Weighing in
A weekly look at reader comments and reactions to the news
When a Coeur d’Alene man of Middle Eastern descent found his pickup truck spray-painted with swastikas and a racial slur and a front tire slashed, it marked the seventh hate crime perpetrated in the Inland Northwest since May. Huckleberries Online asked readers what they think might have triggered this increase. Full comments and reactions can be found at spokesman.com/ blogs/hbo.
Phaedrus: Just ignore it and it’ll go away. We can keep our head in the sand and not look at such unpleasantness.
Nic: Yup, now that we’ve elected a black man as president, there’s no such thing as racism. /sarcasm off.
Sisyphus: The anti-Muslim rhetoric on the right has come home to roost.
Poolman: This might sound a little radical – I believe we need to start controlling the sale of aerosol spray paint. It should not be sold to anyone under the age of 18 without valid identification. Records should be kept for all purchases that link back to the can of spray paint. … Also – those caught doing graffiti should have a mandatory sentence of cleaning up other graffiti.
Smacky: Poolman, I think the law in CA (California) is that very limit … and you can see how well that works if you visit.
moscow_minidoka: How about banning the sales of aerosol paint to people who are so stupid as to hurl racial epithets that don’t even apply to the victim?
Zelda Krup: For those who think that this kind of expression is committed only by trailer-trash denizens, I can testify that I’ve heard it live, in person from the mouths of some of Spokane’s most prominent businessmen. … The hatred burns for generations like a coal mine fire.
OrangeTV: Ugh, this makes me want to puke! I am getting to the tipping point about this kind of thing ruining our beautiful part of the world - so sick of it! I’m ready to organize some sort of call to action and fight this kind of garbage. The frustration lies in finding an effective solution that hasn’t already been tried in this area (without getting arrested), and these cowards are so shadowy that they’ll continue these moronic acts no matter how vocally anti-racist the good citizens of this area are.
Spokelooneh: I traveled through Mica Flats a few weeks ago. Parts of it reminded me of Appalachia. Then again, so do parts of the Spokane Valley.
Stickman: It’s North Idaho, and we will see it till the sun doesn’t shine.