OPINION: The only agenda is human rights for everyone

The Human Rights Education Institute (HREI) was founded on principles of the Constitution of the United States of America and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These documents establish the principles of dignity and worth for every human being. The Human Rights Education Institute affirms and supports these fundamental principles of human rights.

Our mission is to celebrate diversity and human rights by educating, raising awareness and recognizing the value of all humanity. HREI is a 501c3 nonprofit and its programs are nonpartisan.

HREI fulfills this mission by promoting human rights as an essential element of a just and successful democracy. We serve the community by collaborating with other area organizations, city and county leadership, and educational institutions to provide programs, exhibits, public forums, and networking opportunities to address human rights issues that impact our community and to encourage public dialogue about these issues.

Every person counts. HREI addresses a wide range of diversity issues in the course of its programs, including race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic class, age, sexual orientation, religion, disability, and job and life circumstance. Prejudice and discrimination cannot be eliminated in one area while continuing to exist in another.

It is disappointing to the leadership of our organization, and much of our community, that Ms. Lynda Putz, a fairly new member to Hayden, and someone that has not had the traumatic firsthand, lived experience that her long term neighbors of Hayden Lake had with the Aryan Nation and Richard Butler’s compound, chose to make several misassumptions about HREI and its agenda and purpose at a recent Hayden city council meeting.

“While our ability to formally express opinions in a public forum to the city officials of Hayden is a celebrated freedom,” shares Colonel Mark Copess, USMC, Ret., HREI board president, “Mrs. Putz’s mischaracterizations of HREI as a progressive political engine is inaccurate and undermines the spirit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness our nation was built upon. HREI is not a political organization with a progressive agenda. The Education Institute was established to raise awareness and educate our community on human rights issues of all kinds. The goal is to build a community where people with vastly differing views, beliefs, and racial orientations are treated with dignity and respect.”

”The Aryan Nations’ first run-in with locals happened in 1980, when residents of the region discovered that offensive material was popping up in towns around Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington. One showed a black man as a running target. Another mentioned a Spokane rabbi by name. Also that year, a local Jewish-run restaurant was spray-painted with a Star of David, a swastika, and the words ‘Jew Swine.’” (Day, White Terror USA, Timeline, Nov. 2016)

HREI’s history traces back to 1981, when the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations was founded by a diverse group of citizens as a response against the local harassment and criminal activities of the Aryan Nations.

The Aryan presence became bolder in the 1990s, including incidents of marches, large World Congress gatherings which sought to increase recruitment across the nation to a bigoted ideology, and bombings such as the one on Sept. 15, 1986, where the back of Reverend Bill Wassmuth’s, chairman of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations, house blew up from a pipe bomb as he sat in his living room.

In July of 1998, community members Victoria and Jason Keenan (mother and son) were shot at and chased into a ditch by Aryan guards. The Keenans were then held at gunpoint and beaten with rifles. A suit was filed in 1999, and in 2001 a jury ruled that Butler and the Aryan Nations had been “grossly negligent” in failing to supervise and control the activities of its guards. The jury awarded $6.3 million in damages to the Keenans. Butler was bankrupted, and the compound became the property of the defendants, and later destroyed and donated to North Idaho College. (Day, White Terror USA, Timeline, Nov. 2016)

Although the physical presence of the compound was now gone, the footprint remained in Hayden Lake and left unforgettable ideological marks on the region even after the Aryans seemingly disappeared.

In 1998, HREI was founded following the successful lawsuit against the Aryan Nations and a generous donation from the Gregory C. Carr Foundation to create a human rights education center.

Our founders knew that education is the key to combatting hate. In an interview on Face the Nation (June 7, 2020), Condoleezza Rice, former United States Secretary of State, shares, “Focus on education is a way to break through the barriers of prejudice. Education is not a shield against prejudice. But it gives people a fighting chance.”

A historic building was secured in the heart of downtown Coeur d’Alene, and HREI officially opened on December 10, 2005 (International Human Rights Day). “We consistently hear from community members and visitors how this new physical presence stands as a beacon of hope to many citizens, and proclaims that all are welcome in the region,” states Jeanette Laster, HREI executive director.

