A Black Woman’s Search For Her Place in White, White Vermont

When I moved to Burlington, Vermont in 2015, I thought I knew what I was signing up for: too much snow, not enough black people, and a just-right amount of maple syrup.

I decided I would try to live there for 1,000 days because it sounded like an adventure, but also because it would be longer than I had stayed anywhere in my adult life. I would buy a couch, make friends, and, well, settle. Maybe I would learn from staying still. One thousand days in Vermont would be a challenge, a countdown, a story.

By then, I had already lived in four other states and eight countries. As a queer black woman, I understood a thing or two about discomfort, about strolling outside the perimeters of homogeneity. I figured my time in crunchy Vermont wouldn’t be too different from living in small-town Japan or frosty Norway. In fact, living in Vermont would be easier, I thought, than any of the other places I’d ventured. Vermont was in America, after all.

My first week in Vermont, in July 2015, Sandra Bland died in police custody. Which is to say, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, and many others had already been killed. Michael Brown had been shot nearly a year earlier; Ferguson had exploded. Vigils and protests were happening throughout the U.S. and overseas. In the midst of the turmoil plaguing black communities across my country, I actively opted to move to one of its whitest corners. In hindsight, this decision troubles me. Was I subconsciously hoping to hide from or ignore what was happening? Did I believe such an escape was possible?

My first winter, as flake after flake of snow fell, I glared out of the window, amazed, but mostly frustrated, that a place that was already so white in so many ways, could become even whiter. But, if I could survive the tundra, I thought, I could survive anything. Only when a vehicle hit me as I was crossing the street, during my second winter, did I start to question what it really means to survive. My third winter in Vermont would be my last.

READ THE REST OF THE ESSAY AT THIS LINK: A BLACK WOMAN’S SEARCH