By John Klar
It is now nearly eight months since TJ Donovan denounced our state as systemically racist without investigating even the possibility that higher black incarceration rates are related to the drug trade.
The opioid crisis has unfolded in three waves — the first being from doctors’ prescriptions. The second two waves involved flows of heroin, and then fentanyl, to replace the prescription opioids. Is it possible that the increase in incarceration rates of African Americans in Vermont correlates to the cartel-led, inner-city-trafficked drug explosion that is sweeping our economically and culturally vulnerable Green Mountain State?
Here is a graph from an article titled “Here’s how black people actually fare in Bernie Sanders’ home state“:
Source: Vermont Department of Corrections
The article cited observes that “few criminal justice scholars or workers in Vermont seem able to explain how this happened,” and reports that Vermont’s defender general Matthew Valerio could not “point to specific policies that might have led to such rapid growth.”
“I have no information as to why,” Valerio said. “The simple answer is that there’s bias in the system. But it could also be coincidental.”
Without addressing the possibility of a drug trade link, the article concludes: “This does not mean that Vermont is uniquely horrible for black people. It simply means that Vermont is not exempt from the same manifestations of racial inequality that define the rest of the country, even if many Vermonters have trouble agreeing how it came about.”
Now read about the ethnic bill Scott signed for this new world: “We are creating a world where people don’t say ‘I don’t see color,’ but rather say ‘I embrace all of who you are.’”
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ambitiously sought to federally regulate racism through the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution — if people were denied service or mistreated, and that treatment impacted interstate commerce, then the federal government had jurisdiction. But Vermont’s attorney general, governor, and Legislature are legislating school textbooks based on children being bullied — is the argument that the textbooks are flawed or at fault? That the teachers must be reprogrammed and are at fault? That new textbooks will prevent bullying? (It sounds much more like institutionally inculcating a generation to feel guilty and blame themselves for past crimes. If they didn’t have white guilt, they sure will now.)
What I am saying here is that this new law is glaringly unconstitutional on numerous levels. Has a single voice of protest been raised under our Golden Dome? I pray that Vermont will have the discussion of race we have not had — as in, when it is wrong to call people or cultures racist without evidence; whether it is ever right to use government to change or regulate what people think; whether the higher incarceration rates of blacks are due to out-of-state origin or systemic racism by Vermont’s professionals. And how about this: Why are we the only state with Black Lives Matter flags at our schools? That organization is highly partisan and has ties to leftist anarchist groups. I am a student of Martin Luther King, not Malcolm X — what are Vermont’s students being taught to be?
VTDigger reported on June 18 that 95 percent of Vermont State Police stops are of white motorists, but that search and arrest rates are higher for blacks and hispanics: “Scott said he is deeply concerned by the disparity in searches and arrests between white and minority motorists. … ‘It’s sort of this total culture we are trying to go through,’ Scott said of the state police. ‘There is still a lot of work to be done and we are not satisfied.’”
If only Governor Scott were as deeply committed to supporting the police as he is of condemning them.
So in this final part of my mea culpa to Governor Scott, for an article published at American Thinker which said he labeled Vermonters irredeemably racist, I submit that he has been complicit in that process, including signing the bill that claims that our culture needs to be legislatively altered through indoctrination of schoolchildren. I agree with American Thinker’s title-writers that Phil Scott has claimed our Vermont culture is irredeemably racist.
Or perhaps I would simply employ Phil Scott’s explanation as to why he recently called President Trump’s tweets racist: “I don’t know him well enough to know whether they were racist and that’s the way he feels. … But again, does it really matter? The words are there, so whether it’s something he believes or something that he’s using for a politically strategy, both are equally bad from my standpoint.”
It is we Vermonters who are owed a mea culpa from our governor. Though I twice voted for him, Phil Scott has not represented me and my family — we have been betrayed on guns, race, immigration, free speech, abortion and drug interdiction. Phil Scott has abandoned all fealty to conservatism, to his own political party, to his loyal constituents and to his own culture.
He is not my governor.
John Klar is an attorney and farmer residing in Brookfield, and pastor of the First Congregational Church of Westfield.
There is a pattern, a trail. Looking for crimes, racism and statistics will not enlighten or come to the source of our conflicts.
You can look behind the trees to see if there is a crime committed. You’ll not find any. So where is the push for all this coming from. It’s not a can you see the forest from the trees issue. One need only look down by our feet. Our state has been covered in astro turf, if we follow the origins of the astro turf organizers and organizations we find the true source and problem our state is dealing with.
