 Hello everyone. Thank you for tuning in to the Straight Talk Vermont show. I'm Bruce Wilson, Executive Director. And I have an incredible guest today. We'll talk to today in a few minutes. But right now, I want to update you on some of the things that we're doing through our programs. Most of you know that we have a gallery in the University of Arts so wonderful. It's a art so wonderful gallery and performing center. And we we we chased places in I think it was May, May 22nd. And so we've been doing some incredible things in here. So it's 8,000 square feet. We had Vermont Youth Symphony Orchestra performed there. We have black artists performed there. It's coming up three times and and we have like over 400 pieces of art in there. Rather artists most all of the artists are from around artists from around Vermont. Some of the artists have art in galleries around the country. Very famous artists. If nothing else you can come in and you should bring your kids here or partner or whoever. Just to check it out. Just walk around and see the art that Vermont have to offer. It's incredible. You know I sit there and let's watch. Look at the artist. Like I'm so always amazed and so many people want to put art in our gallery. And I'm I'm wanting to know what they happen. We also have 60% of the murals and burles in our arts. Art so wonderful murals. We created that in 2003. In 2010 we created art so wonderful electric boxes. All those cool lecture boxes you see around. It's through art so wonderful lecture boxes as well as our partners around department all around Cheney County. We do have in Rutland and St. Albin's and we'll put one in your neighborhood too. We have over 50 awards and we have done over 700 events. And so I'm very excited to right now. Can I have excited to talk to big Hartman who is the executive director and legal counsel for Human Rights Commission and that's in Vermont. And big it's got a credible staff and represent a lot for people who looks like everybody in the state. So big tell us about first of all how do you get involved in human rights? Well thanks so much for having me Bruce. I'm really happy to be here and be talking with you anytime I get to talk with you. I'm happy. Bruce is one of our commissioners at the Human Rights Commission and I really thank you for your service. But I got involved in doing human rights work mostly because I was an attorney. I went to law school because I wanted to see change in the world. I wanted to see a more just America and I feel very blessed and fortunate that I've been able to continue to work in Vermont since going to Vermont Law School. And I've been with the Human Rights Commission for just about two and a half years now. I started as a staff attorney investigator and I just recently became the executive director in July. Wow man. And I know I was part of the hiring process of among the four of the commissioners. And wow we are always so excited you know. Big boy Yang was our ED before you and boy so smart and I'm glad you learned a lot on her too much. I'm telling you boy comes with the answer you know. And boy don't have the answer boy find the answer. And that's a lot of like you you know if you don't have that you always come with the angle they don't have. You always come with the answer. Big always come with the answer and who to know if you never had the answer because you know you always come with the answer. And you're very like you know like you know boom you know what I'm kidding I You know, you ain't taking nothing from nobody. It's all good, you know what I mean? You want to work, you want to do the, you work for the people who you serve. I love that so much about Big. Big is also a part of like the art community. You know, we do a lot of things in the community. Talk to people, being like not just on the straight talk for my show, but you're all other shows. You do letters and you talk to people. You answer questions for individuals who are just very curious and interested about what is Human Rights Commission, which is HRC, Ekremans. And I'm happy and proud to be one of your commissioners. And I depend, as you know, I depend on you. I'm like, Big, where should we go? Can we go this way? Should we go? And then you always, you know, take me to the right place. So, thank you for bringing ID. And thank you for allowing me to be your commissioner. Also, too, telling you as our ED, when I found out your name, was a part of the pool to be one of the employees in who were applying for the ED position, man. I was so happy. I was so happy. I should, you know, I should, I mean, I gotta, you know, I just was happy that you, you know, wanted to do this work, you know? I mean, the net state of your position is to go higher than, you know, being in our legal counsel and being in our, you know, I was working with, what was your position? Yeah, I was doing investigative work, investigating the discrimination complaints that come to the Human Rights Commission. So glad you mentioned Bor Yang, my predecessor. Bor was really an inspiration to me and the reason that I wanted to come work at the HRC in the first place because she really, you know, has been pushing the needle forward for all people who might be facing discrimination in Vermont. I was obviously just as sad as you to hear that she was leaving and it felt really important to me to be able to provide some continuity for our work rather than have someone come in, you know, needing to learn kind of everything about our process. It felt really important that we be able to maintain our, not have any gap in service, not have any gap in our case work and all of the important policy work that we're doing across the state. Yeah, and another good thing too is like, when we did the, we were saying, I thought we did a good interview process, what do you think? You think our interview process was pretty decent with our staff and commissioners and do you think we did? Yeah, I thought it was very in-depth. The