There’s always a first time for everything.

And a first for this professional is being hired to manage communications for a globally renowned state regulatory agency then being prevented from doing it by a leadership with zero idea about its communications plan and even less interest in learning about it.

The last of four positions during ten years with the State of Vermont, my experience at the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation would be alarming at any other time. Today such treatment reflects current social and political environments, punctuated by a president's hate-filled rhetoric, his continued obsession with former President Barack Obama, and the July 4th march in Washington, D.C., by a  white nationalist group.

 

Words and actions long equated with hostile, dangerous extremists have become the norm: from President Donald Trump calling Obama a curse word during a global news broadcast (while falsely attributing it to Iranian leaders) to the UFC fighter who used his winning platform to disparage former First Lady Michelle Obama, evidence of what race and political scholars cite as the backlash to the election of America's first Black president abounds.

 

My employment with Vermont coincided with this backlash: from enduring the explosive outburst of a White male coworker who bragged about punching mental health patients to being the object of racist jokes lobbed by an agency commissioner then being publicly denigrated and demoted for doing my job as a communications professional, my work with the State involved, for the first time in my career, being fearful while on the job.

 

Having a career that began in 1970s Idaho working in the in-house ad agency of one of the world's leading commercial developers, I covered the night police beat in Oakland, California, decades later while reporting for the then-Oakland Tribune. Never have I been frightened at work nor received any professional reprimand, until working for Vermont.

In 10 years, I received four reprimands: the last three while with DFR. The first came while with the Office of the Treasurer Unclaimed Property Division. A White male coworker, angered he’d not been given a position I earned despite his being unqualified, orally assaulted me.

Walking past my desk wearing earplugs, he couldn't hear his name called three times. I went and rapped on his desk. He jumped up from his chair and began yelling, pointing his finger at my face. A coworker interjected and they began talking; I returned to my cubicle. The irate coworker resumed his shouting and finger-pointing and followed me. The customer who had been waiting for him returned; I attempted to introduce her to him. He ignored me and continued yelling. Mortified, I slunk down behind the cubicle partitions. Only after the customer - an elderly woman - yelled at him did he stop. I wrote my superior and requested protection, noting the coworker’s hostility had increased to an inexplicable point.

No response ever arrived. Instead, a written reprimand accusing me of behaving “unprofessionally in front of a customer" was delivered by hand. Which unprofessional acts had I done? "Aggressive knocking." A White man in a business suit felt comfortable stating that in response to my question during a grievance hearing months later.

First, the customer wasn't even in the office when I knocked on his desk. Second, the customer told my attorney that no State investigator ever contacted her and that we could quote her as describing the male coworker as "icky." Third, intriguing how a rap on a desk becomes something labeled as "violent" or "aggressive" (a hallmark of racist stereotypes about Black women) while a White man screaming at the top of his lungs and pointing his finger in someone’s face apparently warrants no concerns about staff safety. 

The lack of support from the State Human Resources Department unsurprisingly affirmed studies showing HR departments often perpetuate racism. Moreover, while spending tens of thousands of tax dollars fighting removal of the "aggressive knocking" reprimand letter from my personnel file, the State was spending untold more dollars printing "Black Lives Matter" in big, bold white letters on the street fronting the State Capitol. It even has an Office of Racial Equity.

The double-speak of white exceptionalism would be laughable were it not for the lives being lost and tax dollars wasted. My Vermont employment involved being confronted by the very ideologies identified by race scholars as impeding racial harmony: a) Psychological Wage of Whiteness, b) Social Identity Threat, c) Scapegoating and d) Cognitive Dissonance.

