still wish I’d called in sick and gone to the march; those who attended said it was an unforgettable experience.
The two marches in Forsyth were a wake-up call for the county, state, and nation — serving both as a notice that violent, institutionalized racism was very much a thing even in the 1980s and that good people were prepared to turn out in large numbers to challenge it.
Did things change drastically overnight? Obviously not. Even today, only 2.6% of the county’s 244,000 residents are Black; the county is still over 85% white.
This seems like only yesterday to me; 37 years ago is a lifetime for some people. But nonetheless: those who think racial problems have all been solved (and that we should just shut up and stop making waves) would do well to recall how recently things were very, very different.
I responded to Cody’s email about a PD interview occurring today by emailing our Town Manager, Josh Arneson. He had more details which I am copying below:
“Connie,
Thank you for your email. Today I am interviewing a candidate for an officer position, not the Chief position. We have been trying to include one community member in interviews for officer positions. After Cody told me he could not attend I reached out to another community member so I am all set for today’s interview.
We will begin the process of hiring a Chief shortly. There will be a committee which will include members of the public and there will also be a community forum where members of the public can ask questions of the two finalists. I will have more information coming soon on how to get involved in that process.
Josh Arneson”
I told him I would post his message to the group, to which he responded: “Thanks Connie. Once we proceed further with assembling the hiring committee for the Chief I will reach out to the public in general and also the racial equity group.”
So watch for more soon; Cody is our contact person with Josh.
The following are organizations run by Black Vermonters, Vermonters of Color, and white allies who have been working for years on racial justice work. I think it would be great for our group to support them. Most of these organizations use Facebook, twitter and Instagram to alert the public to their work and events. I suggest you follow them on social media to get the most up-to-date information! If you don’t have social media, I suggest creating a FB profile at least. Also-many of these groups operate mostly out of, and hold rallies in, Burlington and Montpelier. Making it to rallies is difficult and dangerous for many these days, so if you can’t make it to one, there are plenty of other ways to help out. Those include donating money or supplies to the organizing group, and watching videos of the protest as it is happening or afterward and discussing it with your friends.
There has been clear silence from this group around donating money to these groups, individually and as a community, but I think we all should still check them out and attend their teach-ins, panels, protests, etc. etc. I can keep us up-to-date on here about happenings around Chittenden county as well.
I will make this into a working document at some point so that it can be added to, but this is just a start.
Justice for All VT (“pursues racial justice within Vermont’s criminal justice system through advocacy, education, and relationship-building”): https://www.facebook.com/justiceforallvt
The Black Perspective VT- Organize rallies among other things (“We are a Vermont based nonprofit, non-official organization that are educating and showing the black perspective of life. We of the black perspective take under our wings any minorities of every color and background and support them. Our team is built up of diverse professionals willing to spread the awareness of injustice. Our goal is to build a world that is fair for everyone.”) To Donate: Venmo: theblackperspectivevt Cash app: $tbpvt Learn More: https://www.facebook.com/theblackperspectivevt
White Allyship groups:
Showing up for Racial Justice – I suggest you all join our local SURJ chapters!
SURJ is a national network of groups and individuals organizing White people for racial
justice. Through community organizing, mobilizing, and education, SURJ moves White people to act as part of a multi-racial majority for justice with passion and accountability. We work to connect people across the country while supporting and collaborating with local and national racial justice organizing efforts. SURJ provides a space to build relationships, skills and political analysis to act for change. Burlington –https://www.facebook.com/groups/SURJBTV – Middlebury- https://www.facebook.com/groups/1822439584656638
BTV CopWatch – Something white people can do to hold police accountable is to film cops if they are engaging in excessively violent or racist behavior. In partnership with Black Lives Matter of Greater Burlington and Food Not Bombs Burlington. BTV CopWatch is explicitly dedicated to police abolition. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BTVCopWatch
Affiliated Racial Justice groups:
Vermont Coalition for Ethnic & Social Equity in Schools- (Vermonters and residents of Vermont, who firmly believe that diverse ethnic and social groups need to be accurately represented in schools) Facebook page
Vermont Poor People’s Campaign- (A National Call for Moral Revival is uniting people across Vermont to challenge the evils of systemic racism, poverty, the war economy, ecological devastation and the nation’s distorted morality of religious nationalism)Website: https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/committee/vermont/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VTPPC
Peace and Justice Center (The purpose of the PJC is to work on the interconnected issues of peace; human rights; and economic, social, and racial justice. The PJC is committed to raising awareness of these issues, redressing the harms of generational oppression, and equipping people with tools to lead viable social change movements that include and empower all people.) Website: https://www.pjcvt.org/
Community Voices for Immigrant Rights (Community Voices for Immigrant Rights is a grassroots community organization based in Burlington, VT working to fight for immigrant rights in support of and collaboration with immigrant-led group)- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CVIRBurlington
If you are having trouble with making a FB page, finding the right information or getting to a virtual or in-person event, please let me know and I can help you out!
Richmond’s July 4th celebrations were called off for 2020 due to Covid-19, but members of our group felt that it would be a shame not to do some sort of organized event that day. Patty Brushett, Jeff Forward, Bonny Steuer, and Chris Granda organized a “Black Lives Matter” sign-making party at the Richmond bandshell with signs, paint, stencils, and other supplies for responsibly socially-distanced participants to come use. We even had musical entertainment!
Welcome to the newly-created Richmond Racial Equity site. This site was created in response to member requests to have more of a comment-board-based discussion system rather than having everything go to your email.
In order to create posts or take part in the forums you will need to create a login — you can do that at https://richmondracialequity.org/index.php/account/register/. Once you have registered an admin will have to approve your registration — this is to keep trolls and spammers from making accounts. In most cases approval should take only an hour or two, and hopefully will be less.
As a member of the site, you have three options for sharing your thoughts and views:
Create actual posts (like this one) which will be visible to the public, even if they don’t have logins. To add a post, click “Add a post” in the main menu at the top of the page, or click +New in the WordPress toolbar across the very top of the window. Compose your post, then click “Publish” in the upper right hand corner of your screen. If you want to add a picture or other media, click “Add Media” and upload it before inserting it into your post.
Create private posts — like this one, only marked “private”, which cannot be seen by people who are not logged in. To add a private post, follow the instructions for adding a post immediately above, but make sure to set the visibility to “Private” before clicking “Publish”.
Take part in the forums — which are not visible at all to non-registered, non-logged-in users. To access the forums, simply click “Forums” in the main page menu at the top of the screen.
In addition to sharing your thoughts, you can:
Schedule meetings using the “Events and Meetings” link. Only logged-in users can create new meetings.
Upload or view files using “File List”. Only logged-in users can access the files.
