BARRE — The Black Lives Matter flag is now flying at City Hall Park — but a flag that’s often used as a retort to racial justice activism will soon take its place.
Following a contentious back-and-forth over the city’s flag policy, Barre will raise the pro-police “thin blue line” flag in January after flying the Black Lives Matter flag for a month. Those who pushed for the city to show its support for the racial justice movement worry that flying both flags sends a mixed message.
“I support our police force — we have a wonderful police force in Barre — but this is a gesture to show that we’re talking about implicit bias and racism,” Councilor Ericka Reil said of the BLM flag.
At 9 a.m. on Tuesday, city employees attached the Black Lives Matter flag below the Barre City flag, raising it above the city’s main intersection. A group of spectators, some holding signs bearing the first names of Black people killed by police, gathered to watch.
“I’m overwhelmed with emotion,” Riel said afterward. “It took like two minutes for it to go up, and I almost started crying because it took so long for this to happen.”
Reil began pushing for the city to fly a Black Lives Matter flag six months ago, after the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. The council finally discussed the details of the flag-raising on Nov. 17 — alongside a separate proposal to fly a pro-police “Back the Blue” flag.
At the same meeting, Councilor John Steinman proposed another plan: to fly both flags, plus 20 others, for a month each until October 2022. Steinman’s resolution passed — but because it was proposed at the last minute, the council took it up again on Nov. 24, scaling it back to the initial two flags.
Councilor Teddy Waszazak supported the Black Lives Matter resolution but voted against the plan to fly both flags. “The thin blue line is not about the Barre City Police Department,” he said after Tuesday’s flag-raising. “It’s not about anything other than directly responding to this flag.”
Waszazak said he supported the notion of defending good police officers. “It’s not that that is an incorrect statement,” he said. “But I think much like ‘all lives matter,’ it’s a correct statement that misses the point of the conversation.”
The thin blue line flag, initially intended to show solidarity for law enforcement, has been flown by white supremacists and was used prominently at Donald Trump’s campaign rallies this fall. A group of pro-Trump demonstrators who gathered in Barre every Friday in recent months flew one alongside Confederate flags and a “white lives matter” sign, Waszazak said.
Reil said those rallies were a reminder of the racism that exists in the area. When many residents and visitors see those symbols, she said, “people are afraid.”
Ellen Kaye, a member of the city’s Diversity and Equity Committee, said she had interviewed people of color in the area to prepare for a presentation on Reil’s initial proposal. She said that, when asked why the city should fly a BLM flag, “every single person, to a person, said, ‘I would feel safer.’”
Eliza Cain, a spectator, said she was glad to see the Black Lives Matter flag go up, but had mixed feelings about how it happened.
“I worry when compromise like this happens; it dilutes the whole intention behind it,” she said. “But I’m grateful that there’s some compromise. I think if nothing else, our opposing sides need to be working together nowadays.”
