A French dude 400 years ago called the mountains in Vermont “green.” Ver Mont. It stuck. Vermonters, being the creative folk that they are, never changed it. Well, they added “state” but that’s about it. 

Vermont is also known for electing a screeching nut named Howard Dean, a wayward commie, named Bernie Sanders, having lots of maple syrup, and lots and lots of white people gnashing their white teeth with white guilt. Vermont is a very white state. As in the third whitest. Ninety-three percent of the population is as white as Bernie’s hair. Only about 1 percent of the population is black. You could fit Vermont’s entire black population into a high school gym in Indianapolis. There are about 1,000 Vermont Indians. One hundred and twenty-nine Vermonters are “Asian Hispanics.” And about 3 percent of the population calls themselves multiracial. 

Vermont is loaded with white people looking to unload their guilt. They see racism behind every maple tree. Pasty, white-guilty Vermonters have been gnashing their teeth over “BIPOCs” not owning enough Green Mountain homes. 

At a place called the Champlain Housing Trust (CHT), there is a program called the Homeownership Equity Program (HEP). It is designed to “address racial inequities in access to homeownership.”  CHT goes on to say:   

“ [it] provides a bridge to homeownership with 0.00% interest loans (.o6% APR)* of up to $25,000 for qualified shared equity home buyers”.

Just one one big catch. If you’re part of the 93 percent, you’re SOL. Poor and white? Check your white privilege, racist! Only BIPOCs can apply. 

Last fall, CHT was  “infused” with a $20,000,000 gift from MacKenzie Scott. The San Francisco native was a secretary when she met Jeff Bezos. Three months later, they married. Twenty-seven years later, she had pocketed $35 Billion. Scott has been giving away her Bozos-earned fortune ever since. She has a definite White Knight complex. Ninety-one percent of the “racial equity organizations” she’s given to are run by people of “color.” But not Vermont. Not CHT. White guilt dominates at CHT.

What Is CHT doing with the Scott money? It is partially funding race-based discrimination.

Champlain Housing Trust (CHT) is committed to racial justice and permanently affordable housing. Due to a long history of discrimination, Black and other households of color have much lower homeownership rates than white households. White homeownership rates are over 70% nationally and in Vermont, compared to Black homeownership rates of 42% nationally and 21% in Vermont.

That last sentence doesn’t make a lot of sense, but no matter. It’s clear that if you are a poor white Vermonter, you are ineligible for that grant. Whites need not apply. 

CHT efforts to justify its racism with platitudes like “systemic” and “historic” discrimination. But facts seem to belie CHT’s white guilt angst. Redlining and racial discrimination have been illegal for several decades. During the housing boom, mortgage lenders were bending over backward to lend to racial minorities, including Vermonters. And it is illegal for NMLS mortgage brokers to discriminate. CHT has an NMLS license. 

Vermont’s legislature published a document that tells the reader that Vermont has been part of lending discrimination against “BIPOCs,” but close to the end of the document, it says that Vermont is one of four states that has a higher mortgage acceptance rate for blacks than whites.  

Hmmm.

Statistics from DataUSA tell us more. Almost 17 percent of Vermont’s population is living “with severe housing problems.” With only 1 percent of the population being black, it seems clear that the majority of those in “severe housing” distress are white. 

The poverty level for Vermont blacks is 33 percent, which translates into about 2,300 blacks living in poverty. White Vermonters in poverty are just 10 percent, but with 93 percent of the population, that’s 59,000 white people under the line. For every black living in poverty, there are 25 white Vermonters under the same line. But, If you’re in the latter group, you are excluded from the “hand-up” program for homebuying just because you are the wrong race. 

Helping the less fortunate is commendable, but doing so based on race seems pretty racist to me.