only thing I would have changed about is that my first interview was the day of the flood and I was by phone, trapped at my house. Yeah, I would have preferred different timing on that. It was kind of a stressful day. I bet it was. As a Montpelier resident or, you know, living outside of Montpelier area, there was just a lot going on. But I was very happy that once the decision was made, I was able to just hit the ground running and work to backfill my investigator position right away. Kind of feel like we should back up and let folks know about what we do with the Human Rights Commission. So we are a state agency in the state of Vermont. We're based out of Montpelier and we receive complaints of discrimination in three main areas. Housing, all housing discrimination complaints can come to us. We also investigate complaints that are brought to HUD involving housing discrimination. Also, any discrimination in places of public accommodation, which is a really broad area of the law, basically any public place, any government service, it can be schools, it can be police stops, it can be any services from state government, as well as businesses, hotels, restaurants, like anything that serves the public is considered a place of public accommodation. So if folks feel they've been discriminated against in housing or places of public accommodation, we are the place to come to have that complaint heard and investigated. Also, we do investigations of employment discrimination for only for state employees. If you are a non-state employee and you think you've experienced employment discrimination, you can go to the attorney general's office where they would do an investigation or the EEOC, which is the federal agency, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Those cases, if they involve state employees, will get referred to our office and we generally will conduct those investigations ourselves. And once, if we just, so people can contact us by phone, by email, through our website, we have a questionnaire and just calling our main line. We only have one staff person who receives all of the inquiries we receive every day, who can take those calls and respond to those emails. So it can be a little bit of a wait time, sometimes people really are experiencing an urgent situation and we aren't always able to respond to those in the time that people need. So we can often provide a referral for maybe another agency that might be able to support folks in the immediate needs. Once we, if we receive enough information to believe that someone has stated a claim of discrimination under the law, then we will help the individual with drafting a complaint if they need that assistance. And then we would initiate an investigation. We have three staff attorney investigators who are charged with investigating complaints all over the state. They are disinterested individuals in that they do not represent either party. They are non-bias objective investigators looking at facts, conducting interviews, gathering documents, reviewing emails, whatever may be relevant to a particular case. And then they will issue an investigative report if they're not able to assist the parties with some type of conciliation, some type of settlement or resolution. They'll write an investigative report. You're very familiar, Bruce, with those. They're very detailed, very comprehensive summary of the facts, the investigation that was conducted, and they also include a legal analysis. Those reports are reviewed by the commissioners at our monthly meetings. And the commissioners are the ones who actually vote and make a determination as to whether or not discrimination has occurred. That is not the equivalent to like a judge ordering it or a jury trial. It's a determination under the law. It can be helpful to get the parties to find a resolution. And it opens up a six month time period where the HRC will help the parties with a settlement if we can. Or we may decide to take the matter ourselves to court to enforce Vermont's anti-discrimination statutes. Well, we do a lot, and you said we only have three attorneys, three staff attorneys that does the investigation. That's right. And that's through HRC, right? Our three attorneys. We have three attorneys on staff who are the investigators. Yep. And one person who is our executive staff assistant, Maya Hanron. Your administration, administrator. Administrator, assistant. Yeah, who receives all those initial inquiries and questions. So it's really tough. The investigators are handling a large case load. Anytime there's staff turnover, cases slow down. And some cases take two or three years to come to completion, which we know is not ideal. In my dream world, we would have double the staff. But that's my dream world for you two. I know. And we're gonna do it. So, let me ask you a question. So an individual will call in or email you or go to the website, whatever ways they contact you. They think they might have a case, a discrimination case based on being into housing or through, you know, HUD, I guess, and employees for the state. How long does it, and you find, because you're the ultimate, you're the principal, you find that, okay, this is a good case after your team bring it to you or Maya, probably your administrator bring it to you and say, this is, I don't know how that works. Does she say, this is Maya's, there's not your lead person or administrator say, this might be a good case or, should we all look at this, how that works? Then you do a case, how does it work? Yeah, so our staff person who handles the intakes is not an attorney. Primarily she's just gathering information and giving folks an opportunity to tell their story, to see, and then she brings that information to me and we decide whether, I decide whether to, proceed with that. Yeah, make it a complaint. A complaint, okay. Once it's a complaint, then we assign an investigator to handle it. We send out a notice of the complaint to the