In response to Laster’s request to the recent Hayden City Council for a reinforced statement of non discrimination and anti – racism, Putz looked around the room, and based on the appearance of skin color in the audience she states, “I’m probably the only minority in the room,” making an assumption and proceeding to speak on behalf of other groups in our community without knowing how they feel on the subject of racism. We are thankful that Ms. Putz has never experienced discrimination since she moved to North Idaho. However, that is not everyone’s personal lived experience. HREI has received 300 percent more reports of hate speech, incidents of harassment and discrimination across a broad sector in the last year that have been documented and referred to advocacy agents, than it has received in the last three years in total.

It is the role of HREI to be proactive in raising awareness to hate groups that could infiltrate our beautiful community and to positively counter messaging that seeks to recruit our young people. In Putz’s My Turn Article on March 5th titled “Separating Patriots from Pretenders,” she asks, “Was racism ever an issue in our country?” It most certainly still is an issue in our nation, in our state, in our county and in our cities. HREI agrees that it affects all races, including the white race, at times. ”Marshall Mend, longtime Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations member, is famous for stating, “Silence gives consent.”

HREI will NOT remain silent and seeks to educate, beginning at a young age, rather than debate, when confronted with hate speech in our community. We encourage all citizens to be an Upstander when faced with a situation that lends to a downward spiral of injustice. The hate speech may not reach the level of criminal intent toward the target and may be viewed as freedom of speech. However, we represent the voice of the majority backed by more than 250 businesses and organizations, and thousands of community members and students that share and support an inclusive North Idaho, standing together to interrupt this spiral of injustice. We are everywhere for compassion, equality, justice, love, respect and kindness!

“HREI is learning too,” Laster emphasizes, “collecting data and research that can and should be scrutinized from all points of view. A critical aspect of education is to start with awareness on what is really going on in our area. Factual data provides insights that are not always seen by the community at large, but can support long term goals and understanding in our community.”

Putz proclaims that her comment “a white supremacist is a patriot,” was taken out of context when the city council recorded meeting was viewed, went viral and shared by 100,000 tik tok viewers. HREI consistently portrays our region and its citizens in a positive light. This type of national media attention serves to hurt us all. HREI’s leadership is perplexed by Ms Putz’s statements in making this patriot association to white supremacy, as many of our HREI’s team, family members, university intern students and supporters have served or are currently in the military or in law enforcement and support true American Patriotism. They do NOT consider any part of their service to be affiliated with an ideology which teaches that Jews are the offspring of Satan and should be exterminated, which accurately describes the white supremacy philosophy. We are also aware and are sensitive to Ms. Putz’s previous commitment to her country and community and thank her for that service. However, to associate any form of patriotism with white supremacy is objectionable, and not at all amusing even in political jest.

“There are ugly parts to white supremacy that Ms. Putz doesn’t speak to,” says Coppess. “We, as a community are better off looking at the complete picture. In this age of information that caters to whatever category you’d like to belong to, it is important that we as individuals are willing to listen and are ready to learn in a broader sense than what we are getting from partisan news sources.”

We would suggest that Ms. Putz is resenting a national dialog, rather than being open to the intentional effort to reduce prejudice that is going on our very own Homefront. This is not a leftist agenda, but a human agenda, facilitated by nonpartisan collaboration. She asks, “Where was Jeanette Laster and the Human Rights Institute when BLM and Antifa terrorized and assaulted people for being white, burning, vandalizing, burglarizing and destroying cities? They were hosting 200 concerned community members in a thoughtful dialog and calling for civility and peace. “Where is their call for a statement against rioting that only further alienates and marginalizes certain groups?” This statement was made the day after George Floyds death when our nation broke out in anger and pain.

Since Ms. Putz has never visited HREI or participated in one of our programs, we genuinely welcome and invite her to join HREI in the front row this Saturday at 1:30 p.m. for a Courageous Conversation with Sean Gillespie, a reformed neo-Nazi. He will share more about the historical trauma racism can cause on a community over time and how standing up when we see injustice, taking a stance of curiosity vs conflict, is a model of promotion…promoting safety, civility, respect, compassion, and community.

Over the years, the Task Force played a large role in confronting hate in the Inland Northwest and was instrumental in directing the passage of major Idaho state laws against harassment (see the HREI website for wording of Idaho Statutes Section 18-7902).

In the words of Reverend Bill Wassmuth, “Saying yes to human rights is the best way to say no to bigotry and racism.”