Hatred, Fear Have No Place In Our Paradise

I feel as if the land I love is being stolen.

The land is the Northern Rockies, home of the most beautiful scenery in American, a paradise of mountains and lakes, vistas and overlooks, a land that continues to stir the heart of resourceful people.

To look across Lake Pend Oreille at dusk is to feel that God’s hand was that of an naturalist, an artist, and was truly inspired. It is the inspiration of vastness that comes from driving the plains of Montana. It is the artistry of whitewater when floating rivers of central Idaho. It is the natural thrill of skiing in the morning at Mt. Spokane.

To live in this place has been a privilege, but it is being compromised and corrupted. Hatred and small-mindedness belittle the splendor. Wherever I travel, whenever I tell people that I live near the mountains and lakes of North Idaho, a cloud too often descends on the faces of those from other parts of the country.

They say: Oh, you live up there with the white supremacists. Is Mark Fuhrman still your neighbor? Tell me more about the kooky religious types who bombed the banks.

My land has been stolen by people who do not speak for me. Who allowed this to happen? Who said that this truly last, best place could be redefined by bigotry, hatred and unfounded fears?

I ask these questions as a cowboy who owns a pair of boots, two hats and an old pickup. I ask as a believer that forests should be logged, streams fished, and the landscape enjoyed, preferably by sleeping out under the stars next to a river in the woods. I ask as someone who listens to country music, opens doors for women, believes people should own as many guns as they want. In short, I ask as someone from the Northern Rockies, whose parents and grandparents have lived here. Who let the racists, the paranoids, and the fearful alter the world’s image of this place I call home?

I guess people like me did.

Maybe the western sensibilities, the idea of live and let live, allowed those who hate and fear to gain a platform form which they could broadcast their message to the world. Once upon a time misfits could come to the Northern Rockies and just disappear. There is no disappearing in a world with 500 channels, the Internet and satellite TV. Rightly or wrongly, the actions of a few can be, and will be, amplified, broadcast and repeated around the world.

Maybe too many of the people I have always thought of as solid folk have become disillusioned. Though their pantries are as full as their gun cabinets, they may not feel safe or satisfied. On talk radio and in daily conversation I hear them blame. NAFTA. Immigration. The EPA. The IRS.

This puzzles me. I have always thought living in the Northern Rockies was about making your own way. Getting by without a lot of complaining. The racial slurs and hate crimes in this part of the world are perhaps the biggest disappointment to me.

Where did that come from? Is it a vestige of the Indian Wars? If this is so, the people who want a whites-only culture need to remember that the Northern Rockies isn’t a place where exclusion has been the dominant culture. People settled here to get away from prejudices. It is why the Mormons came. It is why the Irish settlers came. It is why even today Russians come.

So I say the Northern Rockies can still accommodate retired Los Angeles police detectives. There are hillsides, and farms, and small towns where people can come to escape the tensions of the city. But for this place to prosper in the 21st century, the new urban refugees must leave behind their hatreds and prejudice, or this place I have called home will be ruined. The world of the 21st century is not growing more white. The world of the 21st century is not going to be kind to places that hate.

The world of the 21st century will, however, respond to the symbols and styles I most value when I think of the Northern Rockies.

This place allows for rugged individualism coupled with tolerance of the guy down the road. It is why you shovel the snow from somebody else’s driveway. This place encourages taking a covered dish to the house where the grandfather has died, even if his dog did bark all night for the last 10 years. This place makes it important to take someone from back East on a trip to the mountains because they haven’t seen the view.

I don’t want to lose these symbols. I don’t want gated communities where people of color, or people of different incomes, can’t live. I don’t want churches where the emphasis is on thinking one way about people and not baking a ham for those who are different. I don’t want the mountains reserved for white people.

I have lived nearly 50 years among cowboys and Indians, farmers and ranchers, businessmen in string ties, God-fearing church folk, Mormons, and people who find God on the mountaintop.

The place I value allowed people to live as they please. Conservative, no-nonsense people have lived in the Northern Rockies for a long time. But they have not been filled with hate, exclusionary politics, and fear.

I want my place back. I want the people who love this place to fight for it, before it is lost and cannot be regained. I will fight for it.

It is not theirs. It is ours.

, DataTimes MEMO: Chris Peck is the editor of The Spokesman-Review. His column appears each Sunday on Perspective.