 

Indeed, Trump's obsession with and the MAGA movement hatred for Obama stem specifically from how the election of a Black man as United States president:   

• challenged the status people collect merely for being born White; even poor Whites feel superior to Black Americans, not by qualifications but by a societal ideology of whiteness as supreme (Psychological Wage of Whiteness); 

• proved Blacks could be just as and more educated than Whites; Obama’s decency, intelligence, zero scandals and global respect (including earning the Nobel Peace Prize) contradicted the white supremacist belief about the "natural order of things" (Social Identity Threat); 

• revealed the extent to which white supremacists will go to deliberately strip non-white individuals of their humanity and to blame them for complex societal problems, e.g., the Obama birther movement and anti-immigrant hatred (Scapegoating);

• contradicted deeply held beliefs about white superiority and exceptionalism; thus, weak people will not update their beliefs, they double down on them (Cognitive Dissonance).
   

When one’s self-identity aligns solely with beliefs about superiority based upon skin color, eliminating all evidence to the contrary becomes a main goal; hence, Trump's attacks on DEI, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's denials of promotion for and removal of senior women and non-white military officials, the U.S. Department of the Interior's removal of park exhibits and signage related to Indigenous nations, slavery and climate change.

 

Besides attempts to equate me to a White male employee with a known history of workplace violence, my employment with Vermont meant having every single effort to explain, present or discuss the DFR communications plan – and any proposed updates – ignored by leadership; not even an acknowledgment-of-receipt email. Despite having sent the existing plan three times to leadership, the then-commissioner’s first words at a scheduled presentation of its updates were: "What are these documents?"

 

Refusing to allow me to answer, he then lambasted me about non-existence email protocols, dismissed any efforts to explain the plan and announced that his friend (a White man with zero information technology or communications background) would lead communications. This mirrors the insane antics of the Trump administration. Being demeaned – "If only you could write something that someone could understand," the then-commissioner stated during a leadership meeting – daily creates an overtly abusive, hostile work environment.

 

Initially, the work atmosphere was pleasant; however things changed when the highly knowledgeable White man who had been general counsel left. He and I had collaborated effectively; he shared so much with me during our short time together. Whenever asked a question, he answered directly or assisted me with getting one. 

 

His replacement, a White woman whose actions apparently made it clear she did not consider me her equal, despite the org chart indicating as much, could never answer my questions. Not even the most basic ones, e.g., where are Department internal and external policies and procedures maintained? She said she had no idea what I meant, despite receiving an explanation replete with links to other State agencies' publicly available policies. After a few more emails, I gave up. Days later, she sent me a Microsoft Word file requesting that I add “a footer” because she was unable (she has an admin). 

Her response to a draft SOP for a task germane solely to my position contrasted entirely with responses from all other department heads. While they appreciated the document, made edits and offered questions or suggestions, she had a staff attorney send a group email with a "do-not-use" edict. The email announced that the document contained errors (the very definition of "draft").  Still, why advise against using a "draft"? Why not just provide the necessary corrections, edits like all others, especially since not one attorney from her department ever followed up? The sheer level of pettiness defies logic, except when viewed through the lens of white supremacist ideologies.

After she became lead counsel, DFR leadership’s first feedback to me was: "It's the way you talk." White supremacists have long sought to silence educated Blacks – the “uppity n*ggers”; by eliminating threats to their perceptions of superiority, they can protect racial hierarchies and maintain systemic power.

The ultimate efforts by this "legal Karen" (as I came to call her) included silencing me. The first DFR reprimand came upon my return after a self-imposed hiatus, which began after I was instructed to reinstate errors and cyber security instructions that violated State IT standards into a draft press release - one so poorly written it failed to provide an example of the topic. My then-supervisor (the White man who told me there was "no such thing as communications") gave me a "work plan" that excluded almost three-quarters of the duties involved in my position. Neither he nor any other DFR leadership had read the position overview that described my job duties in detail. He left before ever updating the “work plan.” Requests to VTHR for an updated job description after being demoted went, like communications to the DFR leadership, unacknowledged.

 

The second reprimand came after I provided updates on a project initiated when I began working with DFR at the incessant insistance of the "legal Karen." As records officer, I automatically served as project manager for the state-mapped library archives work at DFR. After my demotion, all work on the project stopped. Years later, copying the new commissioner, the "legal Karen" sends an email advising me that she had "just learned" of a state library service availabe.

