 Thank you everybody for coming. My name is Kate Kilwan-Ivan. I work for the City of Burlington, the Community and Economic Development Specialists. And this is an event that we love. Every year we partner with ECHO and we bring on great partners to come and talk about issues that are happening today and just activities that we can connect with. And my role is outreach and public engagement and so it's definitely fabulous to see so many people come out and just like us be able to work with each other and grow with each other. So I was asked to open this up to share how civil rights today connects with an issue that we're going to be coming upon, which is the census. The census is coming and the 2020 census is significant because it really is an opportunity for us to really have full representation of who we are. And historically the census has undergone in certain communities, particularly people of color, low income and women with small children. So this is really important because it does affect civil rights and liberties because the census is data that we often use in government in our programs to support services, to also put towards infrastructure and schools and education and just being able to really influence some of the political arena. So we definitely encourage you to get the word out. Another thing to get a word out is about the employment opportunities that exist. There's census workers upstairs and they have said that Vermont is actually really low with their recruitment. We're at 33% and some communities are at 80%. So this is really important because it reminds rural and we have actually historically been low with like undercounting people. So again, you know, thank you so much for coming out and growing and learning with each other. And I look forward to hearing about the knowledge that the panel is going to share with us. Thank you Patrick for putting together a panel and I'll turn over to Patrick to introduce the panel. Patrick Brown with the Greater Burlington Multicultural Research Center. So good afternoon number one again. My name is Patrick Brown and it is an honor to be with you this afternoon and also to hear from a wonderful group of panelists. And last week would have been Dr. King's 91st birthday. And so I beg the question, if Dr. King was alive today, what would he say? Think about it for a minute. We've made small steps towards racial quality, towards inclusion, towards racial justice, but there is still a lot of work to be done. When Dr. King made his famous speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he not only spoke to African Americans, he spoke to the heart of all Americans. And so let us ponder, let us reflect on this great civil rights leader, on his legacy, what he left us with and how we can continue the work, how we can continue on the long path. Dr. King was taken from us too soon and his work was never completed. Dr. King had a dream. That dream is yet to be fulfilled. I see that as a dream deferred from day to day as we go through Burlington, the state of Vermont and indeed the United States. So at this point it is my pleasure to introduce the panelists and I'm going to say it again, the legendary Stephanie Seguino, Ryan Hargreaves, a tyranny parent that owned Pastor Arnold Thomas in Canadian Williams. And they will give you a little bit more of their history, their history of civil rights and how they have worked entirely with the fight to further the work of civil rights and social justice in this community. So I'm going to start off with Dr. Seguino, Professor Seguino. Thank you. I have been doing research on racial disparities in policing, I guess for the last 10 years. And some of you may know that in 2014 the legislature passed a law requiring all law enforcement agencies to collect racism in traffic policing. A reason that data is really important and that is that traffic policing is the most frequent contact any of us have with the police. It is also interesting in so far as every single one of us breaks traffic laws. I broke several on the way here today. And some of you did. Which could include going 26 in a 25 mile an hour zone. What is critical about it is that police have enormous discretion about whom to stop, whom to search and whom to arrest. And what the research has shown for Vermont is significant statewide racial disparities. For example, if you are African American or Hispanic, you are 3 to 400% more likely to be searched by the police subsequent to a stop than you are if you are white. And of course the police often tell me the reason for this is that they argue that there is differential behavior around drug trafficking. It is often what they describe as the motivating factor. Here is what we have learned from the data. People of color are less likely to be found with contraband subsequent to a search than white drivers in particular. So these data I think have been critically important. I think of them as a diagnostic tool. They have really helped people of color in this community and those of us who care about people of color in this community to validate their personal experience. Prior to this data, all we had was anecdotes. And for each anecdote, there was often simply an explanation to try to explain in a way. And what we now have is a set of data that tells us a story about the patterns of behavior of law enforcement. And I don't want to single out law enforcement as particularly racially discriminatory compared to other institutions. All of our institutions are. But interaction with the police can have devastating effects for people and so it's very important. And so these data are really an asset for the state of Vermont. They are an asset for communities and they should be but have not yet become an asset for law enforcement agencies who really truly want to engage in community policing. There are two agencies in Vermont that do use these data as a way to manage their officers, to identify officers that are outliers that are over stopping or over searching. So they will use the data, identify those officers and bring them in for a conversation about what's going on with your policing and trying to understand their policing patterns. And that leaves roughly 76 agencies in Vermont who are not using these data. But the community can. And when my colleague Nancy works and I analyzed these data we developed a methodology that was accessible to community members. And community members can access the data, access our results and can talk to their select boards and their city councils to ensure that police officers engage with the public representing our community values about racial equity. And again I will just say the two things that the data are like a diagnostic tool to go to the doctor and they take to your temperature and you have one pressure and they see you have a problem. It alerts you to look more deeply beneath the surface. That's what these data do. They're a signal to look more deeply. Data cannot tell us about the pain that individuals experience when they are profiled by the police. But they are a tool. And my hope is that we can supplement the data with these very human stories about the real deeply negative impact that this has on people's rights and in many ways which undermines their civil rights. So I recognize that Vermont is no different than any other state. Well many Vermonters think we're exceptional when it comes to racial disparities we are not. But I am hopeful that there is progressive legislation including this legislation to require the state of the collective that you as community members and all of us can use to move us forward to a state that we can really be proud of that is really racially equitable. