The Silence of Our Friends

Sunday, March 02, 2008

There is Both Acceptance and Racism in New Hampshire

Since I've been in New Hampshire I've found the mostly white population to be friendly and accepting. I did my grocery shopping last week and while waiting at the deli to get some sandwich meats two men started chatting me up, which would have freaked me out a few months back, but I have come to see as normal but slightly amusing. I've never known people who are this friendly to strangers, and especially "different" looking strangers. I don't want to leave the impression that people in other states are uniformly hostile because they aren't, but this is different than someone seeing I am ordering a certain brand of meats or cheeses and saying, "I wanted to try that but wasn't sure if my family would like it." or something like that. One of the guys was telling me about his dog, the other was cracking jokes, like I'm an old friend of the family.

Unfortunately, everywhere you go in the US, there has to be racists to taint things and it's no different here. A couple weeks back several black students at St. Paul's School in Concord received threatening letters. The scariest part is that the letters appear to have been sent by someone with access to the school's records since they were addressed to the individual students in their names. The school, the Concord Police, and the FBI are investigating the incident and hopefully soon will find out who did it and arrest them. There is more information in the article at the Concord Monitor.

St. Paul's is at the western edge of Concord and to avoid traffic when I go to my doctor's office I take the highway and then cut through St. Paul's instead of driving through the downtown area of Concord. Traffic is just ridiculous here and certain times of the day (rush hour) it's just plain gridlock. So I know this campus, it's like a small college. The interesting thing to me is that even though St. Paul's is private, there are public schools like this in New Hampshire. We looked at a couple other towns before settling on the town we now live in, and Londonderry and Pembroke's public high schools are both academies and look like small college campuses. There are probably others I don't know about. I guess mostly I have to say that it really saddens me that some ignorant vicious fool is trying to ruin the camaraderie at St. Paul's. When you drive through you can see how diverse the school population is and see the groups of kids walking, talking, playing on the sports field and as friendly and accepting of each other as those two men at the deli counter were with me.

posted by Donna at 1:12 PM |

6 comment(s):

With so many French Canadians and (little-M) métis in New Hampshire, maybe the locals don't view you as all that "foreign"-looking. ;) You're less than a couple hour's drive from one of my ancestral villages at Pequaket (near Fryeburg) and another at Cape Porpoise. According to the census, there are 3,100 NDNs and 4,512 métis in NH.

Here in California, most people just assume I'm Latina, including Latino/as. Shows you métis comes in many flavors.

(Sorry I've been AWOL - took a break from blogging while prepping for law school apps, but glad to see you're settling in fine, though reading you does make me homesick.)

By Blogger MB, at 3/10/2008 5:55 PM  

I have been in New Hampshire for two years and Being from the SOUTH, I am in complete shock over the RACISM that my husband and I have experienced here. The GOOD OLE BOY sector is ALIVE AAND WELL in New Hampshire. This is DEFINATELY still a WHITE mans world here in New Hampshire and will never improve economically or socially as long as the ARROGANT white male continues to think they are SUPERIOR to everyone else. And just for the record YES, I am an EDUCATED WHITE WOMAN. We are ALL created by OUR HEAVENLY FATHER and we are ALL his CHILDREN. We will ALL be in his house together (ALL RACES)as a CHRISTIAN family...unless you think you are better than somone due to the color of your skin. JUDGE NOT LESS YOU BE JUDGED. All I can say is God help you because, HELL IS very HOT! God Bless you all!

By Blogger Unknown, at 4/08/2011 11:39 PM  

I have never experienced RACISM like I have in New Hampshire. I am from the SOUTH and it is very unbelievable here. New Hampshire is DEFINATETly STILL THE GOOD OLE BOY STATE. The sensus for 2009 is 92% white to 8% other and the ARROGANT WHITE MEN want to keep it that way. AND for the RECORD I am a WHITE femnale that is EXTREMELY LIBERAL...everyone is SOMEBODY. When you set limitations on anyone then you are giving someone else the right to place limitations on you and your children. DONT BE SO IGNORANT!

