Editor’s note: This commentary is by Ken Fredette, of Wallingford, who served on Wallingford, Rutland South and Mill River school boards for 20 years including a term as president of the Vermont School Boards Association.
It was just a few days over four years ago that Colin Kaepernick began kneeling during the playing of our national anthem at professional football games. I was still a member of the “All lives matter” crowd – and all lives do matter, of course – but I didn’t get that black lives did not matter as much as white lives in some people’s eyes until others, primarily my three adult children, educated me. I also didn’t know the story of how former Green Beret combat veteran Nate Boyer had approached Kaepernick about his apparent disrespect to our flag and country by sitting on the bench during “The Star Spangled Banner,” and ended up convincing him to kneel instead. Boyer stood beside him, hand over his heart, the first time Kaepernick knelt.
A little over three and a half years ago, the South Burlington High School Board voted unanimously to retire the school mascot name “Rebels” because of the racist connotations. An effort by a vocal group of citizens to overrule the board started with a petition and ended with a ruling by the Vermont Supreme Court. The court ruled correctly that there is nothing in applicable Vermont Statutes or the Vermont Constitution to allow for citizens to usurp the authority of a duly elected body, whether it be a school board, selectboard, city council, or the general assembly. That’s not how a representative government works.
A little over two and a half years ago, Montpelier High School was among the first schools in the country to raise the Black Lives Matter flag. At the time I wondered if it might open them up to a flood of groups wanting to raise their own flags, but my long years as a school board member had taught me what that board also knew: Do not let fear of possible backlash keep you from doing the right thing. Take a stand, and stand tall, because you will never, ever please everybody.
About the same time Montpelier High School had decided to raise the BLM flag, the Mill River School Board had formed a committee to examine matters of equity. On June 17 of this year the board voted to display prominently a message of equality and inclusiveness through raising the Black Lives Matter and Pride flags. This decision was made after months of committee discussions — including conversations on flags — and reporting out to the full board, and was not a spur of the moment decision because a student requested it that night, as some would have you believe. Still, it came as no surprise that there were some citizens who objected to this decision. Others applauded it. But the fact remains it was a board decision. Representative democracy: Petitions and public comments are a healthy part of it, but to make threats such as voting down a school budget – as has now been done in this case – because you disagree with a board decision is not OK. This is what can happen when people divert their focus from doing good work to adult ideologies – kids get caught in the crossfire. Sadly, I have seen this too many times over the years.
The basic concept to take away from all of this is: If you don’t like how you’re being represented; if you feel the people who were duly elected by the majority to do that job suddenly became out of touch after they were voted in; if you feel they just won’t listen (and there is a big difference between not agreeing and not listening), the answer isn’t to mount efforts to overrule their decisions … the answer is to vote them out at the next election. Better still, run for office yourself. But be forewarned, you might see the view from the table is quite a bit different than the view from your armchair. I know that members of the Mill River Board did not take the decision to make such a strong statement lightly. Kids need to know they are welcome in school; they need to know they’re safe there. All kids.
When I was doing some soul-searching I ran across a quote from Ijeoma Oluo that gave me a better understanding:
“The beauty of anti-racism is that you don’t have to pretend to be free of racism to be anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. And it’s the only way forward.”
Mill River has joined other schools in Vermont and across the country in taking a stand on the front line because it is just not good enough to not be racist – we must rail against racism and all forms of bias at every opportunity, because it truly is the only way forward to a world we will be proud to have left for future generations.
Addendum: After having written all of the above, I learned this morning, Labor Day, that Tabitha Moore and her family, one daughter being the Mill River student who approached the board to ask them to raise the BLM flag, have been so harassed they no longer feel safe in Wallingford, after having lived here 11 years. A sixth-generation Vermonter, raised in the area, was told she “doesn’t belong here.” It’s a cause for shame.
Clearly, there is much work to be done.