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'll talk in my bound. Good afternoon. My name is Ryan Hargraves and I am the director of undergraduate missions at the University of Vermont and for me my connection to this program and to civil rights is both personal and professional. So I've been at the University of Vermont for going on two and a half years prior to that I spent my entire career at the University of Virginia doing diversity admissions work. So I did that for 20 years and I actually grew up in the south side of Virginia. So prior to going to University of Virginia for my education I grew up in a place called Danville Virginia. Not to be confused with Danville Vermont and Danville Virginia is famously or perhaps infamously the last capital of the American Confederacy. And if you were to take a drive through the main drive in Danville Virginia today you would find in the very center of town a private landowner has erected an 80 foot flag pole where a Confederate flag flies really high. And you can think of whatever adjective comes to mind to associate with that. And so with that in mind having grown up as the son of parents and uncles and aunts and cousins and grandparents who fought in the civil rights movement back in the 1950s and 60s. In fact I recently discovered that Martin Luther King actually came through the church that attended when I was a child. And I reflect on his works and I think about my own. And famously we all know about the I Have a Dream speech. And I think about that part where he says that one day I hope that the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners can come together at the table of Brotherhood. And I think about what education means for those people who are underrepresented in academia and many sectors within the professional workforce and otherwise and how there is a gap. And even you know growing up just to give you a specific example my high school which was about 50% African American and pretty much every honors or AP course that I took I was one of about 30 students. So three out of 25, three out of 30. And so despite in my opinion despite Brown Forest versus Board of Education despite the Civil Rights Act of the 1960s despite the many you know cases and initiatives that have been enacted to help close the gap. I do believe that people of color still have a long way to go and I think about myself and the role that I can play. And so the other piece that I think about is his perhaps lesser known speech the drum major instinct. And Dr. Keene if you haven't listened to the drum major instinct I would definitely encourage you to listen to it. So he gave his speech on February 4th 1968 which was actually exactly two months before he was assassinated. And among other things it's kind of eerie and you'll probably get goosebumps because he actually in the speech talks about what he wants people to say about him at his funeral. And among other things he mentions that a lot of us have a drum major instinct right an instinct to leave which is good. He said but we have to be careful because the desire to be out in front must not be conflated by the desire to be important. Those are two different things. And so when Professor Brown said what with Martin Luther King during the think of the work and the progress that he made today. I mean I didn't think about social media which wasn't you know I'm imagining you know what we actually have a question around application. You know if Martin Luther King got Martin Luther King comes down with the flu on the day of his I have a dream speech and he can't make his speech. But he has Twitter what would he say right and so it's kind of a fun way to think about things. But I was thinking to myself you know to me I want to make sure that I do everything in my power to be a drum major for goodness and think about ways to close the gap. And you know a lot of us I think you know get intimidated by the fact that oh I can't solve this big problem. But if we come together and work and I see my colleague Alexianne back there Alex wave your hand wave your hand. Were you sleeping or are you when I said Warren that you fell asleep. But Alex back there is just one of my many colleagues at the University of Vermont. He's the director of institutional research and you know we can come together and make a difference and be role models and provide opportunity. So sorry for the long introduction. It was it's really good to be here. I'll pass the mic. Thank you. So thank you very much for inviting me on Karen Stackwell. I'm an attorney at Paul Franken Collins here in Burlington. I grew up in Burlington and then went away to college in law school and was in D.C. for a really long time. First time in early the beginning of that career and then had a chance to go to law school down there. And I have to say that for me the concept of you know doing good doing social justice making sure as Dr. King would say look at what you can do for someone else. Always be outward looking to me. I think that is is something that was part of my family tradition certainly part of my fake tradition and now is part of education as a lawyer. I think a lot of people think of civil rights work and lawyers and they just think about some of those famous cases you know. But I think there's a lot of other kind of quiet work to be done. I was looking for quotes or good quotes of Dr. King today and here's one that I had never seen before which I thought was was connected to what I do. Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-made solutions. Nothing pains some people more than to have to think. Which I thought you know that's absolutely true that it is so everybody is always looking for the bumper sticker answer. And the work that I have to engage in is something that happens over time has to happen repeatedly because people mess it up. And my job as a management side lawyer is to go in and do trainings for companies to help them look at their hiring practices. To help them look at you know a lot of people will call me and say hey can you do some diversity training. Well tell me what you mean by that first of all. Because most people are like I just like to come in and talk and have some stuff for an hour and then be done. And my response is yeah don't do that I'm sorry. So I'm happy to start a conversation if you're really serious about starting a conversation. But I'm not interested in going in so you can check some box. And be done because it is a longer conversation when we have to talk about systems essentially. Right so this is not just about you know one particular situation this is about systems. This is about systems that employers put in place that might narrow the you know narrow the number of people of color who might be actually considered for a position. When we talk about implicit bias or even explicit bias in terms of one of the speakers Tino was speaking earlier today about even job descriptions. How job descriptions are written might speak differently you know to an applicant of color versus a white applicant. And so that person might self-select and say nope not applying to that job. So who's writing those you know who's writing those job descriptions and what lens are they using where that might be the case. And that might not be intentional but it's still narrowed down. So what I do is and what I try to do is use you know my my expertise to try and assist companies to figure out what your systems look like. What does it look like when we're talking about hiring. What does it look like when we're talking about mentoring people so people can grow their skills. And people can actually advance you know through the ranks of leadership. And so that people can think differently about what they do and how they do it. I have also been involved in some lawsuits where I have defended the state of Vermont in in firing people who have done the wrong thing. In terms of police officers who may have you know been abrasional profiling or engaging in those kinds of behaviors. So it's multifaceted you know the kinds of things that I do but it's it's something that is very dear to my heart for a variety of reasons. But the answer is that for me just have to keep thinking about this is not a one and done. And for many of the people that I talked to in the workplace many employers say you know diversity and inclusion those are really interesting things. That's super hard. And my response is yep challenging you know challenging everywhere but it's certainly challenging in Vermont. So what are you going to do that? And then the question is let's take one step. That's not going to be the end. Let's take another step. Let's take another step and see where we can go because it's an evolution. And being somebody who wants to do the right thing and engage with people in our community in the right way. I think it is about systems and it's about opening up your long-winded zone. My name is Arnold Thomas and I came to Vermont in 1998 as the I guess I was considered at the time the first African-American executive minister over a statewide denomination. It was United Church of Christ commonly known as the congregational churches here in Vermont. And one of the few things one of the first things I had to deal with was the civil union discussions that were taking place at that time that let's say legislators had I guess determined that we would go the route of civil union rather than say in sex marriage. But I and a few others including Joshua Chesson who was then the rabbi of O'Hawai Zerde advocated for civil unions, I mean for same sex marriage. And I'm glad to know that eventually Vermont came around in 2009 to advocate and sign into laws same sex marriages. But I was in the role of conference minister from 1998 to 2005 and after that I felt I needed a more multicultural, multi-racial setting. At that time Vermont was still the widest state in the union. Right now I think we share that title with me. And so in my process of looking at another position I stopped by a friend of mine, William Sloan Coffin who was an ally of Dr. King. While he served as chapter in the Yale University and was a former pastor of a very progressive