BURLINGTON — Under a Black Lives Matter flag flying on the City Hall flagpole, speakers denounced racism and police violence against Black people at a small demonstration on Church Street Friday afternoon.
“We stand here today in solidarity with each other,” said the organizer of the protest, and local racial justice advocate, Patrick Brown. “I am here as a voice for the voiceless. I am here as a voice for the marginalized and those who have been left out of the equation.”
In recent weeks, Vermonters across the state have been protesting against police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s death. Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer who knelt on his neck for over 8 minutes.
In late May, more than 1,000 people gathered to protest in Burlington, during which some participants confronted the city police department’s leadership. In the weeks since, many community members have pushed for police reforms in the city and cuts to the department’s budget. While Friday’s protest was both smaller and less confrontational than previous events, speakers issued urgent calls for action.
Brown recalled to the crowd of about 100 people atop the stairs at Burlington City Hall that in 1991 he protested the police beating of Rodney King, a Black man from Los Angeles, which sparked anger and protests across the country.
“Today in 2020, I am back here again asking for change, asking for solidarity, asking for racial justice,” Brown said.
“Each time there is an atrocity it leads to a study, it leads to a workgroup,” he said. “Today the state of Vermont is putting a workgroup together. The city of Burlington is putting a workgroup together. Where is this all going?”
Brown said in an interview with VTDigger that he doesn’t think Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger’s plan to reallocate some funding from the city’s police department is organized enough or provides enough details about how the money will be used and how it will serve racial justice needs. “I don’t see any plan,” he said.
Weinberger has proposed a 10% budget cut to the Burlington Police Department which would amount to a $1.9 million reduction.
Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vermont, also spoke at the demonstration. He decried what had happened to Floyd and referenced other situations where Black people were unfairly persecuted, from Christian Cooper, the Central Park birdwatcher who a white woman reported to police in May, to Emmett Till who was murdered in the 1950s after he was falsely accused of flirting with a white woman.
“This is not just the case of a bad officer,” Welch said, referring to Floyd’s killer. “This is a situation of a very bad culture.”
Welch said in an interview he supports reallocating funding from police departments to support mental health and other community services so that too many responsibilities don’t fall to police.
He said he didn’t know enough about the Burlington reallocation proposal to specifically support it, but he supports the intention behind it.
The Rev. Arnold Isidore Thomas also spoke at the protest. He reminded attendees that as Independence Day approaches, the day does not mark a celebration of freedom for all United States citizens. When the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, the majority of them owned slaves, Thomas said.
“When they talk about ‘All men be created equal,’ they were specifically referring to white men,” Thomas said. “It is in fact long overdue when a system of government established by a slave-holding plutocracy must die so that true democracy can live.”
Rather than rely on a flawed and hypocritical portion of the Constitution, Thomas said citizens need to engage with the portion that gives people the right to dismantle unjust government institutions.
“We must dismantle a system of law enforcement and criminal justice — from the local police department all the way up to the Supreme Court — that was established to protect and empower the wealthy against the rest of us,” Thomas said.
“That time has come.”
