Woodstock
Margaret Barry, a professor at Vermont Law School, led a workshop on race and criminal justice during which she drew a direct line of oppression from the cessation of slavery at the end of the Civil War to the Jim Crow era to today, when a war on drugs has resulted in the mass incarceration and court-ordered adult supervision of millions of American adults.
“We’ve focused all the money not on helping people, but on locking them up,” she said. “That we’ve been OK with this hurts us all.”
Barry pointed to statistics she said demonstrated that Vermont is among the worst states in the nation for racially profiling drivers during traffic stops.
“Don’t think what we’re seeing today ever stopped,” she said. “It’s just the lid’s been taken off so we can see.”
Linda Treash, executive director of BarnArts, an arts center in Barnard, said she came away from the session with a new appreciation for the fact that racism is present, not just in far-off locations, but in Vermont.
“White people don’t really get it. We’re shielded from it,” she said. “But it is happening in our state.”
Kendra Coburn and John Gregory Davis, representing the group Showing Up for Racial Justice, led a discussion on “What is White Supremacy Culture,” during which they said that, beneath the more overt forms of racism associated with white supremacist groups, people of color are oppressed by a wide range of more subtle forms of racism that collectively guarantee disparate life chances and outcomes.
They spoke of the differences between concepts such as structural white supremacy, implicit bias, institutional racism and systemic racism. Davis said that simply wearing a “Black Lives Matter” T-shirt has revealed veins of intolerance that were previously invisible to him. “All you have to do is listen,” he said.
In describing the need for more public engagement and discussion, organizers cited local incidents including the 2010 police beating of Hartford resident Wayne Burwell in his own home, and an August incident in Claremont in which a family says their 8-year-old son was the target of a “lynching” by older boys because of his race. Brad Archer, one of the event organizers, called the attack on Burwell “really brutal. … It’s pretty crazy. There’s no accountability.”
Archer and others urged attendees to identify and confront inappropriate behavior.
Sophie Shackleton, who graduated from Woodstock Union High School in 2005, said she recently became active in social justice issues.
Earlier this year, she visited the school’s theater department to question the wisdom of plans to put on a production of The Wiz, a take on The Wizard of Oz that featured an all-black cast.
“I talked to them about cultural appropriation,” she said, noting that her efforts resulted in a pre-performance announcement that acknowledged the issue.
While the symposium ran, Dartmouth College Fellow Nathalie Batraville facilitated a daylong event that was open only to people of color and which was attended by a handful of people. In the days leading up to the event, Archer said that component of the symposium was being offered for several reasons, including that people of color can feel anxiety associated with being asked to serve as an “expert witness” on racism, the need for them to be able to discuss how they’re affected by racism without having to defend themselves, and to have a safe space to help de-escalate situations that could be inadvertently triggered by discussing issues of race.
During the symposium, multiple speakers spoke about the abolitionist John Brown, who will be formally celebrated in Vermont on Monday as part of John Brown Day, a legislative recognition that was prompted by members of the Woodstock Social Justice Initiative.
Attendees also were urged to attend an upcoming event during which Woodstock Police Chief Robbie Blish and Vermont State Police Maj. Ingrid Jones will speak about Vermont’s Fair and Impartial Policing Policy. The meeting will take place on Nov. 14, at 6 p.m., in Woodstock Town Hall.
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.
Corrections
Representatives of the group Showin g Up for Racial Justice led one of the workshops offered at the Anti-Racism Symposium in Woodstock on Saturday. An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the group. Sophie Shackleton has recently become active in social justice issues. An earlier version of this story mischaracterized her period of activism.