congregation in New York City Riverside Church. And he noticed that a opening was there at Riverside for Minister of Education, Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations. And I said that sounds like it's down my alley. And he encouraged me to apply for that position and I was there for another 10, 7 years before returning to Vermont. An interesting thing about William Sloan Coffin is that in 1968, and this is really the last year of Dr. King's life. And this was after his speech, after Dr. King's Beyond Vietnam speech that he delivered at Riverside Church. In which he came out for the first time publicly condemning the war in Vietnam which as a result ostracized him for many people who had formally supported him in his civil rights struggle including President Johnson. After that public statement, William Sloan Coffin who had then retired to Vermont, but at 1968 while he served as chapter of Yale, he and a few other anti-war advocates tried to convince Dr. King to run as a third party presidential candidate for the United States. Would Dr. Benjamin Spock as his vice presidential running mate? Wouldn't that have been a wonderful ticket? And King seriously considered it until he finally resolved that it was best for him to assume the role of non-partisan moral critic over the advocates of the status quo. The year, the last year of King's life might be described in many parts as a year in which he felt disheartened and disparaged by the social political conditions of this country. And I strongly recommend to you a book by Jonathan Ryder, his groundbreaking book called The Gospel of Freedom and which he talks about the dimensions, the emotional, spiritual dimensions that we seldom see in regards to King, especially those last months and that last year of his life. He disparaged at the situation that the U.S. was going through partly because there was a resurgence. There was a resurgence in bigotry and hate crimes and white supremacist actions, actions of terrorism towards people of color, not only in the south but also in the north. Partly as a result of the presidential candidacy of then-segregationist Governor George Wallace. He was also disheartened because a person that he had turned to as an ally to implement policies and conditions that would lead toward a more racially just American society, Lyndon Johnson, had abandoned that cause to escalate the war in Vietnam. Add to that the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the assassination of Medgar Evers, the assassination of Malcolm X and the constant threats on his life bubbled up to the point where his despair burst out among his closest friends with the cry of him saying, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to do this anymore. But of course he continued. He continued to the point of death on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee, resolving in his own mind, and this is where I'm paraphrasing scripture, that it is not his will but God's will that had to be done. How would Reverend King view America today? I think that despite the despair of the present makeup of the White House, the present makeup of the Senate, and the Supreme Court, despite the last ditch effort on the part of wealthy white supremacists and their political cronies to gerrymander and restrict people of color from voting and entering the country, before the growing demographics render them eventually obsolete. He would still find cause to believe the words of 19th century abolitionist minister, Theodore Parker, who said, the arc of the moral universe is long but bends toward justice. He would continue to embrace the sentiment of his final speech in Memphis. We have difficult times ahead, but I want you to know that as a people, we will get to the promised land. For that to occur, the priority of this country, I believe, must move from monetary to moral, must move from capital to compassion. It is no longer enough for Americans to want a piece of the pie when the recipe is poison. We must change the recipe to enhance the dignity of all over the privilege of a few. This is more than a political agenda. It is a pious platform. For I am told that when the Spirit of the Lord is upon you, you have this urge to preach good news to the poor, recovery of sight to the blind, to Senate liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And in my estimation, that year is now. Thank you. My name is Damien Williams. I am the program manager for Spectrum's multicultural youth program. My family came to Vermont in 1981, and I grew up in Randolph, Vermont, probably the only black family in Orange County at that time. So the prompt is the legacy of Dr. King and what would he say about today. So I'll address that in two parts. First of all, the legacy of Dr. King is both personal and professional for me. Professional in the work that we do as Spectrum multicultural youth. We work with youth of color, youth of refugee background, multicultural youth to empower them in their pursuits of success and capturing that elusive American dream. We provide opportunities for work, mentoring and connecting them to resources and trying to undo directly some of the effects of systemic racism that is in this country and is in Vermont. We hear so many times that, oh, there's not much going on in Vermont. We don't have that problem here. But I would pose several objections to that. First of all, one that Martin Luther King himself said that probably everyone has heard at some point or another that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. So even if we didn't have the issues that we have here, it would still be important work that we would need to do here. But we do have those issues here. I dealt with them growing up in Vermont. I dealt with them coming up here to Burlington. I've dealt with them in other places in states and places that I've been. But on a personal level, my family has always been very involved in civil rights activist work. I guess I could say I'm a third generation at this work. My grandfather and grandmother were very active during the 50s and 60s, worked alongside Martin Luther King. There's not so well-known march that was in Boston, Massachusetts that my grandfather and grandmother have to organize who are here today. It was said earlier that this weekend would be Dr. King's 91st birthday if he was here. And I hope she'll forgive me for saying, but my grandmother was right over there as 92. And was there on the march in the front line with Dr. King and my grandfather, Vernon Carter. My mother was there as well, a little bit younger at the time. But she's there too. So we've been doing this work a long time and something that my grandfather and grandmother did was not only work for African Americans here, but also work for Latinos, work for other disenfranchised groups. A lot of people know that the wind Dr. King was assassinated on April 4th of 68. He was actually there for the Poor People's Campaign. It wasn't a specific African American issue. It was the Poor People's Campaign, which is something that had been traction not only in the U.S. but internationally as well. And so these issues are alive and well today in America. I think we know that through Twitter and social media, but they're also alive and well here in Vermont. A lot of people don't know. Stephanie, Dr. Schumino, mentioned about the data that's coming in. And you can't really argue with data. I think it's an exciting time. Well, you can present it in different ways here, right? But there are certain numbers that are what they are. But that information that comes in, it gives us the opportunity to really see what's going on and to remove some of the illusions. And so one of the illusions that Vermont is just, it went fine when it comes to people of color has been shattered by some of the information that's been coming in lately. One of the being that Vermont is actually one of the worst states in the country when it comes to ratio and incarceration of blacks. So we have a very low percentage, it's 1.4%, but our prisons represent, in our prisons, blacks represent 11%. That's one of the worst ratios in the country. So we have a lot of invitations. We want to increase diversity here in Vermont. We're inviting people to come to Vermont. And so amongst communities of color, we're kind of a joke, a standing joke. It's not funny, but we laugh at it because it's a laugh or cry. But it's like, come to Vermont and we'll put you in jail. So we have these issues in Vermont. Even in the school systems, they started to keep data and required to report data. In Burlington School District, black students represent 14% of the student population, but they are suspended at a rate of 30%. So these disparities are coming to light all over the country. I also sit on the Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Act Racial Disparities Committee that is a national committee that is working to reduce disparities in