Django Grace describes himself as an environmentalist, skier, chiller, and lifelong Brattleborian. He graduated from Brattleboro Union High School in 2024 and will enter his sophomore year of college at Columbia University this fall. He plans to study political science and environmental policy, and eventually hopes to work in the Vermont Legislature.
BRATTLEBORO-Upon my return from freshman year of college, I was quickly reminded of the immense political passion that the people of Brattleboro carry.
I spent the last year at a school in the Midwest, and living in such a different part of America reminded me that not everywhere is like this - though we may take it for granted, it is worth recognizing that Brattleboro is a remarkably conscious town.
Perhaps it is privilege and socioeconomic security that has allowed most of Brattleboro to raise our eyes from day-to-day minutiae, but this town places a staggering focus on contemporary social issues. More so than any community I have spent time in, everyone I speak to in Brattleboro is deeply informed about the pressing political issues of our time, liberals and conservatives alike.
I am proud to see protests and gatherings, letters in the paper, flags flying, signs in the lawn. Even as I clear tables and wash glasses at work, I find myself constantly swimming through a fiery sea of political discourse; an electric social energy charges this town's bones.
On June 14 at the "No Kings" rally, I was absolutely blown away by the passion that momentarily consumed downtown. I felt excited to see where this momentum would go for more than 3,000 people who attended and optimistically believed a much-needed wave of civic action would finally swell into fruition.
Yet, almost two months later, the anticipated civic spike is nowhere to be seen but on social media.
I have spoken to many people in the wake of that rally, all of whom remain politically impassioned, vocal, angry, and disheartened by the state of our country and world, yet are lost as to where they personally should direct their energy.
"I'm so angry, I just don't know what to do" seems to be the gist of what I have heard from countless folks all summer long, and seems to be reflected broadly across many facets of our community.
I am left to wonder: are we stuck? Was showing up at that rally and holding a poster simply the end of the line? Is it enough to repost a couple of things on an Instagram story and chuck a lawn sign in the front yard?
Is it enough to watch the news and listen to the radio? To sit at tables and bars and computers and simply talk about the state of things, and how angry we are about it?
How can we make something of all this talk?
* * *
I simply do not believe that nearly 3,500 people showed up in downtown Brattleboro on June 14 to hold signs for fun and recreation. No, folks deeply care about justice and democracy, and they are filled with anger.
For this reason, Brattleboro, I feel obliged to call attention to our blaring disconnect between sentiment and action.
I have been hesitant to do this because:
1. People here are quite comfortable in the current norm of angrily preaching to the choir and seem to prefer to keep most civic action confined to words.
2. Even this piece is merely a collection of words backed by frustration and anger, which I suppose makes me a bit of a hypocrite.
Here is my diagnosis: In a reaction to the grim sociopolitical reality of America, Brattleboro has worked itself into a powerful anger. It is a justified anger, an informed anger, yet it lacks a purposeful direction.
It boils in conversations, charges itself up in Facebook chats, and occasionally fires out to manifest as a rally on a highway overpass or in front of the post office, desperate to find an outlet.
It seems that everyone could talk for hours about their political frustrations and how these are "dark times," yet beyond social media and occasional gatherings like the Flag Day rally, there are few channels to release this frustration.
Placing blame is not my intent. The gap between sentiment and action is a far one to bridge, and for myself and so many folks I have spoken to, it seems genuinely impossible to know where to start.
The natural reaction to this suffocating sense of helplessness is anger, which compounds over time. This is the problem: Despite Brattleboro's vast arsenal of angered passion, we lack the means to translate the passion into concrete, progressive action. We are left with a whole lot of words, and a whole lot of anger.
Without a true release, I fear that this anger will continue to build up in the community like sewage in a clogged pipe. People are becoming bitter, ready to explode at the slightest provocation, and we are in dire need of an outlet.
I believe the best place to direct our energy, the greatest answer to "I just don't know what to do," is to invest the anger into vitalizing Brattleboro.
* * *
In the words of the great philosopher, scholar, and poet Audre Lorde, "anger is loaded with information and energy." She believed that this gives anger a transformative capacity, that when it is "expressed and translated into action in the service of [a] vision," anger becomes a "liberating and strengthening act of clarification."
This simply requires the courage to let anger become a moral fuel instead of a mere reaction.
