ST. ALBANS — The racially-charged response by some at a school rally here last month has drawn the attention and a sometimes strong reaction from local educators, community and political leaders, and from the public as well.
An expert on diversity has even tied the racist reaction to a protest at Bellows Free Academy to the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, who is coming to Vermont on Thursday.
In early December, a demonstration at Bellows Free Academy to protest acts of prejudice inside the school turned ugly. Some students mocked, made gestures and veiled threats at the protesters. One member of the community drove by the event waving a Confederate flag.
Since then, Principal Chris Mosca has been dealing with the fallout.
In the days following, Mosca took several “positive” steps to address the situation, according to Curtiss Reed, a diversity expert who met with Mosca. The principal called for greater community engagement and held a schoolwide assembly to talk about racism. Teachers then led students in discussions around race relations and free speech, said Reed. Mosca declined to be interviewed.
Reed, who is with the Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity, said the same conversations need to take place among adults at the school and in the larger St. Albans community.
“Those are not issues that are openly discussed among the adults in the building, and because they’re not dealt with, no one has the skills or the practice when those issues emerge in the classroom among their students,” Reed said.
“The school should not be the fall guy on this,” Reed added. Other institutions in St. Albans and Franklin County need to help make racial equity a priority.
Randy Brock, who is African-American and a former state senator running for lieutenant governor, said it’s more likely that the incident at BFA reflects the attitude of a few bullies hoping to get a rise out of people than a community-wide problem.
The vast majority of Franklin County residents are “exceedingly tolerant” and while some people hold racist views, Brock said he doesn’t believe there needs to be a coordinated response to what happened at BFA.
“Bullies like to get a rise out of people, and when bullies cease to get a reaction, they’re likely to stop,” Brock said. “It’s not necessary to grab every person in Franklin County and put them in a race relations session.”
The Trump effect?
Meanwhile, Reed sees a larger pattern.
“The Trump effect has reached Vermont,” Reed said after his visit to St. Albans.
Reed said he compares the fear-driven response that Trump is using to propel himself in the Republican presidential race with what happened at the BFA demonstration.
Donald Trump has carved out a place for himself atop the Republican presidential field, in part, experts say, by playing to the fears of poor and lower-middle class whites who are economically insecure.
In addition to raising fears about Mexican and Muslim immigrants, Trump also retweeted false crime statistics with racially charged imagery that exaggerated the percentage of whites killed by blacks in the country. Days before, Trump’s supporters attacked a black activist at one of his rallies.
VTDigger’s coverage of the demonstration elicited a strong reaction in the comment section. Many people expressed concern about the apparent racism, while others decried it as political correctness run amuck.
“(Black Lives Matter) is an (sic) anti white racist Soros funded group plain and simple. All lives matter this PC nonsense has gone far enough,” wrote Jason Wells.
“So driving by a rally with a Confederate flag is considered a racist act??? My, how far we have fallen down the PC bunny hole,” wrote Fred Moss.
Trump has also railed against political correctness, calling it a “big problem” for the U.S. during a GOP debate. A Reuters poll from August found 77 percent of Republicans surveyed said Trump most appealed to them because he’s not interested in being politically correct.
Writing for The Nation, commentator Max Berger draws a connection between the ascendence of populist outsider candidates like Trump and academic research showing middle-aged white mortality rates are growing faster than for any other demographic, largely due to substance abuse and suicide.
“The growing proto-fascist, white-supremacist movement in the Republican Party is preying upon non-rich white people who are literally dying of despair,” Berger writes.
Brock said it would be an overreaction to connect a weak economy to a racial backlash in Vermont or the U.S.
“Basically what you’re saying is that white people are so concerned that black people are taking their jobs that they’re having heart attacks,” Brock said, “When you step back and say that, doesn’t it sound like utter nonsense?”
There are people who fear immigrants might take jobs at lower wages, but such “economic nativism” applies to both employed whites and employed blacks, even if it’s a fear that’s ultimately unfounded, Brock said.
Bobby Gratton emailed VTDigger on Dec. 3, the day after the BFA rally, to express his frustration at what he called “boo-hoo poor me shit” that reflects only the opinion of “the ‘poor me’ minority.” Gratton said he is an ex-con and a longtime St. Albans resident.
The facts, according to Gratton, show that the recent arrival of blacks, Asians and Hispanics in Franklin County has corresponded with an increase in crime and specifically drug dealing.
Reed said Gratton’s email reflects a racial undercurrent in Vermont that seeks to blame minorities for social problems. “Folks of color have been in Vermont since the 1600s. We’ve been an ongoing presence here, and this whole idea about draining the economy is a falsehood,” Reed said.
So, too, is the connection to the drug epidemic, he said. National statistics consistently show whites and blacks use drugs at similar rates. In predominantly white Vermont, the demand for drugs is driven by white drug users, Reed said.
The vast majority of people of color in Vermont are law-abiding taxpayers, many of whom own businesses that contribute to the local economy, Reed said. That’s one point where Reed and Brock agree.
Brock said it’s not people of color who live in Vermont, but people of color from New York, Massachusetts and elsewhere who come here to deal drugs that create the perception that minorities are a problem. That’s a nuance that’s hard to communicate to the public, he said.
“If you look at the convictions for narcotics there are a disproportionate amount of black and hispanic people from out-of-state,” Brock said.
“There is concern around incarceration rates, and why that population is so different from Vermont’s population, but what I have not heard is that the people in jail don’t belong there,” Brock added.
Brock acknowledged racial disparities in incarceration rates — state figures show blacks are 1 percent of the population and 11 percent of inmates — but he suggested that if data were available on where Vermont inmates of color resided before their conviction, it would show that most aren’t from Vermont. “I think that deserves some study,” he said.
One way to show white Vermonters that their neighbors of color aren’t the cause of the state’s social problems would be to have more minorities involved in public life, Brock said.
That’s difficult in Vermont because it’s so overwhelmingly white, Brock said, but it’s something that has to happen at the statewide level and at the local level, on select boards, school boards and in the Legislature.
“Those people who are leaders need to step up,” he said.