respondents, to the people who are accused of discrimination. We give them a letter that says that they have to provide a response to that complaint, to a point by point, to each paragraph of the complaint to either admit or deny, provide additional information. There's always more to the story that we need to hear, so we ask them to also produce any documents that they may have that are relevant to the case. And then the investigator will proceed once they have that information. So we take on the case, right? So how long does it usually take? I know you said it, but I didn't write it down. It really varies, but I would say it's a fast, yeah, our rules say that we shall make every reasonable effort to complete an investigation in six months. That is not, we're not able to do that right now. Based on the points that I've seen through some of the complaints that are reporting through our investigators, it's a lot of points. They talk to a lot of people. It's a big, big deal. This is not a small thing, it's the investigative. Work is incredibly detailed. Right. And so what I'm saying is that, wow, they talk to everybody that's concerned. We really do. We try to talk to anyone who has relevant information and sometimes that can take a few months to get someone in person. We try to meet with them live. And then once all of the interviews and documents have been reviewed and completed, then there's an investigative report that's written that is very extensive. As you know, sometimes there are 10 or 15 pages, but that's gotta be like a really simple set of facts. More often we're looking at 20 or 30 page reports, especially if it's a series of events. If someone's claiming harassment, for example, it's usually over time. It's something that there are multiple incidents that we have to investigate and then summarize and then analyze, including doing a lot of legal research. So yeah, in the dream scenario, we would get cases done within six to 12 months. In reality, it's more like 12 to 24 months. I have just when I came on as an investigator, there was a lot of older cases that had been waiting for a new investigator to get assigned to them. Some of those cases, I completed as quickly as I could and it was a total of maybe three or more years that those cases had been pending with us. And sometimes that means it's another year before that the actual events where we're investigating occurred. If someone does wanna file a complaint with us, our rules require that they come to us and file a complaint within one year of the last incident of the event of their discriminatory act. So people don't wanna wait too long to come to us. But also, if too much time has passed, it's very hard to get a clear picture of what really happened. People may not be available, people may have moved, we've lost contact information or people just don't remember things anymore or even people pass away. So we can get the best investigation in the most timely manner if we hear about it quickly. But even then, just the initial intake process getting from contacting our office to there being an actual complaint signed, that can take a few months easily. So let me ask you a question, Vic. Is there a timeline for a complaint? Like say, let's do the state, let's say state, let's say to one of our state employees, DLC or whatever, just hypothetically. Do they have a timeline that they can come and file a complaint with HRC about whatever happened? Is it a timeline that's too long and we can't do it? It just has to be within one year. And then they're fine to come. We have to get the complaint filed within one year of the day to the incident or at least they need to have told us, express their intention to file a complaint with us. Awesome. But there's no timeline for how long our cases have to take by our rules or statute. So I know HRC are for trainings, like human rights. Yeah. Know your rights and can you explain some of those trainings that we do or could do or can put together for maybe an organization or for the public? Absolutely. As you know, the trainings is a topic that you and I share a deep passion for getting the word out to everyone, what the law says, what our process is, what the expectations are for all people. So we are revamping our training plan for this year for the 2024 calendar year. But right now what we've historically offered and what we will continue to offer for sure is monthly fair housing trainings. Those since COVID times have been offered virtually and we seem to be finding that platform works well. So those trainings are once a month, one Monday morning a month, that folks can attend those virtually and those are live in-person trainings taught by our staff attorney investigators who are really the experts in the state about fair housing. It's mainly, it's not exactly a know your rights training, it's more of like what folks, what especially landlords and housing providers should know so that they comply with the law. But we do from time to time offer know your rights trainings. Last year we published a know your rights booklet that's available in the 14 languages that are most commonly spoken in Vermont. And we also do trainings, historically we've done trainings kind of on request whenever anyone in the community is looking for a training on a certain topic. If we're able to provide it, we do do those and we now offer them free of charge. But that has included topics like harassment and bullying in schools. It's included things like workplace harassment prevention and we're gonna be looking this year towards a real comprehensive discrimination prevention series so our wonderful director of policy education and outreach, Amanda Garces and I are developing a multi course sort of six month long series that folks can attend, some will be in person, some will be virtual. These are gonna include general information about the Human Rights Commission and our anti-discrimination statutes. And then inclusive practices, implicit