juvenile contact with the authorities. And it's a national trend that black and brown youth, when they're exposed to criminal justice system, they are at least three to five times more likely to be charged than a white youth for the exact same offense. Statistics are coming out, like we said earlier, that we have this idea that black and brown people are the drug dealers and we're going to stop them and check them out. But statistics now show that it's actually even across the board as far as different racial groups about who is more likely or less likely to use drugs or sell drugs that generally white people sell to white people. And black people sell to black people and brown people sell to brown people, college students sell to college students. So that's this delusion that has been put out there. And I've heard it said in some of the work I do in bringing to light the evils of mass incarceration that, I lost my train of thought there, but just getting back to the fact that human rights right now, just like Martin Luther King was fighting for, are still alive today. We have the issues of immigration and refugees. There are 10 million displaced people around the world today because of wars. And then another 20 million people displaced because of environmental issues. And of course we know that when they try to resettle in third countries, they deal with so many more traumatic issues. People saying go home or go back or speak our language and different things. After they've gone through the trauma of the war-torn country they came from and then the secondary country that they were placed in. It was an average of 13 to 17 years that they're in refugee camps. Lack of nutritious food and education and health care and then come to countries like ours and still deal with things. So we've got a long way to go. And although I am hopeful that we are now really looking at the data and people are accepting that that data out there is real and that there's work to be done. So I think that if Martin Luther King were to see what's going on today, he would have mixed emotions. I think he'd be extremely disappointed that we haven't moved forward a little bit more by this point in time. But I think also once again he'd be hopeful for some of the strides that we've made as far as positions in black and brown people, education for black and brown people and just the understanding of the data and the work that needs to be done. Now it's your turn, John. We also know that the lights are such that we can't see everyone. So just stand up or let us know who you are and where you are. I have a room into data. I have two things that I wanted to share. First of all, thank you for doing this. I deeply appreciate it. I'm grateful that I ran into Patrick earlier. Otherwise I wouldn't have known that this event was occurring. I had a lunch appointment and then I just happened to learn. I want to share, there's a book that I recommend to everyone to read. It's called Spoken Here and it was written by a journalist from Montreal. His name was Mark Abbey, A-B-L-E-Y. The book is called Spoken Here. And he's a journalist and what he did was about 14 years ago he traveled around the world and he chronicled dying languages and indigenous languages. And there are handfuls of speakers of languages throughout the world. And it was a poignant book and lesson for me to remember that one of the things that he talked about was going to visit a man in New Zealand and only this man and his sister spoke this dialect. And so through translation, the elder explained to Mark that in his community, he lives in the ocean. There are hundreds of words to describe the color blue. And that in that one dialect, hundreds of words to describe the color blue. And he is of two people remaining, and I'm sure he's deceased at this point, but of two people remaining who spoke that dialect. With the death of that language is also what is expunged, is all of the wisdom that is contained therein. And in this world we have, I believe it's 5,000 languages remaining and of that we're going to be losing thousands of those languages in the next 100 years. And when you reduce that knowledge to the knowledge that's available to us and you see it in media right now, you see the closure of voices and you can see the way that diversity is excluded in our media. And that's my background. That diversity can't happen in a box, in a place where access isn't allowed. And the fact that this is not an overflowing room is worrisome. This room should be overflowing with people. So I always reflect on that comment that there are hundreds of words for the description of the color blue, and I think about that a lot. But I also wanted to reflect on recently in Cabot there was a little boy who was suspended from school for 10 days because he drew a picture. Did anyone see that? He drew a picture that was of concern to the school. And Cabot's a very small school district. And very rural, very, you know, rural. And he was suspended and this is a boy that's biracial. And his parents described in the story, I think it was in Vermont Digger that he had been bullied. And I thought why would you suspend a child at that young age for 10 days who had exhibited distress because he had been bullied? And where is the support for that child? And also the support for those school administrators and teachers to understand and to learn how to support this child and how to teach other children how to be in a diverse environment. I don't know what the outcome of that was, but I was really pleased to see that the responses in the Vermont Digger column were in support of that child and his family. But as a sixth-generation Vermonter, it's really important to me that I don't rest on that and that I don't just get complacent about where I live or my heritage or, you know, my grandfather had a barber shop on Church Street. You know, that's great and that's wonderful, but there's a lot of reasons for us to step up and to speak out and to not allow those things anymore. So I just want to say thank you. It's not really a question, but thank you so much. Thank you, Patrick. Thanks to the panel as well. I'm Dawn Ellis. I'm one of the Lansing rights commissioners. So I'm thinking about this a lot from the statewide management leader. What are these winds blowing in now? What do the data tell us? What role does state leadership have? What role do individuals have? And I wonder, building off the story that you just shared, as I'm thinking about what I see and what is challenging, I think about how our institutions have often a blind spot to the challenge of bias and discrimination within them even when they're progressive by mission or by mandate. So what I'd ask of each of you is to reflect on your own type of institution, the University of the US also, Medical Center, law, the church, the not-for-profit community, and think about it. If we have an instance where an injustice occurs and it's with your institution or your type of institution, what would you counsel that family? What would you counsel that regular everyday person as we think about how do we keep the injustices from being snuffed out of quiet, lost voices? Because they're happening all over the place and they're happening at a greater rate. And yet we have many more tools than we used to and we have an awareness in history to pull upon. So if you have thoughts about how do we reflect on our own niche, our own world that we know well to help it move past the blind spot, I'd love to hear that. I don't mind responding to that. In fact, I'm encouraged by that question. And also I guess I want to connect it to the question that was earlier or this statement that was earlier raised. I think, for instance, the fact that we are experiencing global warming is not something that is coincidental. It's not something that is accidental. I think that there is a concerted effort on the part of wealthy, global corporations, wealthy individuals to create a narrative that allowed for their personal expenses and their personal wealth to grow at the expense and the sacrifice of others. I think that's happening as far as global warming. I think it's certainly happening as far as the situation of Vermont being the widest state in the union or one of the widest states in the union. That's not accidental. I think this is a concerted effort on the part of a few to control the narrative about what Vermont is, what Vermont was, to discourage people of color from coming to Vermont, from settling in Vermont, and so on. This crosses all sorts of lines, including the spiritual. In the spiritual community and the religious faith community, there are countless examples of individuals being oppressed, sexually abused, degraded, because they do not fit the caliber of what a quote unquote a Christian should be, a quote unquote a civilized person should be. And it is the role of progressive spiritual thinkers and leaders to disrupt that