Somehow it is OK when their former equity contractor, now mayor, who ran on equity, defunds the very equity initiatives they fought for.

by Kolby LaMarche

[Dear Readers, It has been some time since I last wrote. In that time, I have graduated college and have given myself a short break. Looking forward to the future!]

In the Summer of 2020, in Burlington, a group of activists and protestors, largely organized by the Black Perspective, seized Battery Park and built an encampment, only a stone’s throw away from the police department. 

The Battery Park brigade would routinely hold marches. From Battery Street to City Hall Park, they shut down roads, redirecting traffic themselves and using their personal vehicles as barriers. 

They would march down our City’s beloved Church Street, harassing patrons, particularly those who refused to react to them or stand in solidarity. 

There were numerous disruptions during council meetings, featuring hours upon hours of public comment. They poured fake blood at the feet of Burlington police leadership.  

And they staged die-ins on the lawn of Councilor Joan Shannon, with some protestors chasing a vehicle containing the Mayor’s wife and children.

This all went on for some time, as Mayor Weinberger had all but caved to the rhetoric and political upheaval in an effort to, he said, avoid violence.  

In one instance, “black femme” organizers collected, shredded, and then burned every local copy of Seven Days, simply because they disliked the reporting. Zanevia Wilcox, the assumed leader, then instructed all present white men to clean up the shredded paper left in the road. 

The crux of their anger was due to the inclusion of an interview with an organizer, Anthony Marques, who had broken the groups persona non grata relationship with the media. 

Marques, in the story, told Seven Days journalist Chelsea Edgar that the group was, essentially, being run as a cult. And that black femme leaders, like Wilcox, had been freezing out male organizers and actively “exploit[ed] white people”.  

Wilcox would later tell WCAX that there was now “a collective understanding that media has continuously not told the story the correct way and has lost the trust of the BIPOC community in Burlington” (bolded for emphasis).

Just a year before, in 2019, then-Mayor Miro Weinberger and the Burlington City Council created the Office of Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (REIB), in an attempt to “further racial justice”. 

However, REIB would truly be forged in the cultural and ideological battle that engulfed Burlington in 2020. Its very roots and energy stem from the toxic and sickening environment of activists and organizers like Zanevia Wilcox, which the City allowed to fester. 

Racial equity, by any and all means necessary, was the new policy not only of the government, but of society as well. 

Weinberger, for a while, acted with care as not to anger protestors, more than they already were. But his flaccid defense against the concerning nature of this ideology, moreover his acceptance of it, eventually came back to bite him.   

The public had made their demands explicitly clear, and the council and the mayor acted – poorly. 

On top of crippling the morale and capacity of Burlington police, the council would commit $1 Million to REIB in FY21, headed then by former Director Tyeastia Green.

Just last week, Burlington’s new Progressive Mayor, Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, who ran on greater racial equity, announced that, to mend the future budget gap, she would not fill vacancies in the REIB: two-thirds of the department would remain unfilled, including the position of director. 

Mayor Stanak’s deputy chief of staff, Joe Magee, however, was quick to assure the public that this “defunding” was only temporary and that the department would soon undergo a re-envisioning.  

Magee added that REIB would, in the interim, be headed by the City’s director of human resources. 

The REIB has officially been disemboweled; the racial equity arm of the City’s government is “temporarily” unproductive, and unresponsive. But the protests that raged in 2020, and which led to the installation of racial equity as a major pillar of public policy, disbanded long ago.

Progressives, and Democrats who voted for Stanak, have shown they are too insecure to scrutinize, even while supporting, their political leaders. For something as central to their ideology as racial equity, you’d think there would be at least some concern. But there isn’t. 

The streets are flowing with traffic; Battery Park is, well, filled with other encampments now, and there is certainly no crowd amassed outside City Hall demanding REIB be funded again, as was promised by the City’s leaders. 

If former Mayor Miro Weinberger or, say, a Joan Shannon administration, were to have done this, even with the excuse of fiscal constraints, they would decisively be labeled racist or, in some way, bias.     

But somehow everything is perfectly sound, in their minds, when their former equity contractor, now mayor, who ran on equity, defunds the very equity initiatives they fought for. 

You can’t make it make sense. 

But don’t get me wrong: she absolutely made the right decision. 

Burning Sky is dedicated to providing critique and commentary on the issues of the day from an unapologetic perspective, fueling change in the heart of Vermont. Authored by Kolby LaMarche.