bias is a really big topic that we've offered a lot of trainings on over the years. We consider that sort of foundational information for discrimination prevention is to become aware of what our biases that we hold that are unconscious that might be playing out in our interactions with others. And then we've recently, over the last couple of years with a coalition of amazing folks have developed let's talk race cards which are a training and discussion tool. So we now are gonna be offering an eight hour training using those let's talk race cards to get conversations about racism and systemic racism. All of us more comfortable having those kinds of conversations. And then we'll be also offering additional trainings as part of this training program about LGBT and disability inclusion and a lot of those topics that you and I care about so deeply. Yeah, no doubt about it. And I'm glad you mentioned all of those because we both care about those so deeply. And so diversity and equity and inclusion. So we haven't really dug deep into that as a training, have we? I think the HRC has offered different trainings that certainly touch on those topics. And when we have public agencies or especially or groups or commissions that reach out to us for trainings on diversity, equity and inclusion we usually start them with the implicit bias training. And another topic that's really important to that and that I forgot to mention is bystander intervention. So we also are building that into our training series which is around what do you do when you witness or observe discrimination or a bias incident. What are the strategies that are gonna work for you to step in and intervene in that moment to put a stop to the conduct and or support the person who may have been facing something wrong or call out bias when you see it, call out racism and prejudice when you see it having an impact in your community. And I know, this is very important to me as well because as a world change we all as individuals as people as whoever hell we are changing and we need to know about those changes and be able to use the right correct words or pronouns. And so for instance like a LGBTQ you know what I mean is you know, and my degree is in psychology I'm trying to use the best words because you're gonna teach me, you're gonna teach, you're gonna train all of us through our staff. But anyways, so one year you might know a person as this individual and the next year you know as that individual and sometimes they see themselves their pronouns different from what it was. And so you get, I mean get clustered saying the same for 10 years I've known you. Right. And then trying to regroup and get it to the right way to say it. And so I know you probably got the training wrote up for us already, for our staff. But I know you're gonna put on a training for our staff around how to use the correct pronouns for individuals. And I'm so happy that you're doing that. Thank you so much that you're gonna do that because it's gonna make me better. And it's gonna make me conscious too of me that when I'm talking to a person you know I might wanna ask them what their pronouns are. You know what I mean before I even, before I even decided to open them on my damn iPhone. That's right, actually one of the most inclusive things we can do on this show is when we introduce ourselves we say what our pronouns are. That's something that is, or when we have name tags at an event that we say what our pronouns are on those name tags. As someone who is non-binary, gender non-conforming and I use they, them pronouns, it feels very welcoming and inclusive to me when I come into a space and we remember to talk about pronouns in our introductions. Then I'm like, ooh, I'm in a room of people who are thinking about this, who are trying their best. No one needs to be perfect about it. Everyone's gonna mess up. You know, and it's about how we kinda handle those moments and then do better, right? And say you're sorry, correct yourself, correct someone else, and then move on. Don't make it about like, oh, this is so hard for me to remember that kind of stuff which is de-centering the person who is marginalized in that situation. Right, and so for me, I'm just so happy that people who choose to be who in the hell they wanna damn be, and recognize me as who in the hell who I am, who I choose to be, don't call me nothing different from nothing else or what you used to call me, you know what I'm saying? And let's just get along, you know what I'm saying? And so that's how you gotta make me get better. The thing is, one thing, not the thing is, but one thing that I'm, you know, my little tiny brain, I always wanna, like, I need the need to know, like, what does some of these acronyms mean? I mean, you wanna go in the brain now? What does, you know, when you go like, see them, then, you know, what does that go to? How does that go to, you know, how does that flow to you? You know what I'm saying? Yeah, it's something that I really hope to be able to offer some more trainings for the public and other folks who wanna hear about it, because it's, the language here, especially in the world of LGBT plus inclusion, also in the world of, you know, racial conversations and in the context of talking about people with disabilities are, all of our language is shifting over the last several years, and I don't even know that I'm always, like, fully up to date on the current, you know, best language to use. We can always, we always all have more to learn on this stuff, so it's really important to just have that openness. I was gonna learn that part though, you know, like what those acronyms mean. I mean, like, you know, cause for me, like, you know, like I said, my degree in psychology. So I'm always like, you know, okay, that's this, because of that, that, you know, then I kinda understand it more because of this, and like, if I, you know, I can call you anybody who's with it, anybody, use anybody's acronyms, but