 Welcome viewers to our ongoing program Focus, coming to you from Channel 17 Center for Media and Democracy here in Burlington, Vermont. I'm your host, Margaret Harrington, and I have a wonderful guest here, Lee Terhoun, who is an artist and activist in the city of Burlington, Vermont. And the title of our program today is The Everyone Loves a Parade Mural Ignored by Burlington City Council. And Lee, we can bring viewers up to date on what is going on with the mural resolution. And we both attended a park committee meeting, parks and recreation committee meeting at Contwas Auditorium at City Hall in the past two weeks. And what was your takeaway from that? And I'm going to jump in here now, and my takeaway was that it's time because none of the, no part of the resolution has been honored that it's time for the city council to vote, to take it down and store it away. So, Lee, take it from there and tell me, now what was your impression and takeaway from the resolution? Well, first of all, I couldn't agree with you more that the mural should not have been allowed to remain in that place. And the forming of a mural task force with people selected for that task force to be compliant with the city's desire to keep it up five more years because they were willing to place monetary concerns. I mean, a woman on the task force testified that she used her marketing budget and she expected, but interesting, she said she expected five years. And why the task force dealt with a time frame of ten years, I don't know because what this woman testified was that she used five years' worth of her marketing budget to be on that billboard, and she expected the city to honor that. Well, five years is gone, and so it should be taken down, but in my mind it should be taken down because it does harm. It does harm to the diverse community that we're part of. It does harm to children. Often schools bring children down to look at the mural. It does harm, and it should be removed for that reason. Lee, could you go into more detail about the harm that it does because we saw this revealed during the task force and we have a video that we took here on Channel 17. Burlington did not listen about the report of the task force and all the hundreds of people who signed petitions and who came forward to the city council to testify. And this is going back to 2017 when it was, when off the wall did write off the wall on the plaque in front of the mural. And so can you go into more detail about the harm that continues to be done by that mural? This harm was testified to city council as well as to the mural task force. I believe there was one person besides the donor who was on the task, a member of the task force, and there was one person who came before the task force and said that the mural should stay up, that it should stay in place. Everyone else who testified and testified articulately on the subject of white supremacy on the idea that that mural says only white lives matter. And people spoke eloquently to that, and they were discounted by the mural task force and by city council. The person who moved me the most was Vicki Garrison, whose family is a long time Burlington family. She was born here, she grew up here. Her mother was one of the founders of the King Street Center. She explained tearfully to city council and later to the mural task force the harm that this does to her to see her community represented in a form where only white lives matter. And the reaction of the city council was what? It has come to this, that we attended this last meeting, we can show some video from the park committee meeting, and it seems to go over their heads and they're not registering the pain that people feel about this mural. It's a comment from us, and I think I was very disappointed by all the members of the administration that was that to take action on this day, none of them has taken any action. And to remind you that this resolution was passed October 28th, October 28th into March, it's over six months. In those six months, one you said you did not remember, that if you had to do that, and now you're telling me because of all this, I'm saying because I'm busy now, there's a scene that's happening. I think what I'm telling you is all facts. It's all facts. You told me that you both, and now we've got another reason to say it's because your staff capacity was too much. Good. It seems to me that if this issue, people are going as it is. People are doing what they want, and I think everything that we do since this resolution has been passed and out of it should be around. This is a false. This is not something we just created and did it all. I think we should not think about any part or public part until what was passed can be done in some way. That's what I think. I felt a small part of what Vicki must have felt when at the Parks, Arts, and Recreation Committee meeting that you just referred to, I stood before them and spoke with them about the harm. A gentleman had spoken before me and said this is a First Amendment rights issue, and I replied that the First Amendment rights allowed you cannot cry fire in a crowded theater because it could do harm, and for the same reason this is not First Amendment rights with this piece of artwork, because it harms children. It harms white people. It harms us because white supremacy is the culture of Burlington, of Vermont, of this country in a large amount, and it's up to white people who have constructed this social situation. It's up to us to remove it. And you have also brought to the studio photographs of the mural showing how this is. Yeah, but I want to finish one thought. I got sidetracked a bit. At the Parks, Arts, and Culture meeting and I was standing up there and before me were white council members as well as one person of color on council, and there were the city staff to my left and the white counselors to my right, and as I looked at their faces, their faces were absolutely blank, and I saw those white, uncomprehending faces, and it gave me just a little touch of what a person of color in my place would have felt like. No, this is not a battle for people of color. We constructed this mural, we commissioned it, and the whole thing about First Amendment rights is absolutely ridiculous. Once that artist was fraudulently obtained a visa by swearing that he was