Vermont’s Black Leaders: We Were ‘Invisible’ to Bernie Sanders

By David Freedlander

He’s paying attention to the concerns of black America now, as a presidential candidate. Back when he represented Vermont? Not so much, local activists say.

Back in 2006, the Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity, a Brattleboro area civil rights organization hosted a Candidate Night. The race for the open U.S. Senate seat between Bernie Sanders and Richard Tarrant, a Republican and one of the wealthiest people in the state, had grown increasingly acrimonious.

The audience of African-American activists and other Vermonters of color should have been a friendly one for the socialist congressman.

Instead, remembers Curtiss Reed Jr., the executive director of the group, it became something of a showdown. Sanders “was just really dismissive of anything that had to do with race and racism, saying that they didn’t have anything to do with the issues of income inequality,” Reed told The Daily Beast. 

“He just always kept coming back to income inequality as a response, as if talking about income inequality would somehow make issues of racism go away.”

And since winning that race, Sanders’s approach toward Reed and his organization has been one of “benign neglect,” the activist added. “We are a major statewide organization. It would stand to reason that you would check in with your major constituents, but voters of color are simply not on his radar.” 

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Source: The Daily Beast