Editorial: Toll of pervasive racism in Vermont
The reports of racist incidents targeting black staff members at the Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital should concern anyone who cares about equity and justice, and the idea that people ought to behave decently toward one another.
No one deserves to be subjected to, as the Vermont Human Rights Commission found, “offensive jokes, slurs, epithets, name calling, insults and put-downs” that were “severe and pervasive enough to create a hostile, offensive and abusive work environment.”
But this also is a story about how a pattern of racism may be difficult to see for those who are not on the receiving end, and how the accumulation of what to some might seem minor incidents can build over months, years or a lifetime to create a hostile environment.
While the case is specific to Ismina Francois, an African-American mental health specialist at the state psychiatric hospital in Berlin, the report includes racist comments and actions suffered by other black hospital staff members over several years.
Also at issue is how supervisors and administrators responded to concerns raised by Francois and others.
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In an investigative report dated Jan. 25, the Vermont Human Rights Commission determined “there are reasonable grounds to believe that the Department of Mental Health discriminated against Ismina Francois on the basis of her race and color…”
The mission of the human rights commission, a state agency, is to protect “people from unlawful discrimination in housing, state government employment, and public accommodations.”
The 25-bed Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital opened in 2014 as a replacement for the state hospital in Waterbury that was forced to close after Tropical Storm.
The Human Rights Commission report states, “The Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital failed to follow up on several complaints of discrimination and the State failed to see the larger more concerning climate issue at VPCH.”
The state’s Attorney General’s Office in response to the report found “no reasonable grounds to believe that the Department of Mental Health discriminated against Ismina Francois.”
Beyond the question of what laws may have been violated, the report on the psychiatric hospital offers a glimpse of the racially charged current in which many people of color in Vermont are forced to swim.
What may seem like small slights can add up to an oppressive load for the people who are always the target.
The bigger message of the psychiatric hospital case is that we all need to be better at recognizing and calling out racism.
Contact Engagement Editor Aki Soga at asoga@freepressmedia.com. Join the conversation online at BurlingtonFreePress.com or send a letter to the editor to letters@freepressmedia.com.
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