narrative, to try and destroy it as much as possible and to use it in ways where it affirms what I think we as spiritually minded individuals, as morally concerned individuals, as humanitarians, try to be not only for ourselves but also for the world around us. That is an appeal battle. That is an appeal climb, I think, on all levels because the narrative has been defined in very negative ways on all levels and we have to try and redefine it, re-control it and take over it in a way that affirms every human being. I was actually going to jump in. I love your question and just kind of thinking about students, undergraduate students in particular at higher ed institutions. There's actually a great book by Professor Anthony Jack who's at Harvard. It's called The Privileged Poor. He basically talks about how students, perhaps, who are at Ivy, the institutions who are at the table who have an opportunity to take advantage of a world-class opportunity because of some of their conditions, be their socioeconomic conditions because of, and I'm not sure of how many of you are familiar with the term stereotype threat, but in essence, someone who is from an underrepresented group, they perceive that the mainstream perceives them in a certain way and actually causes them cognitive dissonance. This is one of the explanations for why many students from underrepresented groups underperform in the academic setting once they reach college. I think when you mention that word blindspots, so when people think of an education, what does that mean? Well, yes, it's a company to college and learning chemistry and physics and anthropology and history and sociology and computer science and engineering and nursing, but really for me, I don't believe that a person really has taken advantage of an educational opportunity unless they're better able, and this is particularly for students who are underrepresented or who have been challenged socioeconomically, able to better navigate the world beyond their undergraduate experience. One day, discrimination may go away. Today is not that day. And that's the premise that I try to mentor undergraduate students with whom I work. I had a very fortunate opportunity to work with some great professionals at the University of Virginia and there was a guy there who was a dean who discovered that some students at a particular college at that university were struggling because they felt like they were being categorically ostracized from study groups, that they are grading outcomes with differing from those at their peers because of how they were viewed. So instead of allowing them to just sort of organize a protest, which is what they wanted to do, he had them, he mentored them and had them come up with a systematic way to talk to those professors directly and to explain their challenges and it may change. And that to me is a valuable skill because as those of you who work for large corporations know, you may be bad as your boss, you may not like your boss at all, but you're not going to make a picket sign at lunch and go out in front of your building and say, my boss sucks. We have to teach these young people how to deal with their problems. Our nation is not going away. Racism is not going away. We want them to have the capital. We want them to, and this is why I pointed out Dr. Alexian back there, who has done just a really phenomenal job of helping students understand how they have made this reference as well, how you can use the data to your advantage. So fast forward to a couple of years ago there was a protest at the University of Vermont. Some students were very upset about how they were being treated by some of their faculty members and how the cultural climate was there. And it had the opportunity to learn from this mentor I had at the University of Virginia to help them to get the data to show that they were actually victims of disadvantage and it wasn't just a feeling. And so I think for us in terms of blind spots, how do we support those students to go out and better navigate that world? And we can't just be inclusive, the faculty, the staff, the support folks have to be diverse and inclusive as well. So I really appreciate your question. I think that life experience piece that you were talking, there are a lot of people who are super well intentioned and I think that not just in my business but in the businesses that I go out and talk to, people will stop the analysis with, well, I didn't mean anything about it. And that's great. I'm glad you didn't, that's super. But the answer is that it has to be beyond that. There has to be intentionality in learning about something beyond yourself, first of all. One of the examples that I use in trainings all the time is how many people in this room know who George Washington is? How many people? Raise your hands. I'm sure a bunch of you know. How many of you know who Oni Judge is? I know there are a couple of people in this room who know. Oni Judge was a 16-year-old enslaved girl who was enslaved to two Martha Washington and she left the Washington household as he was planning at the end of his presidency to move back to Virginia. And we don't know anything about her. We know now because there's been a recent book that's been written. There's a beautifully book called Never Caught. But she basically left because she had made some friends with free blacks in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia who allowed her to find a captain who took her actually to New Hampshire. She lived out her life as a fugitive in New Hampshire. And the president of the United States at that time contacted various federal agents to try and get his property back, right? So now this is not... We're talking about the president of the United States using his office for the purposes of obtaining back his own property, right? So this might bring familiar, but I'm just saying. The idea is that we know what we know and we're comfortable with what we know but there's intentionality in terms of looking at what we don't know. What is somebody else's life experience? Ask me, finding out. What is that life experience like and how can I then, you know, find some commonality with you or find out where your stumbling blocks have been? Because if you stumbling blocks that I don't have in the spirit of we should use our powers for good, right? I should be looking at ways to change that system so that you don't have stumbling blocks I didn't have. Many of us recognize that as a concept of privilege, certainly. But the idea is that when you're an employer in particular, you know, you talk about where are those stumbling blocks and what do we need to do to various systems to break those down? And we only learn that by learning other people's experiences. And so I think sometimes people just stop with that, why didn't be anything by it? That's not the end of the analysis. The analysis needs to be look at the landscape, figure out why things are not equitable and then figure out which systems have to be changed in order to increase that equity. And it would be perfect but it was both wrong. I think there's a common theme here about, you know, speaking up and then addressing both comments about what can be done and talking about being quiet. Martin Luther King also said history will have to record the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the striding clamor of the bad people but the appalling silence of the good people. And it's absolutely true that not standing up, not saying something, not working towards these goals is really being on the other side of history. There was a meme in social media recently that said, you know, for people that ask, what would I have done during civil rights movement? What would I have done during slavery? And it ends with, you're doing it right now. Because we're in a state of crisis in this country when it comes to these things, in the height of affirmative action in 1982, I think it was white wealth outweigh black wealth from 1 to 7. In 2015 it was 1 to 13. There are some statistics now that say it's as high as 1 in 20 as far as white wealth compared to black wealth. We have a crisis in this country of locking up black and brown people. 