Nigger Hating Rednecks in Vermont

In our community in Southern Vermont a group of youngsters who call themselves, “Nigger Hating Redneck Association” (NHRA) has appeared and it is a powerful opportunity to really address how racism affects us as a society and on a personal level. The teens who espoused this “Nigger Hating Redneck Association” should be invited to an open forum to clarify their opinions. Though I disagree with their racism, I’m grateful they aren’t in the closet. I suspect that for everyone of those youngsters in the NHR there are more behind them who say nothing. Do the parents and relatives who shaped these youngsters also feel this way? The problem is when “free speech” offends or hurts someone else, then the person’s right of free speech runs up against a wall. In no case should a person feel harmed or in danger because of offensive speech. But this NHRA reflects a more fundamental problem in society, despite progress over the past decades, the United States is still a profoundly racist and classist society that is evidenced by a prison population that is over sixty percent Black and Hispanic or in Vermont where minorities are ten times more likely to be incarcerated.

I want to understand how the “Nigger Hating Redneck Association” gained their insight that African Americans are somehow harmful to them. Given the population of their hometowns of Brattleboro and Guilford, Vermont are over 90% White: Why do they perceive Blacks or minorities as a threat to themselves? What are they angry at? Not valued? Not respected? Fearful? Alone? I want to sit down and listen to them, and by genuinely listening to them, they may be able to hear my concerns about racism and how it affects my life.

Hate mongering bigots from O’Reilly to Limbaugh fill the airwaves with their verbal flatulence, but those are the obvious examples. In the recent campaign of Hillary Clinton versus Obama, I kept hearing the subtext of the Clinton’s campaign, which was that Obama was uppity – “the elitist,” as they called him. How can you call a Black man whose White mother was on welfare and who grew up poor an elitist is baffling. Bill Clinton’s ranting of Obama as inexperienced and not ready – again, was the subtext that Obama was a boy? The neo-conservatives have no corner on racism. Racism and bias are as much a part of the USA fabric as the red, white, and blue on our flag. Democrat, Republican, Conservative, or liberal the racist rat lurks in every corner.

Let us consider the vilification of Reverend Wright who correctly pointed out that the USA is a racist and classist society, built on the bones of African American slaves, Chinese railroad workers, Mexican farm workers, the genocide of Native American Indians, and the list goes on. The New York Times on a front page rant, stopped just short of calling Reverend Wright “a crazy nigger,” but they were too politically correct to be so overt. If you listened carefully to him, he hit the nail on the head, we are a racist society, and as a Black man he has lived that experience. Though the segregated water fountains have vanished, racism and classism are tightly woven into our experience as US Americans.

Martin Luther King asked, “Do we judge a person by their character or their color?” It is imperative as a community that we draw the students who are involved in the “Nigger Hating Rednecks” into a genuine dialogue. Even when racism is deep rooted there is the possibility for profound change; for example, CP Ellis was a former KKK leader who became a civil rights leader in Durham North Carolina. If a former Klansman can have the possibility of transformation, then we most also hold out that possibility for these teenagers in the Nigger Hating Racist group to be transformed as well.

Day at the Gun Club

I’ve been disturbed by the noise of the adjacent gun club for some time, large semi-automatic rifles blasting away, disrupting my sleep and work. I had opposed the 2nd Amendment’s implied injunction that people should be free to own guns and foolishly believed that people killed not guns. It was difficult to remember the correct bumper sticker of ideology, so I decided instead of railing again guns and gun violence, I needed to seize the day, and come to a genuine understanding of guns and people.
Saturday, in late May, everyone at the gun club was out for their Memorial day shoot, gun members from Connecticut , Massachusetts , and one from Virginia came to celebrate all the skeet shooting, target practice, and good natured noisy fun that a rifle range is open to. I was a little hesitant as I’m a die hard leftist libertarian and realized I needed to challenge some of my assumptions about guns. The guys and the gals at the club couldn’t have been more friendlier, though they did look askance at my “Send Bush to Iraq” bumper sticker, they knew that I was trying to reach out and connect with my southern New England neighbors who love to come up to Vermont to shoot. Liberals only can dream about having so much fun. I leaped on to a monstrous ATV with my 12 gauge shot gun strapped across my shoulders and on my hip was a 44 Magnum that would have made Dirty Harry proud and zoomed away to the practice range. I had finally found my tribe. Little kids were out there with 22’s and a skinny bleached blond girl in a black leather jacket was firing on her little uzzi like a proud aspiring assassin. These are serious folks, no wonder the liberals can’t win an election… they need more firepower. There is little that is more orgiastic exciting than coming out for a day of shooting with the semi-automatics, the shot guns, and a hand pistol. As I saw the American flag in red, white, and blue on the hillside I had a lump in my throat, a tear, as I saw the blasting of rifles on that glorious afternoon and recalled the bombing of Fort Sumter where the flag held through that night. Holding the cool long steel barrel in my hands and feeling the portent of pulsating hot plasma of fire, I knew that I was on to something big.
My new found friend Big Jim and Bubba are two good old southern boys ( Southern Vermont that is) who love to hunt, fish, and hunt. A few swigs from Big Jim’s Jim Beam and I’m feeling in the cozy warmth and familiarity of “my tribe.” Despite all the progress of humanity, bigger firepower, and bombs of all kinds there was something so reassuring about the basic connection with ones own tribe in the hunt. I was beginning to wish there were a few liberals romping across the field so I could feel the real thrill of the kill and asked Big Jim about it.
“I know what ya mean about getting something meaningful, like taking down a beautiful 12 point buck or dropping a big old black bear. Man, there are few things that compare to that.”
“How about sex?” I asked
Big Jim looked at me kind of strange, “What ya man, sex.” Then looked around to make sure no one had heard him.
“What’s better sex or killing a big trophy deer? Or is there that same rush of sex you get when you kill?”
Bubba said, “That’s a might strange way of looking at it. Why don’t you go over to the target range on yonder and think about it a bit.”
“Sure enough.” I’d give them a little bit of time to think about that one. I had my Magnum and was itching to try it. Suddenly I had an epiphany.
“Big Jim! Bubba! Come back I want to try an experiment!”
I walked over to Big Jim some ten feet away from me, raised my gun to his head and fired point blank, took a half step to the right and shot Bubba once between the eyes. Someone else came, I raised a gun and fired. It was the slow dream of carnage in the carnival of death. Then everyone ran into the woods.
“Wait! Come back!” I was so angry. I had made the effort to connect with the club, got over my narrow prejudices about guns, finally made a breakthrough and then they all fled, but I came to truly appreciate Big Jim’s perspective-- guns don’t kill, but people do.
p.s. In lieu of flowers to the Gun Club, please send donations to: NRA Youth Education Fund.

