MARLBORO — I think some youths in Brattleboro feel a need to have some pride and dignity in being working class, and the model of that, that they are choosing, is the racist redneck. This leaves the working-class youths desperately grasping for some dignity, with no help with that from the community they see around them.
I also think this is a symptom of oh-so-progressive southeastern Vermont in general in that we are a very classist place. The fact is, there are two Windham Counties. There is the "progressive" upper middle class, and there is the working class/poor.
These two groups are mostly very separate. There needs to be more shared between the two groups, and more honest thought to how to have social and economic justice. It isn't social justice that most of the rents are too high for wageearners to live somewhere other than subsidized housing, for example.
You are not a progressive if you have extra rooms in your house that you are not renting out affordably, when you know there is a housing crisis. You are not a progressive if you are renting at "market value" rather than according to your actual financial needs. You are not a progressive if you provide a service for a sizable profit and don't provide a sliding scale to give access to the working class. Nor are you a progressive if you look down on the working-class people and see them as inferior or exclude them in any way.
There are a lot of people who think they are progressive who are actually part of the problem. Classism is the backbone of racism. Get rid of the classism. No one who is one of the "haves" gets to point fingers at the racist rednecks. Correct that part of the problem that you are creating and/or perpetuating. It is not going to be easy or comfortable. Some people get things easy and comfortable, while others struggle just to survive. Stop wanting it easy and comfortable, and start doing the hard work of making things right.
This letter isn't going to make me popular, but maybe we are all too busy worrying about silly things like that to speak the truth.
So I am.