2.3 million people in prisons, highest number of any country in the world. We lock up more of our ethnic minorities today than South Africa did at the height of apartheid. In 1850, there were 3.3 million blacks in slavery. There are now 3.5 million black and brown people under the jurisdiction of probation and parole or in the prison system. So we have some real issues. And yes, there's data, and yes, there are certain things we're moving forward, but we all need to speak up about this. Because these things are here, they're now, they're in Vermont and we all need to speak up on it. Brian and I are both at the University of Vermont and so when you're asked about the blind spots of our institutions, UVM comes to my mind. I think one of the most disheartening things for me is Vermont advertising itself as being diverse and inclusive. If you look at the webpage, you often see many faces of color, but in fact we've made almost no progress in hiring faculty of color over the last 20 years. And I'm reminded often of what Martin Luther King once said, which is we may not be able to change what is in people's hearts, but we can change their habits. And that requires policies and goals and timelines. And so I don't know that you wanted us to answer specifically, but it is first of all incumbent to speak up when you see your institution failing. And second of all, I would say just from personal experience, don't do it alone. That you want to find yourself with a group of people that can support you because this is really very hard work to do. Let me just mention another institution is that I was on the Burlington School Board for several years and numerous incidents of racism with regard to students often perpetrated by teachers, perhaps unconsciously, but nevertheless perpetrated by teachers. We formed a group called Diversity Now that may seem a little anachronistic, but to push the school district to change its policies around this and to tell you how things have not changed, there's a current school board member who has said that Diversity Now is the worst thing to ever happen to Burlington schools. So promoting racial equity and class equity is perceived by some of the people who are ruling the school district in a negative way, so we have a lot of work to do. But when we did join the school board, so I ultimately ran for the school board to discuss some of the things, especially around suspensions and expulsions, we requested that the school end out of school suspensions. Kids losing educational services is not okay. And to develop alternative mechanisms, and one of those alternative mechanisms was trauma training for teachers because so many of our kids experienced trauma and finally more recently was to adopt restorative practices as a way to help people regulate the behavior in the school. So I say that just that everything that can be done and speaking up is maybe not easy to do, but it is the right thing to do. Thank you. Just before Edmund speaks, I just wanted to say that this is the 10th anniversary of Michelle Alexander's the new chief pro, the age of mass incarceration in America. And so in yesterday's New York Times, Michelle Alexander reflects on her work and will recall its braced racism in America. Hi everyone, my name is Adam Hange. I'm a youth coordinator from the Stature Multicultural Youth Program. And thank you all again for the panelists. Such great information. My question is, and any one of you can take a talk about it, how can our community systems or institutions better educate young folks of color when they are stopped by the police? I don't know that I can answer that, but Odin is very humble. Odin is running for school board in Ward 8, and I encourage you to support him. So last year, the spectrum we put together a number of workshops in collaboration with Vermont Legal Aid to educate young Black and Brown people on exactly what to do. But I think I would urge in other institutions as well to have workshops and sharing, to have open communication. There's a great training that's going around called courageous conversations beyond diversity, in which we talk about opening up these conversations and experiences, believing people, building trust. Because one of the things that I know that we as Black and Brown people have an issue with is that when we tell a story, what we've been through, a person that's not necessarily Black and Brown, there's a lot of questions that are, well, was it really this or were you looking at that? You know, definitely in the 80s and 90s when those post-racial areas of color, blindness, we wanted to look at race as the last possible thing. But we knew at that time when we were dealing with something like that. And I think when a young person speaks up and says, you know, when I was pulled over by the police, this happened. I was pulled over, I wasn't doing anything that happened to me last year. I was driving with someone, a white physician, we were driving through New York. We got pulled over and the police officer just said, I just want to make sure I guess we're okay because, you know, you have a little light out or something going on. And he was like, oh, I didn't. And so then the police officer left and it was the first experience for that particular white physician that I was with. And he looked over and he was like, did we just get race and grow file? You know, and I was like, well, you know, I think you're answering the question yourself. And so I think believing, you know, individuals who talk about their experiences and encouraging them to talk about it, you know, whether it be in an official workshop or even, you know, water cooler talk about what actually happens to black and brown people when they're a DWB driving while black. Yeah, I think it's also important to think and I have a close friend, Steve, and he's a new father as a six-month-old. And he said his biggest fear in life was that his son would get pulled over by the cops when he's, you know, 19, 20 years old and it would go horribly wrong. And so I think, you know, there's no easy answer. I love the substance that they would provide. And I think it's important, if you just get pulled over, I mean, just sometimes the notion that you got pulled over injustice can be a trauma. I think it's important for those people who've experienced that to be able to have a forum to come together and kind of talk about that. And so many times in our society, you know, because it's the, oh, did that really happen? Did you, you know, there's so much displacement of blame that I think a lot of times those people who experience injustice keep it inside lack of an opportunity that can be damaging. So I think, you know, even if it's just, you know, a forum for people to come together and kind of talk about their experience, that can be a threat. And I think as a parent, though, it's the instructions that we give our kids when that happens are instructions that we should, that we infuse within them to say, it's going to happen as a black child, as a black male or female growing up in a predominantly white society. Expect it to happen. And when it does happen, to not be, don't get, control your rage. Don't allow your emotions to get the best of you. Be observant of the situation. Get the officer's badge number. Try to create a calming, as much of a calming setting as possible so that you can take as much action as you possibly can after the incident. Because the officer is basically a part of the prejudicial segregationist structure that has produced him. And our job as people of color is to work within those channels to see what we can do to address that situation and make sure it doesn't happen again. It is the structure we have to fight, not the individual. And so when we learn to face those situations expecting that they're going to occur and then say to ourselves, how are we going to as effectively and constructively respond to them in ways that they do not happen to occur again, then I think we will address the problem. And the other question that will come in. Hi, my name is Jonathan. I am a senior at Roland High School. My question to all of you is, how can youth help and raise the tone? It's an easy one. No problem there. I'm going to jump in very quickly. I think that for me, my continued optimism comes from youth. I've been teaching a course called the Political Economy of Race for the last several years, and I've seen the change in my students over this period of time and their increased unwillingness to accept the status quo. And so in many ways, I think we have youth to look to. And as a student in Burlington and Burlington High School and other schools, students have been very activist about flying the Black Lives Matter fly a couple of years ago and all of the education around that. The middle school is doing some work around this as well. So I think kids can do something, and I actually think that you are the moral leaders at this particular point in time, even if it is to discuss and raise these issues in school where there is immediate attention and the community becomes educated by the work that you do. I was going to say that I think that students can help youth by ensuring that they are educated, not just in the academic subjects, but learn how to be advocates for themselves and those around them. Actually I was going to leave the professor around this story earlier, but in the fall of 1996 I had a great fortune of taking a history of the Civil Rights Movement class at the University of Virginia with Julian Bond. Julian Bond was a very famous participant in the American Civil Rights Movement. This student nonviolent coordinating committee among them. I remember in