John Klar: Searching for white supremacy in the Green Mountains

Vermont has never been a white supremacist state. That’s just a fact, employing traditional English language. However, a disillusioned gang of racist ideologues seeks to change the English language such that “being white” equals “white supremacist.” It is puzzling why these shallow zealots believe they can impose new linguistics, rewrite Vermont’s history, shame very young children with condemnation for a non-existent past, and allocate money and power to themselves while they denigrate Vermonters. It is falling apart around their sputtering ears — it can do nothing else.

John Klar

The social justice “warriors” are well named, at least for the barbaric “warrior” part. As to “social justice,” that label is a pathetic deception. Vermont is denounced as white supremacist despite a 200-year history proving otherwise, and the haters have never proved what they claim — because it isn’t true. The vapid argument employed is that all white people have subjective prejudices (that black people lack! lol) and therefore Vermont is white supremacist by virtue of its demographics — because it is guilty of “whiteness.”

Vermont’s demographic is white because white Europeans predominated the settlement of its mostly-forested mountains. They did not commit genocide or enslave black people to do so. The folly of the new race-baiters is they argue that an overt, deliberate racism in government is the sole solution to the subjective racism they impute to the “system.” Thus, no government can ever be “color-blind” — the very effort is offensive to the new racists, who seek to rapidly transform Vermont with this intellectually insulting, obviously-false dogma.

Vermont has always had racists — they are an inescapable aspect of the human condition. But the Vermont “system” was the leading anti-racist one in the world. Vermont not only banned slavery, it elected a black man to its legislature before the Civil War (the only state to do so!), and never enacted Jim Crow or other discriminatory laws — largely because there were fewer than 550 black people here for most of the first 200 years of its statehood. Vermont likely had a small KKK contingency at one long-ago time, but it was the progressive eugenicists who racially targeted poor Vermonters for forced sterilization — the same actors who launch their magical insights now. In fact, the eugenics “movement” and the so-called “social justice” movement are almost indistinguishable in their focus on genetics as primary determinant of outcome.

SJW racists claim that all disparities between black and white people are caused by white supremacy. This naive simplicity defies facts completely, as Thomas Sowell powerfully demonstrates in his book “Discrimination and Disparities.” An example of this pathetically uncritical, quasi-religious stupor is contained in the moronic claim that all Vermont police are white supremacists because more black people are in Vermont jails than white. By this rubric, if 1,000 black men came to Vermont from New Jersey and murdered 2,000 people, their arrest and conviction would prove the Vermont police were especially racist. This is just one example of the obscene lengths the race-haters will go to force their ideology in opposition to reality.

Vermont once had a strong Christian tradition, which infused its opposition to slavery. Though this new hate ideology hates Christianity (and forgiveness, or peacemaking), it ignores how strongly that creed saturated early Vermonters’ revulsion at slavery, and their extraordinary contribution to liberating black slaves both before and during the Civil War.

Indeed, until recently Vermont still had a morning devotional for its Legislature, but the hate-Progs eliminated the practice after it was that abused to condemn Vermonters as white supremacists with zero evidence. Mari Cordes throttled Vermonters with a narcissistic rant about their white privilege — but she never tells her constituents what benefits in Vermont were denied black Vermonters. This is because Vermont never systemically discriminated against blacks — the definition of white supremacy. Hal Colston repaid white Vermonters for voting for him by claiming they are all vile racists: The only public officials that have ever proclaimed bold racist condemnations in Vermont are him and Mari, and their fellow cadre of bullies (and their predecessor progressive eugenicists). Mari says she will stand up against racism — she hasn’t even defined or identified it. (Thankfully, Hal is moving to Aruba, revealing his true selfish carpetbaggery after milking Vermonters for decades. What a shallow Hal!)

Hey Mari and Hal, where were you when Vermonters died to liberate blacks from southern plantations? Vermont’s contribution was particularly intense for its small size:

Vermonters suffered a total of 1,832 men killed or mortally wounded in battle; another 3,362 died of disease, in prison or from other causes, for a total loss of 5,194. More than 2,200 Vermonters were taken prisoner during the war, and 615 of them died in or as a result of their imprisonment.

Remember Vermonters, facts like these make the SJ warriors seethe with rage. But facts are facts. The fact is, slavery was never institutionalized in the Green Mountains, and so the intergenerational harms caused by slavery were never inflicted here. However, the epigenetic (intergenerational) damages of being a prisoner of war in southern prisons were. Many Vermonters are descendants of Civil War POWs, and suffer to intergenerationally just as black slaves. This has been firmly scientifically proven. Where are the black people who suffered intergenerationally from Vermont slavery? There are zero. Mari Cordes and Hal Colston are ignorant zealots who have publicly displayed both their zealotry and their ignorance, to accolades of praise from their fellow Vermonter-haters.