if I don't know what it means, I don't, I just, I don't get advice, you know what I mean? Absolutely, and that's where in a lot of the trainings I've done in my life, especially around harassment, prevention, and workplaces and stuff, you start at the very beginning. Who are you, what's your acronyms? And what, what, what does L, what does G, what do these letters mean? What do they stand for? Why are we talking about this? Who does this matter to? And I think most folks in Vermont especially really want to be respectful. They wanna be inclusive. They just don't always know the right vocabulary. So then we tend to maybe avoid having those conversations or avoid bringing it up, cause they're afraid they might mess up. But in my experience, having an openness, having a curiosity is half the battle. And I have, I have no problem sharing with folks, answering questions they may have or whatever, so that, so that they can grow their understanding. To me though, learning from the younger generations is really important. For me, you know, I'm in my 40s. I didn't, I wouldn't grow up knowing what, there was no language around non-binary. What does that even mean? There was not, it just didn't exist as a concept. And that's where I give my credit to the younger, the younger folks, the folks who came after me to start to create these concepts and create the language so that more of us can understand actually who we, who we actually are. So that, you know, I find a lot about you so much. We touched on, we got the same feeling about a lot of things. Yeah. And so. Half that was not gonna be enough time for you to talk about. I already put the next show to the pronoun show right here. The pronoun show, sounds great. But anyway, so, you know, they tell me we still got like five minutes or whatever. But, big. One thing I know for a fact, and cause I continue, on the way that I know I'm better if I keep learning from people like you and people learning from the little kids or youth or whatever, that's how I get better. I always teach my youth or whoever that I'm not a doctor, lawyer, Indian chief, but I know a doctor, lawyer, and two Indian chiefs. And if I need an answer, I just go right to them, get it. And so the thing is nothing part, knowing about, for me, if learning about what pronouns mean is that, you know, I consider myself a he and me as him or whatever, you know. But you know what? If I learn something from somebody else who might be or she and them, they, you know, she and them or they, whatever it is. And, you know, I might see something in there, that's me. Yeah. You know what I'm trying to say? And so, wow. Now, what that means to my he and me as him, you know. What does that mean? How does that change me? Cause I said, wow. I do the same shit, you know what I mean? I do the same thing, you know. You know, make it out, we're the same on this, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. So, and so that means a lot to me for my heart, my own mission goals and objective and my own self. You know what I mean? My own spirituality, you know what I'm saying? That means a lot to me. That what that person described in them, me, that's me too. And so now how do I change he? How do I add that? Or meant to the following, you know, he or him. So that's why I need to know personally, is just how can I learn more about myself, you know what I mean? Yeah. I think my work around, you know, wanting to learn about others really did open my eyes to more about learning about myself. And I think it is, it's a journey that we take for others really, but it ends up being a journey that we take for ourselves as well. Yeah. So I guess, what you wanna add, Beck? I'm definitely gonna try and go out to the pronoun show. All right, well, I mean, we can get some guests on here. Stay tuned for a pronoun show. That's right. We'll get other people to help us, you know, some people who we know in the community can help us, maybe have a word or two that can, ways we can look at it, how we can think of, how we can think of using those words or how we can think of, not necessarily using the words because they're using the words, I mean, it's the using the words from the word, the other, that individual, how they want us to, but. Yeah. So I can't even get the words out of my mouth good because I want to, I want to be able to say, this, this, that, and other. I learned it from Big Heartman. Ain't no shake on this, all real, you know what I'm saying? You know, and so, you know, Big, let me, let me say one thing all the time, and that's B-I-G. Yeah. So the B-I-G said this, that's what it is. So, what about, so I know we got to, I got to come to, well, I'm coming. So our next, we have a meeting coming up. Yep. And I got it all, I got it, it's in a, where is it, it's a water barrier. Yeah, we're going to have most of our commission meetings this year in the Waterbury State Office Complex. It's a great space, fairly easy to access with, you know, public transit, great parking, accessible, all of that. Our commission meetings, as you know, are once a month. They tend to be the last Thursday or the fourth Thursday of the month, except for November and December, when we kind of combine one in the beginning of December. There are public parts of that meeting. Of course, it's a public commission subject to the open meetings law, but we, because so much of our investigation work is confidential by law, there are large portions of our meetings where we're talking about cases that are not public. It's not public information. So we're in executive session for a lot of those meetings, but we always welcome the public to come and sit in. You can, we have a link on our website under the HRC website, under About, and then Meetings. We have a public meeting link, so that, there it is, so that folks can sit in remotely. If you can't come to Waterbury, that's totally fine. And that way, for the executive session parts of the meeting, we don't have to kick