Vermont's "Racial Justice Alliance," a radical local activist group that lobbies the Legislature, unveiled an "initiative" to disparage white Vermonters with yet another acrimonious acronym and create a new grievance group: ADOS (American Descendants of Slavery).  These mostly out-of-touch "woke" whites who run this once again are blasting Vermonters for "being the whitest state."  

The latest trendy acronyms they've cooked up to advance this narrative are "ADOS" and "ACT":

This year, the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance is building its advocacy around three main tenets, known as A.C.T.

• Acknowledging and reconciling historic systems of racism
• Creating new structures for American Descendents of Slavery (ADOS) economic and cultural empowerment
• Transforming state systems to better serve ADOS Vermonters.

A.C.T. will enable policy makers to prioritize ADOS wellness and empowerment and enable their ability to thrive.

This is a manufactured outrage.  Vermont has many whites owing to its geography.  But the presence of whites is now been deemed synonymous with a racist hellhole.  Vermont, in addition, is not exclusively white.  Virtually all Vermonters given the ADOS victim card are not victims of Vermont.  They're people who have relocated from states where slavery was practiced.  Slavery was never legal in Vermont. 

Further contrast is exhibited by the marginalized groups excluded from this new racist ADOS trademark: indigenous peoples, Hispanics, Jews, Asians. 

This demonstrates author Thomas Sowell's chief criticism of ideological efforts seeking "equity" — every step creates new inequities. 

If ADOS becomes the standard of government, and goes into use to secure favoritism, well, take just one example: isn't that unfair to Jews?  Why is there no "J" in those catchy monikers like BLM, BIPOC, ADOS, and QGBLTI?  Don't Jews require protection against discrimination?  Why exactly, are Jews, who have suffered tremendous discrimination elsewhere, in Vermont excluded?

Sowell references the Jewish experience as an example of why equal opportunity — not outcome — is the only sensible goal:

Late in the eighteenth century, the United States became a pioneer in granting Jews the same legal rights as everyone else, as a result of the Constitution's general ban against federal laws that discriminate on the basis of religion. France followed suit after the revolution of 1789[.] ... The net result in the late nineteenth century, and in the twentieth century, was a relatively sudden proliferation of internationally renowned Jewish figures in many fields[.] (Discrimination and Disparities, p. 11)

For Jews, improved opportunities (legal rights) yielded improved outcomes.  

Manipulating outcomes through government diktat necessarily undermines equality of opportunity.  For instance, a "coalition" seeks a BIPOC bank in Vermont — run by BIPOC people and funded by white people.  This is overtly racist and inequitable: many white Vermonters have historically been extremely poor — long before, and long after ADOS arrived.  Additionally bankrupt is the notion that money is the solution to every problem.  Has America learned nothing from the well intentioned failures of AFDC?

The United States Supreme Court has rightly viewed such race-based reallocations with a sharp eye:

In 1978, in  Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the Supreme Court found that race-conscious measures designed to address the effects of discrimination were as presumptively unconstitutional as was discrimination rooted in racial antipathy and the belief in racial inferiority. 

Subsequent decisions have affirmed that all racial discrimination (including against whites) is constitutionally suspect.  Vermont's government has yet to be "woke" to constitutional laws against its new racism.

So what of Descendants of the Holocaust ("DOTH")?  The Holocaust was sufficiently profound — and much more recent than slavery.  Insultingly, this novel Vermont Racial Justice Alliance initiative was launched on America's holiday commemorating the Holocaust.  Was that deliberate or merely clueless?

Abenaki Indian descendants (with minuscule genetic Indian DNA) are included in BIPOC but not in ADOS.  Is that "equitable"?  The Native Americans were here long before the former slaves who arrived in Vermont through Vermont's underground railroad. 

How is this new elitist group of ADOS defined?  How do members "prove" their 160-year-old slave status?  How much money do they inequitably thieve from others in the name of equity before balance of outcomes is achieved? 

What of black South Africans — don't Vermonters owe them for Apartheid?  Apartheid just ended in 1994 — not 1862.  Maybe the Rohingya and Uyghurs should move to Vermont and invoke privilege for their racial or ethnic composition.  There's room aplenty on this boondoggle bandwagon (just not for Jews or certain Asians).

If that offends "Racist Injustice Warriors," what of being called a racist solely because you live in the Green Mountains — maligned for the crime of "being too white"?  It is deeply offensive, and Vermonters are targeted as racists if they dare challenge this race-baiting fallacy.

Rohingya have more right to plunk down in Vermont and demand money than ADOS!  Black slaves were freed by Vermonters' blood in the Civil War, welcomed here before that war, and assisted by white Vermonters in escapes.  We Vermonters (and BLM) have done zero to help Rohingya; they are suffering now.

Vermont's Racist Injustice Alliance (who are not most black Vermonters) claims that ADOS are owed something by descendants of white immigrant subsistence farmers.  What of the Vermont bloodshed to liberate those same ADOS forebears?  These agitators wish to have their cake and eat Vermonters' cake, too:

Speakers from the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance will call for a statewide declaration that racism is a public health emergency, and a moral budget that centers ADOS in Vermont.

How is racism a public health emergency in this white state?  More white Vermonters are dying of narcotics overdoses than blacks of COVID.  There is indeed a "public racism emergency" — the left-wing liars who denigrate and scold innocent Vermonters.  That is systemic racism, illegal under existing federal laws.

Let us have a "moral budget" that "centers all people in Vermont" — as always.

Image: Pixabay, Pixabay License.