Vermont’s House devotional should recite Vermont Governor Ryland Fletcher’s October 9, 1857, statement to the Legislature. Vermont had statutorily appropriated money for impoverished Kansas slaves, as the Green Mountain State was actively involved in the national battle against slavery well before the Civil War. Governor Fletcher wrote of the Vermont citizenry that

….I shall always remember with grateful exultation that they have placed this publicly upon our Statute Book the evidence of their sympathy for the oppressed and destitute victims of the aggressive spirit of Slavery. Nothing has occurred during the past year to diminish the indignation and alarm, which the great majority of the people of Vermont have felt at the rapid increase of the Slave power and the extravagant nature of ts demands. (Journal of the House of the State of Vermont, October Session, 1857, p. 45)

Perhaps Vermont’s new New York City “Director of Racial Equity” Xusana Davis will stop claiming, with the other Social Justice Slanderers, that white Vermont farmers earned their wealth on the backs of non-existent blacks subjected to Jim Crow laws. In fact, white families who earned their wealth from the dirt they nurtured elected to send money to destitute slaves and those fighting slavery in the controversial Kansas Territory.

The larger part of Governor Fletcher’s message to Vermonters in 1857 concerned the federal Dred Scott decision, which affirmed slaves as chattel property by denying them constitutional recognition (standing). Vermont’s governor essentially proclaimed that if the federal decision stood, Vermont would secede from the Union, as the decision did not accord with the Vermont Constitution:

I am sure… that the people of Vermont will not quietly acquiesce in an unnecessary and unauthorized declaration of doctrines they have always loathed, and which they consider hostile to the genius and spirit of the Republic to which they belong.

When, if the alarming prostitution of every department of the general government to the nefarious behests of slavery shall continue, the Supreme Court shall declare authoritatively, what they have already foreshadowed, that the slaveholder may bring into the Free States his train of slaves, and hold them there as his property, notwithstanding the absolute prohibition of slavery by their Constitution and laws, it will then, in that day of the doom of the Republic, be time for Vermont and her sister Free States to consider what course they shall take to maintain and enforce a right she has never yielded and will never surrender, the absolute and total prohibition of slavery within her borders. (Ibid., p.47)

This proud history is being viciously slandered by liars like Hal Colston, who chastised Vermonters: “What if the Negro was not invented? How would our country have worked without chattel slavery, the exploitation of black and brown people who became the backbone of our capitalistic system? Who would you be? Who would we be?”

Where would Hal Colston be if Vermonters and others had not risked all — even enduring prison — to combat slavery? Colson has “invented” a despicable narrative unfounded in fact, echoing the critical race “theory” hatred that says all racial disparities are racist. Says shallow Hal:

Structural racism is the normalization of many dynamics that are historical, cultural, institutional and interpersonal and routinely advantages White people while producing chronic, adverse outcomes for people of color.

But there’s the rub — that is a lie. White Vermonters have suffered poverty and disadvantages for generations, compounded by the clear epigenetic harms inflicted by horrid conditions in Confederate prisons, and the trauma of being victimized by elite outsiders using eugenics — and now CRT and SJW filth. Hal can’t prove his slurs, because they are fabricated.

It is to be hoped Hal Colston will take his falsehoods with him to Aruba, where they will evaporate in the sun. Vermont’s true history will remain here: Vermont has never employed a white supremacist system; Vermonters did not profit from 1840s slavery; progressive racists are always evil — eugenicists then and now.

John Klar is an attorney and farmer residing in Brookfield. © Copyright True North Reports 2022. All rights reserved.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/R Sharp

19 thoughts on “John Klar: Searching for white supremacy in the Green Mountains

  1. The Left’s apparent obsession with race has me wondering if it’s all about psychological projection? Are they in fact inadvertently projecting their own racism on the rest of us? Where most of us see the depth of a person’s unique individuality, do they just see skin color? If so, I feel so badly for them. Being so shallow and petty must be a truly painful and miserable existence. Let’s have some sympathy for our racist Leftist brothers and sisters and pray that they can begin to see beyond skin color and appreciate the myriad miraculous intricacies that make up the human individual.

  2. I was in Vermont for only 5 days before I heard the first racist joke. White supremacy has a far less formal structure than this essay posits. It’s here, just in a different form.

    • No one denies racism exists…. Your observation could be made in any place on the planet — the “system” is not racist, and the proposed replacement “system” overtly is. If you think that will improve things.

      But more, are you OK with slandering Vermonters for their past when they died fighting for liberties? Which is it? — Vermonters are guilty for their past, or their present? And since when do we judge the whole by the anecdotal few? That is growing old, and is not logical — do you not agree it is counterproductive, and racist?