a Trompe-Loy artist, which he himself in his own words in writing said he is not, but they got Senator Leahy to intercede. They first turned him down because it was an absolutely ridiculous claim that there was no artist in the United States or in Burlington or in Vermont that could paint this mural. We have many muralists in Burlington. Yeah, immigration said that's ridiculous and turned him down, so the city went to Pat Leahy and got him to intercede for them, and then didn't they rename the alleyway Leahy Way? That's the way things go. Anyway, the... Well, I could go on and on. Well, let's go into the resolution now that we can show on screen also, and that our point is that nothing was honored in the resolution. Right. The first thing I noticed, because I was not here and couldn't attend the Murrell Task Force meetings, but there are audio tapes, on Channel 17, that there are also some video tapes of those meetings, but I listened to all of the audio tapes. It was painful, Margaret. It was painful to be part of that and not be there and see what was happening and see the mousy silence of the few people on that Task Force who we could have expected to speak up, somebody from Peace and Justice Center, started out. She got it in the beginning, but she went silent for reasons that I may be able to bring up later. But at any rate, the Murrell Task Force, they had a resolution that's talked about that the mural fails to convey an inclusive and welcoming message that the city seeks to project, fails to adequately acknowledge Vermont's diverse history, undermines our efforts to promote Burlington as the first welcoming place to live, work and visit, whereas many individuals feel hurt by the emissions and misrepresentations in the mural. That was not reiterated to the Murrell Task Force. What was reiterated at the beginning of every meeting was the resolution which refers to the mayor charges the Task Force while respecting the principles of public art, property rights, artist rights and limits on government power to review and consider a wide range of options that lead to a more inclusive outcome. Respects Burlington's history educates our residents. That's all they got. They didn't get the portion of the resolution, which addresses what I feel are the most significant issues surrounding that mural. For me, the big one is the harm that it does to people. It does it to people of color by telling them they don't belong. It does it to white people by telling them that they have the arrogant position of supremacy over other cultures, over other people's color of skin. I mean, there are examples in this mural that there's one that's particularly offensive to me. I have a photograph of a brown-skinned child and that child is leaning up against the Native American in the mural. I'm a teacher, I'm a social worker as well as these other things I'm retired now, so I get to dabble in art. This child is the body language of this child is he sees an adult that he identifies with sees that person being humiliated and he's leaning against it in a way that a child will do when they're defending a parent who's being harmed. I've seen this, I've seen it and I see it in this child in this picture and every time I look at that picture my heart is engaged in this. There's another picture of Senator Leahy with two children who are brown-skinned and they're standing in front of the mural of all these white people around them. Oh, I see it here. If you zoom in on the faces of those children, the girl who's older she's just got to look on her face like, oh yeah, uh-huh but the boy is hurt and angry. You look at his face, you know what that face says on a child and that's another photograph that I see. You'll notice they like to say that this mural has all people from Burlington notables. These people are the notables of Burlington. Well, the guy in the red jacket on the right, it's Billy Kidd and he lives in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. He got out of Vermont pretty early in the game. He's quite well known and he is definitely unnotable in Steamboat Springs, Colorado but not in Burlington, Vermont. And we can think also, Lee, of the thousands of children who have been brought there over the years since 2012 to learn about Vermont history in Burlington history and this is what they are being exposed to. It's totally fake that scene of Champlain with this submissive little Native American in his own journals, Samuel de Champlain talks about the respect he had for the Native people how smart they were, how resourceful and he used them but they had a reciprocal arrangement. He needed to take FERS back to Europe to finance his trip and to satisfy the people that sponsored his trips to the New World and so he got those FERS from the Native people and in return he gave them knives for example made out of steel, gun power fabrics, glass things that they needed and so the reciprocal agreement between them was quite amicable and one of mutual respect. But however they were colonialists and that was the last besmirching of this mural that went up on it a year ago, colonialists and that is definitely portrays the colonial relationship between the small subservient Native person and the big larger than life I mean in art the big leader is always larger than life and they present it with him stepping forward and the visual image there is clear and any child of color in our community sees that and a picture is worth a thousand words that portrayal tells that child what their place is and among the Abenaki people they let this slide they had bigger fish to fry they agreed not to object in return for getting some from the city I'm told they got display space at the airport perhaps and were able to put up a table on church street just to hand out their literature I respect that I don't expect them to fight this battle this is something that white people in this community have done they've constructed it they've defended it they have allowed it to appear embracing and rendering invisible the diversity of our community the diversity of our country the diversity of Vermont history and the thing that aggravates me no end is people who say well we are the white state yes we are because the diseases that the Europeans brought decimated up to 90% of the native people and in Vermont white people