A complicit, censored, moderated and paid for press keep a false narrative alive. They are often known to share the same bed, be in numerous of the same organizations, the “love” fest continues.
Our state is not racist. Our state has been subverted. Our state has been over run with astro turf.
Why can’t the content of character be judged by the color of one’s teeth or their blood, instead of the color of their skin?
Because that would serve no political purpose…or sell newspapers.
If anyone wants to know why racism remains prevalent in our society, consider those who gain from it.
Why can’t the content of character be judged by the color of one’s teeth or their blood, instead of the color of their skin?
Because that would serve no political purpose…or sell newspapers.
I anyone wants to know why racism remains prevalent in our society, consider those who gain from it.
Thanks for pointing out the truth about our Vermont government. It is the voters who have signed on to all the craziness that has been imported into our state. We now have drugs killing and ruining our youth, we have a legislature full of non-Vermonters who imported bad ideas from where they escaped from and we have a RINO governor (from Vermont) who has sold out to the progressive tribe. When the governor first ran for election I voted for his primary opponent. I told people that the reason was that Phil Scott has been buddies with all the lefties for 16 years as senator in the minority party. He is an insider of the highest order and can’t bring himself to actually represent the voters who out him in office. To do so he would have to burn bridges built over the last 2 decades he represented Washington county as a senator. The politicization of our schools, the indoctrination of students to the progressive way and the quest for total control over the lives of Vermonters has brought us the turmoil we live with now. We can’t have a parade in Vermont without social justice warriors holding it up or displaying their propaganda on a float. Traffic is held up while spoiled, indoctrinated robots lay in the road with no police response. We are becoming the city of Oz with the all powerful government behind the curtain. We are all afraid to say the wrong thing. The politicians have found a way to melt away any resemblance of an individual spine for fear of being shamed. All of this should make all of us very nervous. Apparently it’s going to have to get much worse before people make a change. Under the current situation that may not be too far off. TAKE BACK VERMONT, and not to an earlier time. Take back Vermont from the carpetbaggers who brought all of this to our beautiful state. Vote them out!
John, you’d make a great CEO!
The graph is through 2014, as seen in bottom notes. And of course, I do not propose that there would be a direct correlative (time) link given delays in prosecution, and other variations. There is no way I can possibly draw any factual conclusions — just as there is no way the article’s writers, or the Governor or Donovan, can have any kind of certainty that this (statistically volatile, because of such low numbers of blacks) information demonstrates systemic racism or that our police are all racists. Either they know something they are not sharing, or they have recklessly reached sweeping conclusions that may or may not be true. It’s time to find out what the truth is…. The AG must be working on that right now.
We are in 2019 correct, this chart shows data 1999-2001 !! But if you chase the data back,
you’ll notice the spike in Crime and that is when the “Big Cities ” thugs, headed to Vermont
peddling their goods and Vermont’s drug problems started ” Big Time “.
It was an easy hop from New York, Massachusets, New Jersey and yes, most of these ” trade
experts” are black, if you come flying up interstate 91 or 89 … you may get busted.
It the cost of doing business, it’s not racist, it’s just good police work……..Keep it up !!
1999-2001 is the 100% baseline for measuring the increase in various populations from 1993 -2014 following the horizontal line with the increase (decrease) in population shown on the vertical axis of the chart. Example the 2014 black population in Vermont is 250% of the baseline where the blue vertical line intersects the various population lines.
Mr. Klar’s writings echo the sentiments of many Vermonters, I’m sure. Yes, Phil Scott is a big disappointment to those of us who voted for him; and gave him financial support – (won’t make that mistake again)! Perhaps the governor himself is a racist? Might explain some of his apologist behavior of late. If you do the crime, you (should) do the time, regardless of skin color or ethnicity. “Identity politics” has no place in a lawful society. But, alas, such common-sense, conservative values are disappearing rapidly in the socialist utopia that Vermont has become. We’re in deep trouble, I fear.
Graph is outdated – its 20 years old. Also it is not rates of incarceration by race but ‘growth’ in rates of incarceration by race. Only if data is parsed can true reasons be discovered – for example if the incarcerated are residents and what they were convicted of.
There was a horrific acid attack by a black man completely disfiguring his white wifes face a while back – this and other crimes could prove to be stastically nonracially motivated as anyone who committed such a crime ia expected to be incarcerated.
Most of the incarcerated in our state are in fact poor and white which is why the leftists virtue-signal by preying upon racial minorities for their slanted studies. Could it be they are just poor regardless of race.