The Southern Poverty Law Center has put a national spotlight on racism in Vermont, featuring Randolph Union High School in a new podcast called “Sounds Like Hate.”
The national civil rights organization’s podcast includes interviews with Randolph students, administrators, parents and teachers, and chronicles the school’s tense debates about raising the Black Lives Matter flag and changing the school’s mascot, a hooded figure on a horse that, for many people, calls to mind the Ku Klux Klan.
Interviewees also detail routine but disturbing incidents of racism at school and in the community. “Burn all blacks” was scrawled on one bathroom stall, according to a student.
One teacher recalled regularly hearing the N-word, and seeing students with Nazi symbols on their hands.
“I’ve been physically assaulted by a person at our school and was repeatedly called the N-word, and that I was going to get shot,” one ninth-grader, Aamir, is quoted saying in the first installment of the two-part chapter “Not Okay,” which was released last week. His family has reported over 10 incidents of racism or physical threats to administrators, podcast producer Jamila Paksima tells the audience.
Despite the state’s progressive reputation, anti-racist activism has been sparked in a number of Vermont schools in recent years, much of it spearheaded by students of color who say racism is alive and well in the Green Mountain State.
Randolph Union High was host in 2019 to the state’s first-ever student-led racial justice conference. Students have petitioned their schools to fly the Black Lives Matter flag in districts across the state. And in Winooski, current and former students successfully lobbied their school district over the summer to commit to a roster of racial justice reforms, including hiring additional faculty of color, adopting a more inclusive curriculum, and phasing out the use of a school-based police officer.
Paksima said people often overlook the Northeast when they think about racism in America, thinking it’s more concentrated in the South or large urban centers. And that’s partly why the show chose to come to Vermont.
“Places like Randolph don’t get a lot of attention. They’ve been off the map. They’re not on the radar. But I think there are communities like Randolph everywhere in this country,” she said.
But Paksima said that while the racism in Randolph reflects patterns seen across the country, the school — and its leaders — stand out for their willingness to confront the problem head-on.
“They’re not shying away from dealing with very difficult conversations,” she said.
Paksima said she and the Southern Poverty Law Center heard about the Vermont school through Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a professor at American University and an expert in extremism and youth radicalization. Randolph Union High Principal Elijah Hawkes had reached out to the scholar for advice about a student he was worried was flirting with white nationalist ideas. The journalists asked Hawkes if he would be willing to let them come to the school, and the administrator agreed.
“I think that if the journalism has integrity, it’s going to be a learning opportunity for everyone,” Hawkes said in an interview. “And if voices can be amplified that ought to be heard more broadly, then that, again, is a learning opportunity for everyone. And I am also proud of the courage and conviction that students and teachers demonstrate as they engage in this work.”
The second part of “Not Okay” will be released today.