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After being reminded of DFR's existing library archives project and given its current status, she tried to argue each point, unsuccessfully, without ever expressing any appreciation for or acknowledgement of the facts just provided. The woman incapable of adding a footer to a Word doc now wanted to to dictate how a system-wide IT project should be led. She demanded I do as she said. I ignored her. 

The new commissioner and I subsequently discussed the project and agreed it merely required a restart. The team-led project would resume with a celebration of having reached the first official milestone on work that had been ongoing for more than six years.  The legal Karen, angered that things were not going her way (despite showing how her wishes could / would be accommodated) apparently enlisted the support of an attorney friend in the state archives office. This heavy-set White woman, who also seems to dislike educated Blacks, began to insist that things be done, coincidentally, just the way the "legal Karen" wanted. When asked why the team-led project could not hold a team meeting (as agreed to by the State librarian and instructed by the State project map) and a celebration of the first project milestone, her response was about "status updates" and I replied that this was "imbecilic.” 

The written reprimand I received ntentionally distorted my words, accused me of name-calling (stating I called people "imbecils") and concluded by referencing a months-old email, in which I had responded to a deputy commissioner's questions about why DFR leadership was unaware of several state-wide enterprise IT projects. That response, which began by citing my difficulties with writing it given the unusual circumstances encountered, listed myriad reasons for their lack of knowledge about the projects, identified issues encountered that required addressing, and noted my concerns as a communications professional.

The smack-down DFR reprimand stated that those comments amounted to "an accusation riddled shaming [sic] of numerous practices that don't comply with 'national protocols' and don't comport with your views." I was accused of "disrespecting" leadership and threatened with termination should I ever repeat such statements. It concluded by removing me from the project entirely and, despite being the records officer, forbidding me from communicating with state archives staff - without prior approval.

The last reprimand prompted my decision to retire. Communications has always been a fun profession, an exciting career - despite the demands and disappointments. At DFR, it became a tiresome, nightmarish experience where conventions were ignored for the arrogance of perceived supremacy. The wins and victories expressed through various metrics were meaningless to folks who lacked even an iota of a desire to understand their own organizational messaging tools and options.

The person who replaced the former commissioner's friend as my so-called supervisor introduced me to a colleague of hers as someone there to "assist" her "because, as you know, we project managers never get our hands dirty." What?

She often introduced herself as having a communications and IT background yet seemed incapable of understanding the most basic of documents, e.g., the media calendar (sent at least three times). When her last email requested time to train her in how to "obtain a website URL", I responded by noting her lack of experience and skills caused significant extra work for me and interfered with my being able to do my job. I requested a meeting to discuss and devise a plan with milestones and change-management components based upon the state-wide project training. 

The reprimand letter advised that I had “hurt” her feelings in reference to her experience, stated that she "had tried" her best to work with me then demanded I do a list of tasks that had already been completed - by me.

The amount of war crimes, grifting and other flagrant abuses and  incompetence demonstrated by the Trump administration show the extent of behaviors tolerated as normal and superior by white nationalists yet in reality are destructive and harmful to the nation. The recent Iranian cyberattacks on U.S. water systems in 12 states reminded me that six months ago, about a week after leaving DFR, I sent an email to the DFR IT lead advising of some outstanding cyber security matters based on alerts received in my personal email account. No response was ever received. 

About two months ago, "Daniel" with LinkedIn Marketing Solutions left a voicemail message stating that someone from the State wanted to meet to discuss the LinkedIn app and to expect a meeting invite with details. No such invite ever arrived. Given the importance of cyber security - and considering DFR has ignored my guidance and email - I will tag the Vermont Agency of Digital Services. ADS staff and I have always successfully communicated and worked. 

The Trump administration and my employment by the State of Vermont convey the fallacy of today's DEI initiatives. They serve as mere window-dressing to disguise the root cause of systemic discrimination: white supremacy. For all the public dollars Vermont spends on DEI, that non-white employees remain subjected to such abject office hostilities, violence, disparities, inequalities and antagonistic (Karen) behaviors proves it would do better to put its money where its mouth isn't. 

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