Editorial: Enduring Unity event counteracts intolerance

Ben Cabildo, chairman of Unity in the Community, wants the annual multicultural celebration to become one of Spokane’s “signature” events. Equaling the turnouts and name recognition enjoyed by the examples he cites – Hoopfest, Bloomsday or Pig Out in the Park – would definitely be a stretch goal, but crowd size and awareness aren’t the only measures of significance.

The 16th Unity in the Community took place over the weekend, with vendors, political candidates, performers and participants spread around the Clocktower in Riverfront Park. It is said to be the largest event of its kind in the Inland Northwest.

The setting, notably, was not far from that where Aryan Nations racists rallied in 1983, with the permission of African-American Mayor Jim Chase, who insisted on protecting the bigots’ free expression rights but encouraged citizens to ignore the attention-getting ploy.

Remembering the climate of those times helps us appreciate what the Rev. Lonnie Mitchell launched in 1995 as a get-together for the East Central community and members of his Bethel AME Church. It was an era of racial tension, ignited primarily by Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler, who was charring the Inland Northwest with an unwanted reputation for narrow-mindedness.

The U.S. Senate was investigating the shootout at Ruby Ridge, and Bo Gritz, the former Green Beret who helped negotiate an end to the standoff, made Idaho the headquarters of his own “Campaign to Save America.”

The O.J. Simpson trial made a celebrity of former police detective Mark Fuhrman, which in turn called more attention to the Idaho Panhandle as a retirement area popular with Southern California law enforcement officers with troubling racial attitudes.

Against that background, Unity in the Community could easily have become a confrontation-minded countermovement. Instead, it has remained more in line with the “Not in Our Town” response that the people of Billings modeled in 1993 after a Jewish family’s window was smashed with a brick.

Not that confrontation with hate movements isn’t to be applauded, too. Two weeks from today, human rights activists will gather at the Kootenai County Courthouse in Coeur d’Alene to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the civil trial that toppled Butler’s Aryan Nations.

Racism may be less virulent than it used to be, but it hasn’t disappeared, and periodic outbreaks must be combated when they occur. As Cabildo notes, “There’s a lot more multiethnic population in Spokane now.”

But the hallmark of Unity in the Community is that it represents not a defensive reaction but a triumph of diversity for its own merits. That’s a compelling signature.