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In February 2020, Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger appointed Tyeastia Green as Burlington’s first director of racial equity, inclusion, and belonging. Weinberger hailed her hiring as part of an effort in Vermont’s largest city to begin “breaking down the barriers of institutional racism and implicit bias.” Green arrived in Burlington just months before a movement for racial justice took to the streets around the country and Vermont following the killing by police of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Floyd’s murder hit home for Green. She grew up in Minneapolis near where he died.
Green has been deeply involved in discussions about racial disparities in the work of the Burlington Police Department. BPD arrested African Americans nearly four times as often as white people in 2019, and officers disproportionately use force against Black residents. But earlier this month, Weinberger removed Green from overseeing a study to assess the BPD, replacing her with a white man who he said would “be seen as neutral.”
Sen. Kesha Ram slammed Weinberger for “questioning the neutrality of his only Black department head … because of her lived experience.” Ram wrote, “It is insulting to Green and to our community, and it can only leave us to presume that the decision gives comfort to those who are opposed to systemic change.”
Following a furious backlash, the mayor reversed himself and apologized 24 hours later, conceding, “This decision was wrong and reveals my own bias.”
Reflecting on the last year, Green said, “What surprises me the most is how racist Vermont is … In 2021, Vermont is still the second whitest state in the union. That’s not by accident. … Why are people over the decades not staying? There’s a reason there. And we have to deal with that.”
