‘Which side are we on’ is a clarion call to check our privileges and open our eyes to the realities that surround us. Those are multiple, but I refer to the systemic white supremacy that puts blinders on civil servants. It is disturbing to experience the same tropes that excuse racist decisions. I am appalled by the reports about local police decisions that embrace flawed, racist practices. For the elected mayor to confine an officer to house arrest and commit taxpayer resources to appeal a court decision is the mark of an administration whose time to leave has come. She must have paid no attention to the efforts of citizens all over the country who have stood up, often at the risk of their lives, since the summer of racial reckoning following the murder of George Floyd. Where is the police officer who was ‘let go’? Why was he not promoted? What happened when another officer impugned his professionalism? What happened when a third officer tried to support the first? How can a police force build trust and serve the community equitably when racism permeates it? Despite self-denial, white supremacy is in the air we breathe and the water we drink. It derives from our hideous, bloody history. We cannot fix what we refuse to recognize is broken. Greenfield deserves better. I have just learned that some of the most heinous decisions around this local issue are being revisited. That does not resolve the original trauma, the reality of the racism, nor the impact. That falls primarily upon the BIPOC community, but we all absorb the insidious effects of normative white power. It will take more to unpick ignorance and hatefulness and to reweave the fabric of authentic community.
Susan Rhodewalt
Craftsbury Common, Vermont