An ugly racial incident in Vermont- and the state reacts with fury [View all]

[cali]

Vermont has all of two PoC in its House of Representatives. That's bad enough, but this is just disgusting:

From a local selectman to the Speaker of the House in Vermont, officials are denouncing a local man's tweet directed at state Rep. Kiah Morris as "racist" and "pure hate in plain sight."

Max Misch of Bennington posted on Twitter last week a cartoon caricature of a black person, with the caption, "S---, I be representin dem white m---f--- of Bennington, gnome sayin?" The Banner dashed certain of Misch's words for publication.

The tweet was in response to the news that Morris, who is black, had won the Democratic primary in her bid for re-election as a local state representative. The message was tweeted at Morris.

Morris posted a screenshot of the image to her Facebook page on Tuesday and wrote, "Haven't been on my Twitter in a few days, thought I would share this." As of Wednesday afternoon, her post has been shared 27 times and has more than 85 comments, universally in support of Morris.

It drew the attention of several political figures who roundly castigated Misch. They posted their comments in replies to Morris' Facebook post.

"He's not just ignorant, he is a racist pig," said state Rep. Rae Fields of Bennington, who also recently won her primary for re-election.

"This, Kiah, is the lowest of the low ... pure hate in plain sight," said Bennington Selectman Michael Keane. "It is time to make this matter extremely public and subject the person(s) doing this to you, Kiah, to chastisement. The only way to pull out the roots of ugliness and racism are to acknowledge and identify them. You can't heal a sickness with a band-aid."

"This is abhorrent," said Speaker of the Vermont House Shap Smith. Smith was recently defeated in the Democratic primary race for lieutenant governor. "Thankfully, the majority of the people in your district know how incredible you are."


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http://www.berkshireeagle.com/local/ci_30260020/legislators-react-strongly-racist-tweet-at-vermonts-rep