October of that semester I went to Professor Bond and said, hey Professor Bond, I'm running for student council, can you plug me? This is right before class started. He's like, you know what? I'm going to help you by having you plug yourself and you're going to do it right now. And he literally said in front of 350 people, hey, where your classmates is running for student council and I want you to hear from them now. His whole point was that yes, he could have said to me that yes, I'm going to support you and I'm going to give you a shout out, that would have been great, but what I'm going to do is sort of take charge, take a big responsibility for my own student council campaign. That is to say on the student side I think that being students of history is very important. You know that phrase about those who don't know their history are repeated. And so I think students can one, take advantage of educational opportunities and not, and really maximize your performance academically, but also be an advocate for your peers as well. And because I think a unified force gets a lot more done than the individual can and so forth. And so I think just one by taking advantage of opportunities there and the adults who are there to help give students the cultural capital, the financial capital, the other mechanisms that can be functioning and prosperous adults is how they can support them in that. I think the other thing to follow along with that that I would say is, it's really easy to throw labels at one another. Racist is an easy label actually. And there, race is a complex thing. It takes conversation. It takes education. I think historical background is a really important thing because there are social systems and laws that created these situations and these social conditions between people of different races. And so it's not easy to say you're just this and you're just that. You know, that's a meme. We can't address these problems with that. It takes some deep learning on the issues. And it takes then unwinding some of the stuff that has been created that makes racism and racial inequity happen. And so really being a student of those things so that you can say, hey, if I'm going to attack the workplace, is it through legislation? Is it through training of people? Is it through education? Then I'm going to attack that one thing that's a different way to do that than racism in the healthcare system versus racism in zoning decisions that are made or school board decisions. So get really deep in terms of really understanding something, be willing to ask questions because that's an important thing and absolutely standing up. Standing up is probably the most important thing and those of us that walk around with privilege need to use it to go effect. So let me also add to that and these are all important, very important responses to your question. But in Vermont, I also feel that white Vermonters need to prepare themselves for the inevitability of the nation becoming a predominantly nation of color. And to do that, white Vermonters have to try and place themselves in personal experiences where they are part of the minority. This can be through high school, elementary school, junior high school, middle school exchange programs where you are in an environment for several weeks where you are in the minority and experiencing and befriending and interacting I say this because I have served for the most part predominantly white churches and I remember especially when I was in Williamstown, Massachusetts the church that I was a part of entered into a partnership with the church in Romania. They had just come out of communist Churches, communist regime and were now experiencing the freedom. But I thought that's fine but it's still a safe route so what we did also was establish a partnership with a congregation in Harlem, New York that particular congregation was a predominantly black and Hispanic congregation that was pastored by a white man and I happen to be a black man pastoring a white congregation so my confirmation group spent a week at this church in Harlem being hosted by a predominantly black and brown congregation being protected being fed, being nourished being inculcated with the environment of that community and learning how to overcome their fear, first overcoming their fear and then realizing that they could feel secure within that environment and trust that the perspectives, the suspicions, the prejudices, the stereotypes that they came into that environment with transformed them in ways that they came back to their white environment with a new story with a new narrative with a new perspective that even their parents did not have place yourself in an environment where you are not in the majority and learn and experience and grow from that experience to the point where you can change the environment in which you are the majority I'd like to add that as well something similar I was going to mention as well as building relationships but first of all, thank you John for that question it's good to see you again, John I think was in a class I gave last year on jobs so it's good to see you again but a lot of times as was mentioned earlier there is some criticism on the implicit bias training that has been happening in the last 10 years or so and it's justifiable criticism because you go into the hour class someone tells you some information that you know and then you walk out and you check the box and it's good to go or at least you think it is and nothing's changed you haven't changed, the environment hasn't changed the institution hasn't changed and it's very important that yes we tear down systemic racism white supremacy but we also have to build relationships and if you build relationships with somebody that's different than you then you're starting to dismantle that on that micro level yeah make a friend, figure it out it's been said that the north won the civil war but that the south won the narrative and so we have this thing in America still today that put stereotypes on black and brown people that were dangerous that we're not as good in education that we're still you know just like to dance and you know all these different kinds of stereotypes that were repatuated you know by the southern philosophies and so we're all victims of that even black and brown people end up becoming victims of that type of racism where we look at ourselves a certain way because that's the way this country has portrayed us and so if you get to know someone on that personal level then you find out oh wait they're not that's not necessarily true and then you keep up that work because what we tend to do as human beings is then we make that person an outlier and we say oh wait you're not like the rest you know I got a lot of that when I was growing up in Randolph like you know I don't know my black boy but not like you you're different you know we're all different we're all human beings we all have all sorts of different personalities characteristics dreams and desires that we share but we're all human beings in this world so building a relationship and getting to know people I think if 101 is one way youth can start to dismantle racism I just had one thing for Jonathan two I don't know if people around here have heard of this but four or five years ago a group of educators and social action interested people started experimenting with a training program for young people called Vermont What's the Story? that is based partially out of Millbury College and the Randolph Teachers Program but really their own thing and it's free and it's statewide and it's open to middle and middle school and high school students kind of takes more to high school but it's a year long program that you I think the applications are open now they're rolling until they fill the next ground and it sort of starts writing September about once a month they come together and have an intense weekend or kind of a working day weekend and their purpose is to give you tools and for giving you space and connection across this youth leadership group to hone what it is you'd like to change in our site and so they they don't define that for you you want to change racism? Here's some research here's some other folks who want to connect with you get to work and we're going to give you the incubator to work on it so they'll develop media training you'll have the chance to do documentary of high quality using actual professional cameras all that's provided to feed you you have to sleep in nice places and then over time you get to start interviewing and kind of tackling at your project or program or whatever you're trying to learn and change at high levels so they can help broker access so that you are asking questions of high level officials or experts not just in Vermont but across the country and some of the work that's coming out of these young people it's taking them in there's some work that is now playing around in