Alex White, left, and his brother Noah, right front, and Jamison Evans fasten a Black Lives Matter flag to the pole outside Rutland High School during a private ceremony a year ago this month. Photo by Robert Layman.

In 2019, Rutland High School faced quite a bit of scrutiny for flying a Black Lives Matter flag. The Black Lives Matter movement and flag flying were started as a sign of solidarity for those who suffer racial injustices. Many schools in Vermont had raised the flag, the first being Montpelier, in 2018. When Rutland High School wanted to show its support, leaders were met with a lot of backlash.

Facebook was flooded with posts regarding the situation with some calling the people behind the flag “snowflakes,” other people were questioning when the school is going to fly an “all lives matter” or “white lives matter” flag, calling Rutland a terrible place to live.

The comments did not stop there.

In a mandatory three-day diversity training for staff members at city schools planned by the Peace and Justice Center, a handful of staff members wore MAGA hats in protest and made derogatory remarks to two black Peace and Justice staff members, an article in VTDigger reported.

At a training to learn to not be racist.

But before the issue of the Black Lives Matter flag, there was Adam Taylor.

Taylor was a newly hired superintendent at the city schools when he made controversial remarks at a Castleton University event that offered an open dialogue about race in our community.

Taylor offered an “Oakland analogy,” by comparing a pimp and a young lady to a student and teacher’s relationship.

The backlash he received was widespread, with the Rutland community immediately calling for his resignation.

But when Michael Blow, a member of the School Board, said the n-word at a School Board meeting, nobody said a peep.

It wasn’t until Tabitha Moore, president of the Rutland chapter of the NAACP, took initiative and finally called him out.

Taylor is black. Blow is white.

Most recently, students of color at Rutland Middle School complained about a history lesson in the classroom.

In a buy-and-trade simulation to help students understand the mercantile system during the American Revolution, a slip of paper that represented slaves had the word “negroes.”

The teachers defended themselves saying they had been teaching this lesson for years. Moore says they weren’t as sensitive as they needed to be.

Living in Vermont, with its mostly white population, and going to school in Vermont, with its mostly white population, it’s hard for people to diversify themselves and learn about issues people of color face when they have no first-hand understanding themselves.

But still, this is three instances of racism in our city schools — way more than there should be. And quite frankly, it’s embarrassing.

How is the ever-growing population of people of color supposed to feel comfortable in their own schools when their peers — and their teachers — refuse to allow themselves to listen to what the students are trying to say, and their implicit bias continues to show.

The question is — what are the schools going to do about it?

When the NAACP filed an official complaint to the middle school, Moore offered the idea of an implicit bias training — which has yet to happen.

At the School Board meeting that addressed the history lesson, it was suggested that perhaps a diversity council should be created — which has yet to happen.

And since the current pandemic caused students and faculty to be out of school, is this another issue that is going to be swept under the rug until the next one?

Things won’t change unless the schools make it change — and hiring white native Vermonters to be administrators in the schools, despite the request for more diverse representation, is not going to help.

Students have spent far too long feeling uncomfortable in their own schools. We have reached a point in our society where now, finally, it’s not going to be tolerated.

Aris Sherwood is a journalism student at Castleton University. She grew up in Rutland.