you out, but you won't be included in the executive session unless you're a party to a case that's being discussed. But we do hope to have more public comment, public engagement in our work, whether that be in commission meetings, or whether it be in other outreach events that we host, that we participate in. We're looking forward to some fun events for Fair Housing Month, which is in April, and other cultural events that we like to be a part of and look forward to come up, and maybe we'll have an event at your art studio, gallery, I mean, and just, yeah, thinking of always inviting the public to let us know if there's something we can come and give a talk at, or share resources, pass out our publications and our materials. We're always happy to try to get boots on the ground, talk to folks in the community who may have questions about our work. So, I know we gotta go, but I gotta have all these questions burning in my head. And so thank you, thank you for, I mean, it's everything we all, you and I talked about, and about trainings and coming into the community and boots on the ground, and when we started training, and I wish it was like Denver, like 95 right now. Denver, right, but. It was hot when we were in Denver for that HUD conference, it was like 90. I know, but one thing when we were sitting at the table, we both banged at the table, like talking about all the speakers and we was right up front, and then right there in the front was everybody who was hood people. All of them said, boots on the ground. They was like, they ready to shake somebody. You know, they went out, like we make a look at each other like, damn right, and we're gonna do it, people, people. Yeah, we wanna make, you know, with our small staff, we have seven people on staff, but we still wanna try to make our way around the communities in Vermont, even especially the most underserved communities, and also we've got boots on the ground at the state house. We're gonna be working hard there to advance, you know, the right legislation and speak out about anything that might be come in our way that would be a detriment to civil rights in Vermont. And actually two more questions. So when a person come, like a community person might get joined in for the community time they have on our meetings, can they just talk about anything? We have been very welcoming of folks when the agenda allows to maybe, you know, if we have an open chunk of time in our day, then we would welcome someone who might wanna speak to us about current events or current policy issues we should be considering that pertain to discrimination or civil rights. That's something that we're open to. It's probably best if you wanna get on the agenda to reach out to our office and say, I wanna come, can you make time for me in the agenda? As you know, like our next meeting is jam-packed from nine to 4.30, we are booked up. So sometimes we don't always have time for that kind of public comment, but I think it'd be really great to think about doing like listening sessions or going around and doing more public events so people can get a chance to talk to us. Like I told you, I think, and I'll talk to our coach who's our chair of commissioners. And the rest of our commission is that I wanna be a part of everything that we do that's gotta be working with the community and community of people, but that's just the best I am, that's who I am, that's what I do, you know. So if you wanna present to someone, I don't have to say a damn thing, I can just carry your bags or whatever, but if we're going to a community somewhere, I think it's also as good as a person to see a person who looks like me in order to go to the Human Rights Commission, and then you say, wow, incredible, you know what I mean? A lot of people already said that to me, what? That's incredible, you know what I mean? The governor appointed you to be on a commission for the Human Rights Commission, yes. So one last thing, and if you wanna ask something, ask for this, but I have to do it because I'm a person of color. Now, if a person, a black person who looks like me or a person of POC, BIPOC, whatever, has been pulled over by police for no apparent reason, like no, no, as I would know, it's no apparent reason, like I don't know if my break line is out or nothing, but because they're behind me, but let's say it's not out, or say it is, whatever the hell, but what should I do while I'm in the car waiting for them to come up to me? What should I, as a, you know, kind of know my rights? What should I do? Should I sit there, should I jump out the car? Should I run like, what the, you know? Well, I can't give people advice about the law, or police stops, but I can say that as you may know, in the past, our office has conducted investigations of police departments who were believed to have been treating black men, especially differently than others in the community, or failing to respond to people of color reporting crimes or reporting threats, and we will investigate those as potentially, that's considered public accommodations. Police are considered a place of public accommodations and the services that they provide need to be equal, comparable for all people and if members of our BIPOC community are feeling marginalized or treated differently by those service providers that police are a public service, that's something we really wanna hear about and we will be investigating. Thank you. Well, we'll go over your title again cause you know it better than me. Sure. Who are you? Who are you and what do you do? I'm the Human Rights Commission for the State of Vermont. I am the Executive Director in General Counsel. No doubt about it. And we're so proud, I'm so proud to have you. You know. Thank you, Commissioner Wilson. Thank you. All right, thanks for joining us. Thank you. Our next show's coming up, people. Next show's coming up. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to Straight Talk from our show. See you next time.