Residents Urge Change at Forum

By Patrick Mcardle
THE RUTLAND HERALD
At a meeting attended by FBI agents, the U.S. attorney for Vermont, the acting state’s attorney for Rutland County, former members of the board of aldermen and leaders of the Rutland Area NAACP, area residents said they still have concerns about the presence of racial injustice in Vermont, in general, and the Rutland area in particular.

Tabitha Moore, former president of the local NAACP, spoke about a murder case in which a white woman was charged with a hate crime after being accused of the shooting death of a Black man on June 11 in Rutland and the controversy about the Rutland Raiders name in the Rutland City Schools.

“So, when you look at the Rutland region and you wonder why people don’t speak up. … Me and my family were harassed out of here. Lisa Ryan was harassed out of her position. We have the Rutland Raiders issue. We have people being murdered as a hate crime. People aren’t showing up because they see what’s happening,” she said.

Ryan, who had been a member of the Rutland City Board of Alderman, attended the meeting.

There were about 40 people at the meeting, described as a Hate-Free Vermont Forum, co-hosted by the NAACP, the attorney general’s office and the U.S. attorney’s office. The meeting started with introductions of the attendees, most of whom were from one of the hosting agencies or from organizations such as Rutland Regional Medical Center (RRMC).

The forum took place at the CVPS-Leahy Community Health Education Center, which is on the campus of RRMC.

Louis Scott, of Chittenden, asked why almost everyone there was from an agency that had a stake in inclusion issues, including Xusana Davis, executive director for the State of Vermont’s Office of Racial Equity, and Bor Yang, executive director of the Human Rights Commission.

Moore added that some of the representatives had explained that some of the concerns people had could not be handled by their office or their agents. She pointed out there had been a suggestion by Scott that the staff at the agencies look at “transformative” changes to meet the needs in Vermont.

“It goes back to what (Scott) said about being transformative, coming out of your silo to help the people who are literally dying in this community because they need it and there’s no one else coming to save anyone in this community. … When the people who are sworn to protect, the people who are voted in to try to protect the community, can’t even see that Raiders is racist, what hope does a mother have when her kid is called the N-word in school,” she said.

Shawn Pratt, a member of the Vermont Criminal Justice Training Council who has organized panels for the Rutland Area NAACP, said Vermont law-enforcement officers are not doing enough.

“When you go to law enforcement and you tell law enforcement what’s going on, they don’t do anything. Most of the time, they don’t believe me,” he said.

Pratt referred to an incident last year, in which police said Keith D. Gaston had jumped into the Winooski River. Pratt said he believed “if it was anybody else of some importance,” the body would have been recovered.

“You have people right now, they’re waiting for this kid’s body, and they’re afraid to talk to you guys, man. They can’t have a funeral for their loved one. You know what I’m saying? That’s real,” he said.

Pratt said there have been other crimes with Black victims with what he said he believes is insufficient response.

“So, what happens when these Black men go and get their weapons to be able to protect themselves. You’re going to be there to arrest them, right? And with all the things that happen in this country with Black men and with how drugs was pimped on them, right? They still follow us the way that they follow us. Well, why don’t you follow the white supremacists that way? You know that they’re out there. Why don’t they get followed? Why don’t they get the harassment that Black men get or Black people? So, this is serious, y’all, because it’s about to turn into a war,” he said.

Pratt said he knows a man whose car was vandalized with spray paint, who started carrying a gun. “I got to convince him, ‘Put that away.’ What you want me to do? You (law-enforcement officer) got to start doing something, and that’s it,” he said.

Moore said people like Pratt, who she described as “intermediaries trying to keep the peace,” are strained because the agencies that are supposed to be in place to help them can move slowly or don’t have the tools to respond.

Mia Schultz, president of the Rutland Area NAACP, said she has seen the negative effect of delayed action on racial justice issues.

“I actually preface almost every conversation (with) ‘I hope you are not going to get your hopes up really high. We’re going to try to work at it, but I cannot guarantee anything. We’re just going to do what we can.’ And halfway through a process, they’re defeated, deflated, they don’t want to keep going,” she said.

Schultz said she saw these responses more in responses to discrimination complaints than incidents that had been charged as hate crimes. One of the discussions at the forum pointed to the difference between bias complaints, that were often treated as civil complaints, and hate crimes, which were required to have an element of criminal behavior.

The forum on Thursday was scheduled to follow up on fora programs from 2019. Other fora expected to be scheduled throughout Vermont and several of the representatives of agencies like the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Vermont Attorney General’s Office said they hope to use the information that will be collected to make improvements.

Moore asked Etan Nasreddin-Longo, her co-facilitator, to offer a hopeful thought for ending the forum.

“I want to remind us all that as hard as it is to continue doing this, and I know that it is, it really feels like sometimes you have the memory of 400 years even though you’ve been alive for 30. I want to remind us that during the AIDS epidemic, one of the things that ACT-UP said constantly was ‘Silence equals death.’ Those of you who were around in the ’80s will remember that. And the reason we said that and said it over and over again was that we had to remind ourselves that even though this was hard and soul-crushing, we had to continue to be noisy and we had to continue to speak out. So, what I’d like to do is encourage you and thank you for being noisy this evening,” he said.

patrick.mcardle @rutlandherald.com