Duroc: Idaho Racist Image Alive, Well

I was a teenager when Ruby Ridge happened. I was on vacation with my family in Florida right after that, and it was one of the few times in my life that I felt embarrassed to be from Idaho. I was proudly wearing my IDAHO Vandals hat everywhere we went, and everyone wanted to ask us about White Supremacists and Aryan Nations and Neo-Nazis. People would ask us if everyone in Idaho was like that, and we told them “Only in northern Idaho. It’s not like that where we live.” Just as many of you resent the power of Boise over the state of Idaho, many of us who were raised in southern Idaho felt very embarrassed by our North Idaho cousins in the 1980s and 1990s. I still get asked about neo-Nazis and Aryan Nations when I go to southeastern Idaho to visit my family for holidays. It’s still embarrassing that I have to explain that most people in North Idaho are good, decent folks. You think your reputation has gone away. It hasn’t. (AP file photo: On July 3, 1999, Richard Butler, center, founder of the Aryan Nations, salutes along with other members of the neo Nazi group during a rally in Coeur d’ Alene.)

Question: Has anyone ever asked you about racism in North Idaho when you were visiting another part of the country?