I visited Vermont in the 1980’s and in November of 2022. I think it has a reputation as a liberal bastion it doesn’t quite deserve. Either my teenage self didn’t pick up on the situation or things have changed over the decades. During my recent visit, I heard blatantly white supremacist advertising on the radio. The NAACP is worried that Vermont is on the cusp of becoming a white supremacist hotbed and the Southern Poverty Law Center says it has more hate groups per capita than most other states (even more than my current state of Missouri, which is really saying something). No place is immune to this, of course, but still. As an outsider living in a “diverse” city, I think it’s easy for people who haven’t been to Vermont and even for many Vermonters themselves to think the state is filled with bunch of hippie progressives when the reality is Vermonters generally don’t have to deal with the effects of racially-based inequality on a daily basis. Beautiful place, though.

• My city is about 45% White and 45% Black. When the vast majority of the population comes from just 2 ethnicities, it doesn’t seem very “diverse” to me. YMMV