Letter to the editor: Policing rooted in racism; Middlebury isn’t exempt

The history of the police may seem like it was a long time ago, and it is tempting to think that we should focus only on the present. However, the history of police is not only a relic. Even the star shape of the police badge, which originated from the first slave patrol badge, upholds that system that was created not so long ago. Another example is the use of dogs to enforce terror during slave catching, during civil rights protests, and today — it has even occurred in town against a Black Middlebury resid … (read more)

When Chief Hanley stated, “I reject completely the notion that Middlebury PD engages in systemic racism and I’m not going to engage in a debate over it,” in a previous article (“‘Defund the police’ arrives in Middlebury,” 6/25/20), it further confirms tha … (read more)

Editor’s note: The writer responds to an item in the July 30 edition of the Independent with a poem. From “Statement on Hacking Incident at Middlebury Selectboard Meeting” July 28: “For the second time in as many weeks the Town has been confronted with th … (read more)

Editor’s note: This message came from Brian R. Carpenter, chair of the Middlebury selectboard. In the early moments of the Middlebury selectboard’s July 28 meeting, which was being conducted via Zoom, an unidentified participant hacked into a live PowerPo … (read more)

VERGENNES — “Relaxation is a privilege. It’s complicity,” Rose Archer told the gathering of about 40 on the Vergennes green this past Saturday afternoon. Archer, a native of Trinidad and Tobago who grew up mostly in Newark, N.J., and is a recent graduate … (read more)

Our challenge in a predominatly white state is to promote a culture that accepts others as equals. Vermont did that recently, and with a fair amount of grace, by being the first state to legalize civil unions and later gay marriage in the late 1990s. But … (read more)

There is nothing new under the sun, the saying goes. It’s all been done before. In the case of racial inequality in the United States, the death of a Black man in police custody has happened so many times that people became apathetic — until George Floyd. … (read more)

MIDDLEBURY — Marissel Hernández-Romero, a Black professor from Puerto Rico, began a three-year appointment at Middlebury College in the Department of Luso-Hispanic Studies in 2017. She arrived with a “positive attitude,” she has said, but at the end of he … (read more)

BRANDON — A Black man who was ordered by Middlebury police to “raise his hands” after an erroneous report that he had been detaining a woman at gunpoint off Mary Hogan Drive is now talking about the incident. Bashiru Abdulaziz, a 38-year-old man who lives … (read more)

This week’s writer is Kemi Fuentes-George, a professor of political science at Middlebury College. This piece originally appeared in The Middlebury Campus newspaper. The most recent time I was stopped and harassed by police was shortly after I moved into … (read more)

Thank you for the “Not in Our Town?” article (June 25). I read with interest Chief Hanley’s assessment that the “video of the incident, taken from the two police cars at the scene, shows no evidence of racism.”  Let’s not let ourselves off the hook so eas … (read more)

As our community and country wrestle with individual and systemic racism, it is critical for each white Vermonter to acknowledge the racism within ourselves and the ways we benefit from it each day while this same system brutally murders and denies resour … (read more)

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” — Martin Luther King Jr.   Many years ago my husband and I attended a music bash that was organized and hosted by some friends of ours. It was an annual event tha … (read more)

“A common danger unites even the bitterest of enemies,” said the philosopher Aristotle. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed fault lines that separate people of color and whites, and it continues to shine a light on the terrible effect that white su … (read more)

VERGENNES — The Vergennes Union High School’s Racial and Social Justice Alliance has organized an anti-racism event on the Vergennes green for this coming Saturday, June 20, that will consist of a series of discussion groups. From 4 to 5 p.m. attendees ca … (read more)