Brattleboro's arsenal of social anger is vast, meaning we just need to connect a few dots to capitalize on its civic potential locally. It may seem naïve and meager to argue that we should work on bettering our community when there are countless sociopolitical crises underway across the nation and globe, but this is precisely why I believe community reform is the best target for anger and passion.
When the values of justice, liberty, and democracy come under fire on a macro level, it is our duty to ensure that our community exists as a stronghold for those values on the micro level that we exercise control over. Angry sentiments about the world may contain truths and inspirations that can be applied to powerfully bolster this community.
* * *
What's more, it doesn't take an expert to see that Brattleboro itself is in dire need of support.
Our municipal government is struggling to function on a minimized budget, downtown continues to spiral into disarray, and seemingly all federal support structures that once benefited our municipality, schools, and nonprofits are disintegrating.
I find it a stark irony to witness folks talk about how the nation is going to s-t when their own community - the network of people and entities that they directly interact with and impact every day - is suffering.
Additionally, whether we care to pay attention to it or not, there is still a climate crisis that directly affects our community: floods that will tear apart homes without mitigation, markets that will be lost if the skiing and sugaring industries collapse, a rapidly growing demand for sustainably produced electricity, and many more issues that will only appear with time.
We need all hands on deck.
Unfortunately, nobody is going to be able to rearrange Washington from their living room in Brattleboro. But we have direct impact in our own community. Fantastic work is already being done by the people who staff our municipality, schools, businesses, and nonprofits.
With a new wave of support and energy, backed by a full stockade of passion and anger, I see the potential for Brattleboro to enter a new era of progress.
* * *
I do not mean to condemn anyone who goes to protests or anyone who spends a lot of time engaging in political discourse on social media. On the contrary, I believe acts are necessary hallmarks of democracy, and I encourage folks to participate.
But attending rallies and using social media, while important, are not necessarily the extent of what we can do in the grim face of our political reality. I wish I could provide some sort of mass community action and reform blueprint for Brattleboro, but that is up to more people than one frustrated 19-year-old on a laptop.
What I can do, again, is point to the disconnect between sentiment and action in the hopes of inspiring some accountability.
I am proud to be part of this town - it is a nexus of brilliant minds and souls. I'm sure that we have enough intellectual capital and professional expertise to remedy local hardship and vitalize Brattleboro as a stronghold for the values we hold dear.
We simply need to connect a few dots. There are municipal committees to be joined, organizations to be supported, affordable housing to be erected, floods to be mitigated, renewable energy generation to be installed, legislation to be drafted, lobbied for, and passed.
It is likely that readers already participate in some sort of local civic work. In this case, I encourage you to take it a step further - forge a direct connection between the work and a national or global source of anger, allowing this connection to become a pipeline of moral fuel.
* * *
It may seem daunting or backwards to take the first step and connect these emotions and sentiments to small scale civic work, but it needn't be so.
I joined the Brattleboro Energy Committee at 15, when my greatest qualification was a middle school diploma. Not only did it turn out to be the best learning experience of my life, but I found serving on the committee to be an opportunity for my despair and anger about the climate crisis to manifest in concrete projects.
You don't need a degree to join and support these civic initiatives, you need passion. I know damn well this town is in no short supply of that.
I saw several banners on June 14 that displayed the great quote long associated with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I love this quote, but when I saw it that day it gave me pause.
I wondered, in that moment, if I was gathered with 3,500 people to angrily wait for history to happen. Were we to rally and sing and chant and pray, as if in ritual, for the storm to pass and for the arc to correct itself toward justice? Is this how we are to exist now, waiting for time to do its thing and bend morality while we angrily talk about it?
We cannot afford to wait. We have the passion, the tools, the resources, and the anger to push the arc ourselves, right here. Let's connect the dots.
This Voices Viewpoint was submitted to The Commons.
This piece, published in print in the Voices section or as a column in the news sections, represents the opinion of the writer. In the newspaper and on this website, we strive to ensure that opinions are based on fair expression of established fact. In the spirit of transparency and accountability, The Commons is reviewing and developing more precise policies about editing of opinions and our role and our responsibility and standards in fact-checking our own work and the contributions to the newspaper. In the meantime, we heartily encourage civil and productive responses at [email protected].