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Kiah Morris. (Courtesy of Kiah Morris)
First, racist tweets and online threats.
Then there were swastikas on the trees.
And then Kiah Morris said that his house had been invaded.
For Morris, the only black woman in the Vermont House of Representatives, it was getting too much.
The Bennington representative, who has two terms, has spent the past two years enduring the racial harassment and online threats that led to an investigation by the Vermont Attorney General's Office.
At the same time, her husband needed an open heart surgery.
And while she had planned not to seek re-election and complete her term, on September 25, Morris had made her decision: she would resign immediately.
"The sacrifices were getting too big," Morris told the Washington Post Thursday morning. Her family, she said, will remain her "100% goal" to go forward.
Morris' resignation leaves Representative Kevin Christie (D) as the sole black representative of Vermont House, one of four people of color from the very white Legislative Assembly of Vermont, 94% white.
Morris, who defined her four-year term as advocate for racial justice, women's and workers' rights, and access to health care, was elected to the House in 2014 and again in 2016. His colleagues, such as Senator Dick Sears (D-Bennington), said it would be "difficult to match his enthusiasm and commitment", the Bennington Banner reported.
The racial harassment that Morris said he had experienced began during his re-election campaign in 2016, coinciding with what Morris described as a visible rise of white supremacy in his region during the presidential campaign. The neo-Nazi propaganda began to appear at the door of the Bennington Democratic Party's office, she said. Neo-Nazi recruitment leaflets were left throughout the city.
And then, a few days after Morris won the Democratic primary in August, she connected to Twitter to find a photo showing a shocking cartoon of a black person, accompanied by vulgar language that said, "I shall be represented by a white man from Bennington," as reported by the Berkshire Eagle. The Twitter user, identified as Max Misch, told the Eagle that he "demonstrated the absurdity of a black woman as a representative of the state of Vermont" in a predominantly white district. A judge would later issue a criminal harassment order against Misch, obliging him to stay away from Morris, Bennington Banner reported.
At the time, legislators immediately denounced the racist and supported tweet Morris, who had shared it on social media.
"These acts are part of a set of prejudices and discrimination," she wrote on Facebook on August 19, 2016, in an article referring to the racist tweet and another targeting a local resident. "Although these recent acts were evident, many others have experienced other acts in silence and without reparation. We each have the obligation to take direct action.
But the harassment continued throughout the fall and, she said, threats and harassment are now an integral part of her life and that of her family, including that of her 7-year-old son. years. She was bleeding from the Internet in her personal space, she told The Post, where they were supposed to feel most safe: their home.
Once their home vandalized this fall, she said, once the nearby tree trunks were damaged by swastikas, it was like they could not be there. escape.
More recently, she said, while online racial abuse had increased before her re-election campaign this year, her family had received a death threat – which she said would have been seen by her son. years.
"When I looked at all this and realized the seriousness of our problems," she said, "I knew I had to focus on my family and our safety. As a Black Mother, my role is to imitate the strength and courage needed to cope with a world that is not repeated in dealing with race issues, which in many ways is similar to people of color and those lessons about the threats to us. Lives that happen just because of our mere existence should not be in this format. That should not have to get into my son's heart that way. "
Morris said she went to Bennington police about online threats and invasion and vandalism at home, but did not feel the investigation was underway. On August 27, the Vermont Attorney General's Office announced in a brief statement that he had reviewed his file, claiming he was investigating online threats.
Since Morris announced her decision not to run for re-election, she seemed to think that many people in Vermont saw it as a call to action, horrified that it happened to an elected leader in their state. "They do not just say," Is not this a shame? "Morris said." They say, "This should never have happened and we need to get to work."
But others interpreted things differently, wondering why Morris would give up, why she would let them win, she said. Morris said that she did not see it that way. It should not rest on the shoulders of one person to bring down racism, she said.
"It's up to each of us."
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