The split decision by the Windsor Selectboard to end ongoing conversations on the renaming of Jacob Street leaves my longtime hometown in need of a sober reckoning on our identity and future (“Windsor street keeps slaveholder’s name,” Dec. 2).
We will have to grapple with our vocal pride in being the “Birthplace of Vermont,” the first constitutional republic in North America to outlaw slavery, and our simultaneous unwillingness to remove a memorial to Judge Stephen Jacob, a historical slaveholder who refused to abide by those same laws that he was charged with upholding.
We will have to reflect that opponents of the name change frequently cited the specific need to honor Dinah, the woman who was enslaved by Judge Jacob, but were barely able to acknowledge that Black, Indigenous and other people of color are very much members of our community in 2020 and will still have to look at a memorial to a slaveholder every time they pass by Jacob Street.
We will have to live with the fact that in Paul Belaski, we have a board member whose approach to these conversations was consistently cavalier, and whose dubious contributions culminated in a series of factless historical revisions floated as questions about Dinah’s enslavement during the Oct. 27 board meeting. While Dinah was in no way “saved” when she was purchased as property, nor would an intimate relationship with Judge Jacob have conceivably made her enslavement acceptable, Belaski was comfortable making these insinuations in public view and without a hint of irony. We will have to contend with the fact that many of our neighbors who watched this performance responded with the same yawning silence that has come to define Northeastern attitudes on accountability and anti-racism.
Windsor’s population has been in decline for most of my life. We continue to struggle with a lack of affordable housing and economic opportunities for our residents. The board had an opportunity to show that we were a welcoming community that was ready to move forward, but opted to make a different impression upon our history.
We will have to be better than this.
DAVIS McGRAW
Windsor
I was born and raised in Nebraska, but left for college, the Peace Corps, teaching. I’ve lived in the Upper Valley for 45 years. Although registered Republicans, my parents taught their children to “vote for the person whose character, values and ethics you want to lead this country.” At times they would change parties and vote a Democratic ticket. My parents died over a decade ago, but they would have been appalled by the politics of the last four to six years and counting.
Democracy only works if we trust our leaders to work as good faith actors on our behalf, not their own. President-elect Joe Biden and others around him have stated they will work together to garner bipartisan consensus. I heartily endorse this stance.
But I do not see a majority of members in the Republican Party willing to do the same. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stated the President Donald Trump has every right to challenge the election outcomes, yet he denied a hearing to President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court appointee. We already know how his hypocrisy played out after Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s recent death. He is not alone. A majority of the GOP have acquiesced to everything Trump promoted, even if their own constituents didn’t agree. And most news outlets have commented on the upcoming Senate race in Georgia. The media accepts as a fait accompli that the GOP will continue to operate as a bloc against any Biden proposal, much like they did in Obama’s last two years of office.
Previous opinion pieces in the Valley News have likened our times to McCarthyism, reminding us it took moral courage to stand up to Republican Sen. Joe McCarthy and his destructive lies and fear-mongering, his cruel destruction of people’s lives, their freedoms.
There is little or no moral courage I can see in the current GOP. It’s hard to trust these Republican leaders who promote personal or party agenda over will of the people, now verified and certified.
Would that they will prove me wrong. But I won’t hold my breath.
MARY M. ERDEI
Hartford
George Washington was not bound by term limits, but chose to step aside at the end of his second term to show his overwhelming commitment to democracy and not to his own power. In his farewell address, he stressed the necessity for national unity and cautioned against the divisiveness of party politics. His address has been cited often in discussions regarding the orderly transition of power as a cornerstone of our democracy.
Donald Trump has not been re-elected president, but the Republican Party did very well in local, state and national elections. Yet many Republican leaders and party members continue to behave as if a national tragedy has occurred and a great fraud was perpetrated against the American people. The truth is that voters across the country have cast their ballots, as is often the case in Vermont, for the person or policies they desire rather than for one particular political party.
The continued support, whether explicit or through silence, of the “Stop the Steal” movement and recent threats aimed at election officials have me wondering if there are some among us who would be glad to see us slide backward in history to a time when fealty to a particular person was the norm and government was not “of the people, by the people, for the people.”
If we do not want to return to a time when political power was obtained and kept by threats, dubious alliances and violence, we would do well to heed Washington’s plea for national unity.
CHRIS BYRNE
Chelsea