As a White Guy Does Racism Affect My Life?

I’m a White middle class middle-aged man with more than a few dollars in the bank. I see the police and can wave at them and drive safely on by. If I reach into my coat pocket for my wallet and identification I will probably not get shot with forty bullets. I can shout out my magic protective words, “Don’t shoot me, I’m White. Put on some James Brown, see I can’t dance!” Oops, did I just fall into a stereotype? So, as a White guy does racism affect my life?

Being White and of European descent I don’t worry that I’ll be mistaken for a brown Muslim named Mohamed, strip searched, and undergo a rectal probe at the airport. However, given Timothy McVeigh’s role in blowing up the Federal buildings in Oklahoma it would seem reasonable that White guys should equally be suspect and the US should have launched an invasion on Scotland. (Though it is still puzzling to me why fifteen Saudis attacked the World Trade Center Towers and the US invaded Iraq and not Saudi Arabia: A case of the US being geographically challenged?)

When I apply for work and they look at my credentials or college education employers will not wonder if I was successful because of affirmative action. The employer may assume I did it on my own merit or at the least perhaps if I did attend an Ivy League school, it was because I was smart or in the case of GW from a wealthy and well connected family. If I was from that well connected family a gentleman’s C grades will do.
When I go into a grocery store and decide not to use a shopping cart and stuff a few things in my pockets; generally, it is assumed that I was in a rush and the management doesn’t call the police. Because I am a White middle aged man who is not walking around in raggedy clothes mumbling to myself (most times) it’s assumed that I’m harmless, a little careless in not using a cart, but not a significant problem. If I was Black or Hispanic, how long would it take before the police are called?
I can walk into a local bank and cash a check without an ID. They will not ask me for four pieces of ID, even though I might have had a bank account there for years. I will not have the bank guard calling for back up because I get in an argument with a teller over an error in my bank account. As a White middle aged middle class professional, I know she will defer to her manager, and we will resolve this.

If I move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live. I don’t need to ask my friend to find an apartment. I can let the grass grow on my front lawn, have the hedges a bit shabby and the neighbors will think “He’s still a bit of a hippy.” But if my name was Gonzales would the neighbors think, “Those damn Hispanics – one moves into the neighborhood and look what happens.” It is the hundreds of small clues during the course of day that says, “You’re different. You’re not quite like us.” If there is a fistfight at the school do they assume the Black or Hispanic youngster is the aggressor?

When an African American friend of mine comes to town, do I need to give them a heads up about our local police department’s history of racial profiling or bias. If he is stopped does he need to do his Black thing?

“Yes, sir officer. I know it looks suspicious being a six foot tall black man wearing a suit and tie waiting on the street corner for my wife. No, I wasn’t casing the store for a robber. Yes, officer I have identification. Yes officer, observe my hands as they are going into my pocket. No, I don’t have a gun or a shiv.”

Do people of color and various ethnicities feel safe and welcome coming into town? Will they spend their money for shopping? Will they buy second homes here? Will they invest their talents as lawyer, carpenter, artist or poet? Will the richness of many diverse cultures that have strengthened our collective national cultures be welcomed and become an asset to our community?

Does racism affect me in my life? On the surface it doesn’t. As a White middle-aged man, living in a predominantly White community, racism can be a ghosted shadow drifting invisibly by. However, racism/ bias/ discrimination, is the sure and slow corrosive acid that that eats away at the fabric of a community. It says there is an “us and them.” It is another wall in the community that divides neighbors, differenced solely based on ethnicity or color.