00:00There are white nationalist groups all over the United States.
00:02It is really troublesome to know that this is right here in our backyard.
00:06You have the swastikas painted on your house just because you are a black person?
00:10This is not the South. This is in Vermont.
00:14Kaya Morse was the only black woman in Vermont's state legislature.
00:18Thank you for what you had to say, Senator Sanders.
00:21But an escalating campaign of racial harassment has forced Kaya to resign from office.
00:26You are not in any way, shape or form ever required to have to deal with people coming at you
00:32with hateful comments.
00:34And if our systems are not set up to ensure that that doesn't happen, then they need to change, not
00:39you.
00:40I'm Amanda Knox and having been the target of online hate myself,
00:43I want to know the cost of a woman speaking her mind when she's in the minority.
00:56I was hoping to speak with Kaya in her home, but as it turns out, her home has been targeted,
01:03so we're going to this bed and breakfast that's nearby instead.
01:09Thank you so much for being here. I know that this is a kind of in the thick of it
01:14time.
01:14How would you describe Vermont demographically and politically?
01:20It is kind of a reflection of most places in the United States.
01:23I mean, Vermont's well known for its progressive politics.
01:26We're well known for being leaders and trailblazers as far as equality is concerned.
01:31But it's not without contestation. It's not without resistance. It's not without ugliness.
01:40According to the Census Bureau, Vermont is one of the least diverse states in the nation,
01:45with a population that is over 94 percent white. When Kaya was elected in 2014,
01:51she knew she would be facing opposition from some of her constituency. She had been vocal in the
01:57activist community for years and made no bones about what she stood for as an elected official.
02:02We choose to protest every day just by living and surviving this inequality, this injustice.
02:09This is for Eric Goddard. This is for Rasha McConnell. This is for Sandra Glenn.
02:16Art and activism for me has always been a thread throughout my entire life.
02:20It put me in a position where people said, she will speak up for us. She will fight for us.
02:25There was never a question that I was not only going to be speaking up for people of color,
02:31speaking up for people who are low-income, speaking up for women. And it was a difficult win,
02:38but I was glad that I did.
02:41So is this where you worked as a lawmaker?
02:44No.
02:45Oh.
02:46Where is that?
02:46We don't have offices.
02:48Oh, really?
02:48Nope. We don't have interns. We have nothing. You do it on your own.
02:52Really?
02:53Yeah.
02:54Have you felt resistance always, ever since that you've been a representative of this community?
03:01When I first ran for office, a fundraising event that I had, my husband recounted for me a gentleman
03:07who came up to him and introduced himself and said, I wanted to make sure that I said hi.
03:11And my husband said, okay, well, why is that? He said, well, your wife left one of the flyers
03:15for this concert on my door and on my neighbor's door. And my neighbor came over shaking it in my
03:21face
03:22and saying, can you believe the audacity of this for running for office, thinking she can represent Vermont.
03:27It definitely let me know that it wasn't going to just be perfectly smooth sailing.
03:32The white supremacist movement was already active in Vermont during Kaya's early tenure in office,
03:38and soon they focused their attention on her. While some chose to make their opinions public,
03:43many turned to hidden forums on the dark web.
03:46One of the individuals that I was dealing with, he's a constituent within my former district,
03:51and he had been apparently stalking me online for quite some time. He's an avowed neo-Nazi.
03:58In fact, this weekend, there was a protest against the Kavanaugh hearings, and he showed up there
04:03with a gun on his holster, ready to confront whomever he could find.
04:07He's got that thing on him like a peacock tail.
04:11Right. It's not your typical person. And open carry is absolutely legal here,
04:15and it is totally his right to be able to do so. But most people don't typically have them brandished
04:21in a way. Things really started to take a major shift with the governor's push to do comprehensive
04:31gun reform in our state. That single issue created a chasm that reached dangerous levels.
04:40What were people saying?
04:41It was the simple rhetoric of being able to say,
04:44here's this black woman from Chicago coming in here, and she's trying to take our guns.
04:48After the 2016 election, the white supremacist movement in Vermont became more active.
04:54I mean, we have these incredibly difficult and insidious and foul racist comments that are
05:00coming straight from the Oval Office on an almost daily basis. So expressing those beliefs,
05:07even if it comes from a place of fear and pain, is normalized.
05:12Kaya's harassers started targeting her more frequently, right as her husband fell severely ill.
05:18So I know that there's an ongoing investigation, but what can you tell me specifically about the
05:24threats and harassment that you've been subjected to?
05:27We've had everything from a home invasion, where people actually broke into our home while we were
05:33there asleep, vandalism on our cars and our property, swatsikas painted on the trees.
05:38There was even a moment that we had a few weeks ago where there were youth sitting out in front
05:43of our
05:43home, directly in front of our living room, taking pictures and videos with their phones.
