Helen Chenoweth (R-Clueless) claims that northern Idaho has plenty of ethnic diversity and that the U.S. Forest Service should quit trying to recruit minority workers there. According to Chenoweth, Blacks and Hispanics simply aren't attracted to the region, possibly because of cold weather: "The warm-climate community just hasn't found the colder climate that attractive. It's an area of America that has simply never attracted the Afro-American or the Hispanic."

According to 1994 census estimates, just 3.7 percent of northern Idaho's population is non-white. The area for years has been trying to shed its image as a haven for racist groups, such as the Aryan Nations and various militia sects. But Chenoweth, further demonstrating her inability to grasp complex issues of diversity and social inequity, commented: "We have Poles, people from Scandinavia, people from England, people from Italy." She continued to stick her foot in her mouth by saying that northern Idaho doesn't have the type of crop harvesting jobs that would draw Hispanics. "They were just never attracted to the logging industry," she added dimly.

Doug Cresswell, president of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations, says that most local residents want to change the common perception that northern Idaho is full of racists and bigots. "I think that people don't feel welcome in North Idaho because of that perceived image." Many Idahoans are justifiably concerned that, when their children leave the state, they won't be prepared to live in a diverse world.

Chenoweth, however, just doesn't get the point. "...I don't think [Idaho's racial homogeneity] is a bad thing, and I don't think it's a problem that government should invest its resources in. Government should invest its resources if something is harming a group of people, but I have to ask, where is the harm?"

The harm is in an attitude that so blatantly reflects institutional racism in the U.S. As long as Helen Chenoweth doesn't see or meet any people of color among her constituents or donors, she can continue to believe that racism just doesn't exist in America. And while it's easy to bash Chenoweth and the backwoods bigots of Northern Idaho, it's also useful to remember that there's more than a few people willing to believe that climate preferences are a good way to explain the near-total segregation of communities of color in neighborhoods in the south half of Seattle.