BELLOWS FALLS — A letter to the editor from out-of-town visitor, Dr. Darryl Fischer of Silver City, N.M., that was published in the Brattleboro Reformer has garnered a lot of attention last week.
In a letter published in the Reformer's Nov. 3 Letter Box, Dr. Fischer wrote that he was refused service by a Bellows Falls barber.
“I am a black physician looking for a change of scenery after 30 years of working in a major U.S. city,” wrote Fischer. “While visiting other medical practitioners in Bellows Falls, I thought I would have a haircut. I walked into a local barbershop.
“Two gentlemen were playing cards inside. I asked them if the barber was in and one of the men said the barber was not. So I returned an hour later and the same person who said that the barber was not in was cutting a Caucasian patron's hair.
“I am very pleased to know that I would not want to work or live in Bellows Falls with the above behavior of your local businesses.”
“It's an unfortunate incident,” Development Director and Interim Town Manager Francis “Dutch” Walsh said.
Michael Aldrich, the barber who allegedly refused to cut Fischer's hair, told The Commons that he “made a mistake when I lied to [Dr. Fischer when he walked in]. I should have just come out and told him 'I can't cut your kind of hair.'”
Lori Brown, owner of Boccaccio's hair salon in Bellows Falls, said, “We are all trained to cut any kind of hair whether you're African American, Caucasian or Indian,” she said.
But Brown also said that “if I pulled out the same length of hair I would on a Caucasian in an African American's hair, and cut it, it would be a lot shorter.”
If someone did not know how to do that, she admitted, it could be a disaster.
Brown said she allowed that maybe the barber was “old school” and therefore might not know how to cut African American hair, “but we're all trained to cut any kind of hair no matter who walks in.”
“About 3 percent of our clientele are African Americans,” several of whom are local and others who come from Springfield, she said.
Rockingham Selectboard chair Thom MacPhee said the barber's actions “absolutely do not reflect [the town's] core values.”
In a state that proudly fought on the side of the Union in the Civil War, but whose current demographics reflect a 96 percent white population, and only 1 percent black, in 2009 U.S.Census figures, racism is not widely discussed or acknowledged as an issue in Vermont.
Business owners around the Square responded last week. Some had not heard about the incident. Others were reluctant to talk about it feeling the incident was better left alone. Others varied in their views.
One business owner, declining to be identified, said, “There is an undercurrent of racism [in Bellows Falls] that stays under the surface unless there's an occasion to express it. You hear it in conversations when [the speaker] thinks you're going to agree with them.”
But Coyote Moon owner Aristides Nogueron said as an “American Mexican,” he has never experienced any racist attitudes or comments in Bellows Falls.
“It's nice here,” he said but, commenting on Mike the Barber's choices, “that's not right,” he added, shaking his head.
Garet McIntyre, who rents studio space in Works on Paper in the Square, said Aldrich's actions don't “represent the way the community feels [about African Americans].”
He felt it did need to be addressed right away, however, as “it sets a bad precedent. It's not the way we want to be seen as a community.”
Walsh and several business owners thought a written apology to Fischer was called for.
Aldrich said, “I'm not good at that sort of thing. It would come out all mish-mashed,” speaking of his skills at letter writing.
“I made a mistake. I lied to him,” he said, but he insisted if Dr. Fischer had come in a second time instead of walking by and looking in the window, he would have corrected that statement and told him, “I can't cut his kind of hair.”
Aldrich also said he felt it was a kind of “reverse racism” where he was automatically considered racist, when that was not his motivation at all. “I just didn't want to embarrass us both and do a crappy job.”
Aldrich denied racial prejudice, saying he and his wife had “a Fresh Air child who came to stay with us who was Negro.”
Several business owners cited family members who had either adopted black children or had biracial children as examples of non-racist attitudes.
Nancy Staniszewski, a third-generation American of Austrian descent, an employee of another business in the Square, said she does not understand racism. “I just don't get it. We're all the same on the inside, black, white, Asian. It's just a skin color.”
“There's good and bad in every race,” Staniszewski said.
Lamont Barnett, owner of the Rock and Hammer Jewelry store, said, “Mike ought to write a letter of apology to the gentleman, but I don't think it should become a municipal issue.”
“Just because one idiot redneck merchant behaves this way doesn't mean” it represents the majority view, Barnett said.
Aldrich said that he regrets his initial response to Dr. Fischer. “If he'd come back in a second time instead of walking by, I would have told him, 'I can't cut your hair, sir. I'm afraid I'll mess it up.”
About 40 people gathered in front of Aldrich's business on Saturday to show their concern for what many considered a pervasive undercurrent of racial prejudice.
MacPhee addressed the crowd, saying, “It's discouraging that we are not offering the hospitality to visitors at the standard we have set up. We missed by a mile on this one.”
MacPhee said he would like to offer an apology to Dr. Fischer but he does not expect him to return to the area. If he did, MacPhee said, he would offer to take him to lunch or dinner to experience what “Bellows Falls is really like.”
Village Trustees Chair Roger Riccio noted that Bellows Falls' diversity was “the key factor” that persuaded him and his partner to move here years ago. “We came here feeling that this was a diverse and accepting community. It saddens me that this has occurred.”
Several people who attended the gathering said they had not spoken with Aldrich but intended to “to hear his side of the story.”
Maya Costley wanted more from the gathering. “I'd like to see an apology from Mr. Aldrich, and maybe have a conversation with the residents of this town.”
Costley noted that “maybe [Aldrich] was old school and didn't know how to say, 'I can't cut your hair'” to a black man, noting that Vermont's demographics is mostly white. “He should be helped to understand and we need to take appropriate and public actions to rectify this,” Costley said.
“I'm not angry [at Aldrich]. I'm embarrassed,” she explained.
Bellows Falls resident Robin Story said, “Our response is right here, right now. We've been called on the carpet because we have a problem. Now we're on the carpet. We're here. What are we going to do now? We do not want to become a group railing against one person or rush to a snap judgment [of Aldrich]. Our response here says that he does not represent our community. He does not represent us.”
Riccio noted later that “there is not much diversity in Vermont - for anything. We have a lot of people who come up from the city looking for things they can get there they can't get here. The fact is, we don't have the same diversity.”
Asked if he meant racial diversity, Riccio said, “No, I mean anything. We just don't have much diversity in reality.”
Conversations followed about education, but one participant noted that “you can't change someone who hates.”
Several people voiced allowances for Aldrich being “old school” or ignorant and even suggested that the incident was an isolated one. However, most people agreed that no matter how it happened, the community needed to “stomp out” hatred in its tracks, as Riccio put it.
At the rally, Walsh said, “When I went in to talk to Mike, there were two customers in there with the paper [with the letter from Fischer] in front of them, and they were discussing it. I sort of expected to come in and see them joking and laughing about it. But they weren't doing that. They were talking seriously about it. And so was Mike.”
Asked if the Joint Selectboard meeting on Tuesday would be addressing the issue, Selectboard member Peter Golec said, “It's not on our agenda. But if someone wants to bring it up, that would be a good place to talk about it.”
Calls to the hospital where Dr. Fischer is employed in emergency medicine were not returned.