      • If we don’t come down on racism in the present, we won’t be able to ignore unjust criticisms about our past. Is it a slander to claim that Vermont approved of slavery until the slave achieved majority? No; it was in our Constitution. So, why should people be bothered by such a claim? Is it a slander to say that neither local law enforcement in Bennington nor Vermont’s Attorney General just a few years ago did nothing about the racist attacks that forced a woman to quit the legislature in fear for her life? No, and it was clearly an example of another form of systemic racism. And on, and on. The plural of anecdote is data.

        Appealing to the memory of the dead is just an easy out for actually dealing with the issue.

        • Is it racist to point out the increase in violent crime in Vermont normally involves minority drug dealers with numerous prior arrests in NY, PA, MA, CT or MI? Why is the mainstream press so reluctant to release all the facts (names, photos, history) when these incidents occur?

          One would certainly expect the NAACP and BLM chapters/spokespeople to address this problem, but their silence speaks volumes.

  3. Let’s also not forget Vermont passed a Habeas Corpus Act in 1851 that directly contradicted the Fugitive Slave Act by requiring hearings for fugitive slaves and a jury trial before extradition and barred state officials from cooperating with federal officials or complying with the the Fugitive Slave Act in any capacity. And that passage of the Vermont law reportedly sent President Millard Fillmore into a rage who threatened military action to enforce the law.

    • https://cdi.uvm.edu/collection/uvmcdi-uvmcdikakewalk

      Bill makes an excellent point. But that doesn’t convince me that CRT is the solution for practices such as the now-prohibited UVM Kake Walk, nor that Vermont is incurably racist without the remedy of CRT. There are racist people here, yes, just as there are everywhere. But if we were such bad people who saw nothing wrong with such practices then the Kake Walk would never have been forbidden.

      There are good people everywhere, of all races and creeds. Skin color doesn’t determine decency. CRT is an academic and roundabout way of saying that it does.

      If we want to indoctrinate people then I’d prefer that we go for a simple indoctrination of: treat all people with dignity and respect.

    • CRT has valid points. Raising these points to indisputable doctrine and essentially forcing people to conform to the doctrine is what bothers me most about it– well, more than that, the doctrinaire quality makes me object strongly to it. But it presents issues worth considering.

      I must say that the video of the UVM Kake Walk blew me away. That stuff really went on, and people laughed about it at an institution of higher learning. Thanks, Bill. Makes one wonder how much other stuff goes on that we take for granted without thinking.

      I’ve argued that opponents of CRT don’t object to teaching the history of slavery. But, I might have been wrong: there are proposals out in some states that seek to prohibit teachings that make students uncomfortable (aimed specifically at CRT.) The Kake Walk video made me uncomfortable. But I believe students need to see this and understand what it was about. It happened.

  4. Thanks, John, for speaking TRUTH. Vermont has a proud heritage that continues to get buried deeper with each legislative session. We all need to remember that, no matter the color of our skin, we all bleed red. There is only one “race”, the HUMAN race. The left continues to cultivate the Marxist principles that give birth to fear, division, hatred, lust for power and godlessness. If we all stopped focusing on our differences and started treating others with the respect and dignity that each of us desires, this world would become a much better place to live.

  5. Has it occurred to anyone that the moniker of ‘racial supremacist’ is a two-edged sword? After all, those who condemn one race of inherent and perpetual racial supremacy condemn all others of inherent and perpetual inferiority. And that’s not a mutually exclusive character trait.

    It seems, to me at least, that Morgan Freeman was correct when he said racism will end when people stop talking about it. Perhaps we can begin here on TNR and VDC, rather than responding to the inherent and perpetual claims made by the perplexed souls who, so far at least, do not yet have the courage to help themselves in this regard.

  6. Thank you John, good history lesson. Also, Vermont sent more troops, per capita, to fight in the Civil war than any other northern state.

  7. Why do they now play 2 anthems at football and basketball games, The National Anthem and The Black National Anthem? Does this mean we now have a National Government policy of Apartheid?

  8. I lived in Maryland for 30 years and volunteered extensively in our public schools. As a white citizen I had had all I could stand with the constant chastisement for sins, relating to slavery in Maryland’s past, of which I too lamented, but had absolutely nothing to do with. The information presented here is a wonderful legacy and should be taught in every Vermont school. Shame on the SJW who make up lies about this state and it’s history.

  9. Thank you John Klar…This is a most appropriate and timely history lesson and much appreciated. Let’s circulate this in our schools…..It’s Time!

  10. John, when any or as a matter of fact all liberals, start off by saying “you’re a white supremacist ”
    or your just a ” racist “, you know you have already won the debate, these social justice warriors
    just might want to check out their own ancestry……………….

    That’s all these simpletons have, too bad the state has imported so many, that includes the
    gaggle of fools we have as legislators, let’s get Vermont back to being Vermont and toss all
    these simpletons to the curb we’ve had enough ” Social Justice “.

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