I mean people of color aren't that welcome here that mural says it I had dinner one night with a gentleman a friend of my family a wall street banker who was bringing his daughter to school here and somebody said oh you know Lee Liz in Vermont you had to get in touch with her and inviting me out to dinner and they told me at that dinner this would have been in the 80s that they chose UVM because they wanted a white and Burlington's white and they wanted their daughter in a white place listen Burlington and UVM trade on that brand and it's just not true it wasn't true when Champlain came here for sure and Abinac people went underground they're fairly light skinned and many of them can pass they went underground and if you declared yourself a Native American during the eugenics movement women were sterilized I know an Abinac woman who was sterilized without her permission she did not find out about it until after it was done and it was because she was Abinac and she was poor and viewers this is all the hidden history of the mural we have the mural up there being deflected from by all the outcome of the mural task force they said that we should have other murals etc could you address that Lee because that's very relevant to the meeting that we went to how they managed with the testimony of Doreen Kraft who is the head of Burlington City Arts and she was there mainly talking to the councilman Allie Geng's questions about why nothing has been done about the resolution well she's an interesting case she distanced herself from this tries to distance herself from it and yet when you listen to the testimony of the people who were working on the mural when it was being painted Burlington City Arts was very much involved Burlington City Arts ran the mural task force and Burlington City Arts was given charge with the responsibility of carrying out the recommendations of the mural task force as you just alluded to none of those things were done the resolution was just completely ignored I believe that Doreen Kraft at one point said that she didn't know it or Joan Shannon said yeah we probably didn't give you the right those were amendments that were there and maybe you didn't see that well Lee that had to do with the time that the plaque the plaque art should be revised yeah the resolution which calls for and sets exact dates by which these tasks must be fulfilled the resolution says as all resolutions are required to attach something that says from the city clerk records coordinator I hereby certify that this resolution has been sent to the following departments Lisa Blanchard city attorney office BCA and so Burlington City Arts got a copy of this resolution how they justify that they completely ignored it Doreen Kraft told the parks arts and culture meeting committee last week that she was busy that she was too busy doing other things she had graciously agreed to take on this task of fulfilling the recommendations from the mural task force but she was too busy and it isn't this isn't like it's overdue by a couple of months the first date was in January of 2018 they were to submit a report on the progress that they made in finding out what it would take to move the mural and by March and by in March they were supposed to have replaced the plaque that was in 2019 in this year the plaque should have been replaced over six months ago and nothing has been done and the report should have been made nine months ago and they did the report last week and as far as I can see it wasn't a written report it was just Doreen Kraft sat there and made her excuses to Ali Deng, counselor Deng, about why none of these tasks had been followed up on and it was because generally it was because she was so busy even though she has hired one of the members of the task force gave her a job to work on to be in charge of the restoration of the mural that's pretty quote to me not only did she give this person a job but then on top of that gave her a $3,000 grant to do one of her own projects and by the way also gave a $3,000 grant to a young man who's doing a documentary on the history of the mural who has not interviewed any of the people who testified before the mural task force or before city council or in the public realm as to why the mural needs to be removed, why only white lives matter is a lesson of enforcing white supremacy in a community by putting down people who aren't white or don't identify as white this is just amazing how you capsilize it Lee and how the outcome of that it's a part parks and arts recreation committee parks arts and culture PARC parts arts recreation and culture or committee and councillor Jiang said to the person chairing this who was the council president and she was chairing it she was sitting next to councillor Jiang and he was questioning the fact that nothing was done about this and that they never brought a report back to city council which is what they are instructed by the resolution to do and councillor Shannon said to him well looking down on him very dismissively well we are the eyes and ears of council here she's making the report to us here and yet as was noted in the newspaper and as you see on your tape to ask a question they said that they were running late wouldn't take any questions even though before the meeting started they said we would have an opportunity to ask questions after the presentation but when it came to that time oh why they didn't want to have to answer my questions one of which was if you are so busy you hired somebody to do this somebody who by the way was on that committee somebody who started out asking the hard questions but soon went silent and then collected a job with the city and a $3,000 grant Lee it was so painful to watch that committee meeting and how it was like it was in slow motion racism at play and it was so subtle and smooth very smoothly done very professionally done by people who have been doing it for decades and who are in power in this city so it's deeply disturbing to people and there were hundreds of people who came out about the mural and about how they had been awakened by the off the wall coalition action in 2017 that was in October 2017 it was on the first Indigenous People's Day which has been replaced in Vermont from Columbus Day and it's so deeply disturbing and I'm so glad that you're here to clarify things