A Vermont GOP House Representative has embraced the Black Lives Matter movement, condemning Vermonters and their history as “merely tolerant.” 

Vermont Representative Anne Donahue was responding to the state GOP’s effort to appease a leftist initiativ at creating a “BIPOC” (black and indigenous people of color) bank to serve the needs of Vermont’s miniscule minority population. In a carefully worded introduction to their own bill, the Republicans spoke of “the historic socio-economic disparities arising from racism, while acknowledging Vermont’s proud heritage of tolerance toward BIPOC, and intolerance toward prejudice and slavery.”

This, according to Donahue, didn’t go far enough: “the intro to one of the bills references "Vermont’s proud heritage of tolerance toward BIPOC. ….I do not think mere "tolerance toward BIPOC" would be a "proud history," nor would I find it a matter of pride today to say that I was merely tolerant of those in the BIPOC community.”

Donahue condemns Vermont’s heritage -- and its people -- for “mere tolerance.”  This dovetails perfectly with Critical Race Theory, which seeks to eliminate the Constitution in favor of something “more tolerant,” but never defined.  What is it that she now propounds she takes pride in toward the BIPOC community that is “more than merely tolerant”? 

In other words, “All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.”

Vermont has the narrowest wealth disparity between whites and blacks in the nation.  Only Hawaii and D.C. voted at higher rates than Vermonters for Barack Obama. Only Vermont can boast that blacks are more likely than whites to be college-educated.  Vermont was first to ban slavery; the first to graduate a black man from college; the first and only to elect a black man to a state legislature before the Civil War.

In Vermont, conservative articles recounting favorable statistics are blocked because they “impl[y] a denial of systemic racism.”  In contrast, the Left in Vermont has waged a calculated misinformation campaign labeling Vermont systemically racist by manipulating incarceration statistics during a fentanyl crisis. 

From Donahue’s email: The definition of "tolerance" includes "the ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with." (emphasis added.) To "tolerate" means to "allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of (something that one does not necessarily like or agree with) without interference."

This is precisely the definition conservatives beg Donahue to employ when their opinions demur from the Black Lives Matter flag (which was fully, not merely, tolerated when displayed at Donahue’s home alongside her “Republicans Against Trump” sign). 

Vermont’s heritage is being denigrated.  How can anyone condemn as “merely tolerant” the American state with the proudest abolitionist record of all?  There is only one way -- rewrite history, stifle factual truths, and manipulate statistics deceitfully.

This contrasts markedly with the “mere tolerance” that Representative Donahue has condemned in Vermont’s past.  If only she could “find it a matter of pride today to say that I was merely tolerant of those [Vermonters in my own] community.”  Quite the opposite -- she is condemning Vermonters with false ideology and no evidence.  After silencing opposing speech in favor of her scurrilous narrative against her own constituency, will she “merely” let them eat cake?  

Image: State of Vermont