the country and being heard getting funneled into next generation leadership work across the country and they're not alone now this idea also the idea of can we partner beyond ourselves because Vermont Vermont is Vermont we have our demographic by the way Burlington and Meduski are under represented in this particular leadership group so spread the word but there is now Kentucky one and so the Kentucky one and the Vermont one kind of exchange ideas different demographics across them and then when they follow up there's also a Navajo one there's a Atlanta one and it's exciting and it's figuring things out every year so it's shifting and changing it's sort of innovating and learning but spread the word Vermont loves the stories on the web so we'll take one more question and we'll ask the panel for final comments thank you so much for having this important panel and everybody coming my name is Maggie Stanley and I'm an artist and a youth advocate and educator and it's a part question part statement I took interest to Savannah and Georgia over the holidays for a possible teaching position and I hadn't been there and I was really shocked by the racism and saddened and let's see I grew up partly in Texas but I hadn't been in a place that was made so much on the back of slavery and the economic segregation was sort of dawning and shocking to see and venture New York City but it was I went walking around certain neighborhoods and people were like don't go do that and something that really struck me and so the reason I'm sharing this is it brings it around to Jonathan's point and many others points of building friendships on the really micro level and connections and I think systemic change obviously is needed but I'm a big believer in like grassroots and the macro and I'm wondering like within your institutions individually could you propose a project like for example in Savannah it kind of sickened me walking through these beautiful squares that I had heard so much about to see military hero after military hero and I was like where are the slaves they built all these ranches and stuff and you know where I was staying at one Airbnb I was on the phone with my host and I'm glad she was very frank with me but I was talking about going checking out this one bar I had read about and she said oh I wouldn't go there it's a black bar but we were on the phone and then she caught herself and she said oh I don't know if you're black and I was like and so that was an opportunity for me right to engage with her and I found like you know pulling up the word racist and racism that doesn't really work and what was so ironic is this woman who traveled around the world there was a map and her home all the places she traveled all the continents and you know I tried to address it diplomatically and I addressed it in a private note in my review and I gave this bar a great review in my public review and I went and I had a great time and you know I'm glad she didn't speak in code but I just was I was really saddened and you know the story of Savannah is it was first inhabited by Native Americans I think they're called the Chippewa ways and this Oval Thorpe arrived from England and arrived on the cliff and he did not believe in slavery so for several years him and an Indian chief built a relationship and then he went away and the one monument to the Indian chief is a small boulder you know so we all know this right and we're all here because we know this so I think you know institutionally and personally within our own schools and gardens and neighborhoods if we could put up a monument like I love what this panelist said about who knows who George Washington is and who knows who Martha Washington slave is and bring recognition to these lives and these individuals and I'm wondering any of you within your sphere can you propose a project or something and have that carried out, thank you you need to know that I am part of a program called Stopping Stones I don't know if any of you have heard of that it is a program that acknowledges first of all that the enslavement of African Americans is a problem that America is just going to have to own up to and it is not a problem that is a part of the south it is a problem that is a part of the nation as a whole and white Americans regardless of their generation regardless of how removed you are from the situation of slavery you are still a part of it and in a way you have to accept it as an alcoholic accept it as a recovering alcoholic accept it he or she will never be fully recovered from that addiction and African Americans must accept that we will never be fully recovered from the fact that we were victimized by it is something that we are just going to have to live with but live with it is such a way we can learn from it and grow from it and in the way that the Holocaust museums in Germany and the hard-tied monuments in South Africa are ways of instructing future generations that this will not happen again we need to own up to it and embrace it and learn from it in such a way that it won't happen again with us we are not there yet we are repeating we have the dangerous possibility of repeating in some form or fashion the ignorance the prejudice oppression of our past and we cannot ignore the president administration of this government of our president and of our congress and say that this cannot happen again I will openly say that our president president has the inclinations of a Hitler and he may not go that far but if given the possibilities if given the situations I think he would but he is not removed from other people in like-minded positions that exist throughout this country and exist throughout the world we need to remind ourselves that we are never too far removed from the ugliness of our past we need to claim it as a recovering alcoholic as a recovering drug addict claims the fact that we will never be fully resolved of it but we have to live with it in a way that it doesn't destroy us anymore thank you so at this time I am going to say a big thank you to all of you you've been a wonderful audience and to our great panel panelists I really like to believe that decades of experience and each came from a different angle and so we must compare that we have a very credible panel and so I am going to ask it to give them a round of applause if any of the panelists have final comments or comment definitely final comment this has been a great experience great opportunity for the discussion the comment made earlier about the statue that was down in the south I took a trip with a group of the peace and justice center down to Montgomery, Alabama where the equal justice institute has created a museum and a memorial to the lynchings that occurred in the south and the museum also shows the connection from slavery to mass incarceration now and one of the things that Brian Stevenson who is the founder and director of the equal justice institute talked about is exactly that where there has been great injustice there are places for people to come and process that information and we haven't done that with slavery we haven't really owned up to the racial injustice that has happened in this country and he also even talks about what would it be like if you were to go to Germany to Berlin right now and see statues of Hitler everywhere or go to a school that was named after Hitler and that's what is experienced in the south Lee High School General Lee was the most popular school name most common school name in the south there are statues of those that fought for the Confederacy and none that fought for freedom and liberation so we do have a long way to go in this country having opportunities like this to discuss it with your co-workers, with your family, with your friends is a very important part of the legacy of Martin Luther King the idea that he had was to put things out on the media to send people out in nonviolent demonstrations to be arrested to have a captured on TV to have a captured when they were hosing people down and releasing dogs so that others would understand the truth of what's happening and I think that every time that we have a conversation with individuals we dispel ignorance where we're denying what's happening and we start to break down some of that systemic racism I was just going to say really quickly I know we're out of time but and you asked a question about the monuments and having heard them again in Virginia and spending 20 years in Charlottesville we know what happened there the fact that a young woman was killed about 3-4 blocks from our house so I have an hour of material on that I'll keep that to myself right now but going back to my original comment and this is to everyone, to all of us how will you use your drum major instinct and how will you be an advocate for change we can look sometimes inside ourselves for the impetus to improving not only our lives but our communities and those around us so I'll stop with that