for us. Margaret I saw that I was sitting right behind Councillor Shannon and Councillor Dieang the way the room was set up when we came in they were in a semi-circle facing the screen where there was going to be a presentation and we were behind them and yet the first thing on the agenda was for citizens to be heard and we had to get up from our chairs and walk around in front anyway Councillor Dieang and Shannon were as far from me as you are as close to me as you are and at one point the city was raising the question of the unseemliness of city departments just ignoring a city council resolution she turned and she looked down on him and said now Councillor Dieang we're going to move forward you know lessons learned nothing absolutely what you said is true no lessons learned from this let's move forward we did the wrong thing but let's not talk about it let's not admit it let's not apologize let's not agree to take a second look at this which I think you are going to speak about it calls for a second look the task force was given incomplete information they made the wrong decision city council used that task force to give them an excuse to do what they wanted to do in the first place the city council the city council delivered and meanwhile the resolution called for the mural to be taken down by 2022 however they don't need to wait until 2022 to do it they can do it right now and what are we asking for it now what are we asking the city council to do if they follow their own chronology they're a year late now on delivering the very simplest part of it which was redoing the plaque and the reason of redoing the plaque is because it's not true it makes claims for this mural that are not true this mural somebody was hired to paint the faces of people who donated money an art student a recent art graduate did almost all of the work which she attested to before the mural task force the person they hired was told who to paint how much space to give them and when that came to adding the mayor's family he did not want to do that they forced him to do it and it was testified before the mural task force that it delayed the completion of the mural by a month or two because they had to repaint four panels I mean if they can't do the simplest thing on time of producing a report that they were required to make they're a year late in that they're nine months late in that there's no way they're going to get that mural out of there on time as the resolution calls for this resolution has already been violated the city council needs to take this up again the mural which many people don't realize is on 64 plywood panels that are screwed into the wall they can be unscrewed stored back in the warehouse that it came from while the city contemplates its final resting place the artist was never told that his artwork would be in that space that was never promised to him the person who owns the building never granted an easement he did to the previous muralist whose work was covered up who also has vera rights big deal about the mural artist vera rights oh we're gonna he has rights and there was a lawsuit once and the city will violate his rights his rights her rights could you explain what vera rights are visual artist visual artist rights act and the famous case was in new york city where graffiti artist had painted the side of a building the owner of the building whitewashed the building in other words covered up their art which is what that party mural that parade mural covers up Gina Carrera's art and he was sued by the artist i think it was 16 million it was a huge win for the artist for the original artists Gina Carrera has artist rights and is her mural visible oh yes oh yes in fact right now with the tarp where the tarp is if you just look underneath that bottom tarp there's her name and letters this high Carrera her artist her mural was the rainforest mural and kids loved it kids loved it because it was animal families all you know animal families from all over the world so all we're asking is artistic justice unveil Carrera's mural put this everyone loves a parade mural in storage until as you say they decide what to do with it add to that Lee and we'll call it a show add to that to what I just said oh well Gina Carrera's mural is of course now faded and in the contract which was never signed they never had a signed contract with the parade artists never but but the contract they produced after the fact which is unsigned it refers to the fact that a mural needs to be updated it needs to be colors need to be brought up maybe every five years there will have to be some touch up done Gina Carrera was never given that privilege and she would accept it now I believe that she would she is an accomplished muralist she's won awards awards that she has won for artwork in this city hang in the office of the church street marketplace she's an accomplished artist and she I believe would be happy to update her mural and Lee do you think that there is a chance for your final statement here is there a chance for the city of Burlington to regain its prestige here and to show a better face to the public sure nothing could do it quicker than for them to admit that they made a mistake admit that they want to remove the mural and they and apologize I mean look what Pierre Trudeau just did after he was accused of going in brown face with a turban on his head when he was a teacher how many years ago I mean he was a young man his father was the prime minister of of ganada at that time and he apologized he said I did the wrong thing I look at it now my eyes are opened I see now that I didn't that I did the wrong thing if Burlington did that there they would be cheered mightily but the mayor was interviewed and was asked about that and he said in so many words I don't want to offend I don't want to rile up people in this community and the people that he would rile up are people with white supremacist culture embedded in them who else would be angry that an error was corrected well it's in the hands of the city council the Burlington city council and we are calling on you with this program from channel 17 center for media and democracy to take that vote and take the mural down thank you Lee thank you Margaret for being my wonderful guest thank you till next time viewers thank you for listening and watching