By Blogger Unknown, at 4/08/2011 11:46 PM  

From my own personal and professinal experience, the biggest racist in the State of New Hampshire just so happens to be government officials. They come from all walks of life, educational, social and political backgrounds. In this state they just so happen to wear Stars, Bars, guns, badges, and even Black Robes. NH even has one that occupies the corner office in the Executive Branch, Governor John Lynch. Ask him why he did nothing when the NH Supreme Court Justices affirmed a decision to send a 6 year old Black child to low performing school in a high crime, drug and gang area in another State because of his race and color. It was NH's way of social engineering, rather than in the application of the law or the constitutition. It was the perpetuation of social, political and economic enslavement. Then he had the NH Attorney General Kelly Ayotte arrest the father and falsely charge him with a crime just for complaining about court's denial of his son's right to equal educational opportunity.

Read Holder v. Holder 04-0640 if you can find it and see if you can figure out why there was an appeal and why the affirmed the lower court's decision without opinion.

By Blogger Black_Bull, at 11/28/2011 3:41 AM  

I've been 3/4 around the world and spent most of my adult life working in the law enforcement and criminal justice career field. I even spent 7 years in Louisiana and have never experienced the level of racism that I have in NH that permeates the top levels of State government. I mean NH Governors Lynch and Hassan, State Attorney General now U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte and even the NH Supreme Court Justices David Brock, John Broderick, James Duggan, Linda Dalianis (now Chief Justice) and Joseph Nadeau and others. Did you know that Judicial Racism has been legalized in NH back in 2003 with the help of Ayotte defending the Justices who imposed court ordered racial segregation in education on my 6 year old son. They changed his "Home State" and principle place of residence for "school purposes" due to his African American "race and skin color". There has been retaliation by Ayotte and the Justices just for my speaking out about how they violated State and Federal civil rights law with their ruling, State and Federal Constitutional rights of equal protection, U.S. Supreme Court precedent of Palmore v. Sidoti and Brown v. Board of Ed and the Judicial Canon of Ethics against manifest bias. There has never been any judicial accountability because of fraud, corruption and cover-up by the Judicial Conduct Committee, Attorney Discipline Office and the State Attorney General.

Judicial "errors" are supposed to be corrected through an appeal, but for their part, the NH Supreme Court Justices made quite plain: they were more interested in protecting the authority of the court of separating a Black father from his son than by following the goals of the Domestic Relations Laws. The Civil Rights Movement involved the social struggle in the United States of Blacks whose goal was to end racial segregation and discrimination and enforce their civil and constitutional rights to Equal Protection and Equal Educational Opportunity. The 2003 ruling was adversely influenced by the irrelevant, unfounded and racially biased expression and doctrine of a quasi-judicial official. Fishman, Dalianis, the Justices and others maliciously acted outside of their job description when they failed to faithfully follow the laws enacted by Congress, the State and Federal Constitutions and the Judicial Canon of Ethics when they recklessly denied relief on Holder's appeal and tried to persecute him for opposing the gross racial injustice and inequality by the court. The court and the members of the disciplinary entities have acted more like a criminal enterprise than a safe haven for justice. They should have been criminally and administratively charged and prosecuted but for the overt abuse of authority, discretion and corruption by the NH U.S. Attorney Thomas Colantouno, the Judicial Conduct Committee members and the State Attorney General Kelly Ayotte. If not for the widespread fraud, corruption, racketeering and influence of judicial, political and criminal justice entities, these officials would have been federally charged under Title I8 USC § 241-245.

In Palmore v. Sidoti, 466 U.S. 429, 104 S.Ct. 1879, 80 L.Ed.2d 421 (1984) the U.S. Supreme Court rejected race as a permissible consideration in custody disputes between two natural parents. The Court made abundantly clear that it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution to factor race into a custody decision. The Palmore opinion, written by Chief Justice Burger, noted that the appeal raised important federal concerns arising from the Constitution's commitment to eradicating discrimination based upon race and that the Court was compelled to reverse the decision to change custody made only on racial considerations.

IF YOU ARE A MINORITY SO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND GO LIVE SOMEWHERE WHERE THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT SO RACISTS AND CORRUPT THAT THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU.

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8/01/2015 1:31 AM  

There is no racial or ethnic diversity in the hierarchy of any of the three branches of State Government.NH nor its appointed or elected officials. I fought to prevent my son from being the victim of modern day court ordered racial segregation. Now I'm going after the bigots in Black Robes who denied his right to equal educational opportunity and against discrimination (segregation) I have Dalianis and the Nashua PD in court right now for violating my rights by her extrajudicial misconduct. Sending the cops to my house to harass, threaten and intimidate me for criticizing her publicly wasn't a very smart thing to do.

By Blogger Black_Bull, at 8/01/2015 1:42 AM  

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