Yesterday, the Vermont Advisory Committee to the US Civil Rights Commission issued a progress report on racial harassment in the state's public schools. They held a press conference in Montpelier, the state capital.
While I don't live in Vermont, I've always wondered what it would've been like growing up there. (I was born there.)
A couple weekends ago, I visited the annual Apple Festival in Springfield, Vt. and noticed a few non-whites.
As reported in the Burlington Free Press, advisory committee's chair, Eric Sakai said, "...racial harassment in Vermont schools continues today."
Meanwhile, one of the committee members disagreed with the report's conclusion. Charles Johnson (safe school coordinator for the Vt. Dept of Education, who visits many schools across the state) said, "I don't sense there is pervasive racial harassment in Vermont schools."
State legislature Representative Virginia Duffy (R-Rutland) attended the press conference and agreed with this view, "I don't believe our public schools are a hotbed of racism."
She called the report divisive, "...particularly a section that defined racism in terms of acts and beliefs that 'the dominant white race has used to subordinate other races in America.' Duffy said, 'That is frankly outrageous.'"
I don't have time, right now, to go further into the debate at the press conference. Maybe later...
In the meantime, I feel motivated to check out the art exhibit at UMBC,
"White: Whiteness and Race in Contemporary Art."
And before I forget, here's the URL to get to the report:
http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/pubsndx.htm
(The report is first on the list.)
Posted by raacluse at October 31, 2003 01:18 PM