05:48And then the next day, after my husband had been in the ER for over six hours,
05:52I decided to come and play this really aggressive game of ding-dong-dash. And they had communication,
05:58they were whistling to each other. Seven youth, and would come and again and again and again,
06:02barrage and come and bang on all of our windows and our doors, very loudly, to not only wake my
06:08son
06:08up and upset us, upset our dog. And they did it again and again and again, almost five times within
06:13an hour.
06:15So it culminated in a death threat that was sent.
06:21One that my son actually witnessed.
06:24Was it sent to your home?
06:27It was sent to our home and my young son saw it and he completely understands. He said,
06:32why daddy, why does that say that you're dead? And so it was sort of this sort of gut-wrenching
06:40acknowledgement. I mean, it just was like walking in a nightmare.
06:48Which I still don't feel like I've completely emerged from.
06:53How many times have you contacted law enforcement to try to get help?
06:57Several times. Several times. And it was really strange that when we reported this to law enforcement,
07:03they were just like, oh, that's just kids being kids. It's just online trolling. It's just political
07:08dissent. It just isn't really a home invasion. It was just an attempt at burgery. All of these really
07:13insane ways that we try to gaslight what's happening. This is not a game.
07:22I went to meet with Tabitha Pohl-Moore, a local leader of the NAACP and a friend of Kaya's.
07:28She's been helping Kaya's family build a case to prove the attacks were racially motivated.
07:34So I have been helping the family to gather their evidence and make their timeline,
07:42to be there in the middle of the night if Kaya needs to talk or if, you know, Jim's stressing
07:47out.
07:48Can I just say that, like, that is really wonderful to hear. I've had supporters of mine
07:54do that work for me. And I hope that you know how much that means to someone who's in that
08:00position.
08:01I feel like that's the biggest role that I can play to help Kaya right now.
08:04Vermont government is not ready to handle incidents of racism related to people in public positions.
08:13That has become clear through this process. Her local police department, in my opinion, didn't do enough.
08:19Do you know what the Bennington police said?
08:22Um, at one point they actually said, good luck.
08:25Really?
08:25Mm-hmm.
08:26So, there's some death threats.
08:27Said, yeah, there's not much, there's not much we can do, good luck.
08:29Even more recently, some behaviors were written off again as one-offs.
08:34The refusal to look at these things as a pattern of behavior is mind-boggling to me.
08:42Was there a final straw?
08:45Um, the final straw was in realizing that we brought the computers over to law enforcement,
08:50gave a full report, and that they sat there for almost three weeks.
08:55Kaya's case is now being investigated by the state police.
08:59But in the meantime, she's decided to resign from the legislature.
09:03I cannot be the legislator that I want to be,
09:07and be assured of the safety for myself and my family.
09:11And how did you arrive at the decision to resign?
09:15It was excruciating.
09:17It was excruciating.
09:19It's not as simple as, okay, I'm worried about a couple of tweets,
09:23or I'm worried about an Instagram, or I'm concerned about this or that.
09:27There was so much happening, it became an inevitability.
09:32We don't feel safe in our own home.
09:34This is the home that my husband grew up in, and we love it.
09:38But it doesn't feel safe.
09:40It doesn't feel like home.
09:44So are you going to continue work here in Vermont?
09:47For the time being, we're taking it one day at a time,
09:50and we'll see where the future leads us for sure.
09:53You're not letting it stop you?
09:55No. I was in the fight before I was in the seat,
09:58and I'll be in the fight afterwards.
10:01Oh, this is beautiful.
10:02So this is St. Peter's Episcopal Church,
10:05and it's been really instrumental in supporting the activist community.
10:09So this is actually the room that I sat in when I withdrew my nomination to run.
10:15I think I was sitting right in this seat over here.
10:17What were you feeling in that moment?
10:19Um, slightly numb, but kind of sad at the same time.
10:22I'm so compelled by you, because as a lawmaker, we've asked so much of you.
10:30And what you've gotten in response is people holding you up as this symbol to throw darts at.
10:37To pick you apart, not for your policy, but for your personhood.
10:41And it's absurd. And I'm so sorry.
10:45Like, it just...
10:46It drives me nuts.
10:51I... I want the people that have harmed me to get the help they need.
10:58But that also doesn't mean that I have to... that I have to bear it.
11:03No.
11:04Of course not.
11:05No one should have to bear that.
11:12We're at an extremely divisive time in our country.
11:16We've lost the ability to know the difference between scrutiny and hatred.
11:23Between disagreement and harassment.
11:26My hope for Kaya is if she comes back, that it's not just her voice.
11:31And that this time she actually does have a chorus of supporters who are not just allowing
11:38her to take care of the problem.
11:57So, I'm tired of feeling weAPR."
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