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Thursday, June 13, 2019
Black family ‘deeply disappointed’ by Scott’s veto By COLIN FLANDERS
PHOTO BY COLIN FLANDERS
Essex High School administrators investigated a potential harassment incident after a chalk drawing of Pepe the Frog appeared outside the main building late last month.
Meme drawing sparks concern at EHS
The parents of Andrew Black say they are “deeply disappointed” by Gov. Phil Scott’s veto of a bill that would have enacted a waiting period on the purchase of handguns. The bill, S.169, would have required Vermonters buying a handgun here to wait 24 hours until they could receive the weapon. Scott rejected the legislation on Monday evening, saying he doesn’t believe the bill addresses the “underlying causes of violence and suicide.” “Moving forward, I ask the legislature to work with me to strengthen our mental health system, reduce adverse childhood experiences, combat addiction and provide every Vermonter with hope and economic opportunity,” Scott wrote. But Rob and Alyssa Black, whose son, Andrew, killed himself last year with a firearm he purchased that same day, disagreed with the governor, saying they were disappointed to see he “went political.” See BLACK, page 5
By COLIN FLANDERS A drawing of Pepe the Frog, the once-innocuous internet meme who has become an unwilling mascot of the alt-right, made an appearance outside Essex High School last week, raising questions over who gets to decide whether an image is inherently offensive. The chalk version Pepe appeared on the high school’s sidewalk May 31, brought to life by a fine arts student during an annual outdoor drawing class activity. The illustration shows the frog in classic form, his hand resting below his chin as if mid-thought. Administrators learned of Pepe’s arrival later that day when a student reported the drawing to a faculty member, referring to it as “racist,” according to assistant principal Ben
Johnson, who later highlighted the incident in an email to the student body with a link to the Anti-Hate Defamation League, which has classified the frog as a hate symbol. Pepe, the brainchild of cartoonist Matt Furie, first appeared in a 2005 comic alongside some fellow animal friends, engaging in behavior the Los Angeles Times aptly described as that of “stereotypical post-college bros: playing video games, eating pizza, smoking pot and being harmlessly gross.” But posters on websites like 4chan, 8chan and other “dark corners” of the internet began altering Pepe’s image to in recent years to include hate symbols, like a Hitler mustache or Klu Klux Klan garb, so much so that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign described the once (mostly)
virtuous frog as a new symbol of white supremacy. The trend even led Furie to join forces with the AntiDefamation League on a #SavePepe campaign (it sputtered to a sad conclusion when, unable to achieve liberation, the creator killed off Pepe.) The Anti-Defamation League notes that while the prevalence of Pepe memes pushing racist or bigoted agendas appears to be increasing, the majority of Pepe images are benign, so it’s important to examine use of the character “in context.” “The mere fact of posting a Pepe meme does not mean that someone is racist or white supremacist,” the ADL says in a web post. “However, if the meme itself is racist or antiSemitic in nature, or if it appears in a context containing bigoted or offen-
A recently-published list of poorperforming nursing homes around the country has identified a Fort Ethan Allen facility as a candidate for heightened oversight. Green Mountain Nursing and Rehabilitation, a 73-bed facility located at 475 Ethan Allen Ave. in Colchester, was among five Vermont nursing homes selected as candidates for the Special Focus Facilities pro-
See PEPE, page 4
See NUSING, page 3
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essexreporter.com
EssEx REpoRtER | THURSDAY, JUne 13, 2019
Area nursing home listed among state’s most under-performing facilities By COLIN FLANDERS
Essex Jct. | (802) 857-5994 www.julesvt.com
Vol. 18 No. 24