OPINION: An example of ignorant racism in Idaho

“Why don’t you go back where you came from,” State Sen. Dan Foreman, R-Viola, angrily shouted to Trish Carter-Goodheart during a recent candidate forum.

She is a Democratic candidate for an Idaho House seat in the fall election.

And right here is where Carter-Goodheart came from.

She is a Nimiipuu (Nez Perce). Her ancestors have lived in northern Idaho for at least 11,500 years and she is a native of Lapwai, which is the seat of government of the Nez Perce Indian Reservation.

If anyone needs to go back to where they came from, it is Foreman, whose people have lived in the United States for less than 460 years — since St. Augustine, Fla., was established in 1565.

It was the first permanent settlement of European immigrants, 42 years before the English colonized Jamestown and 55 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.

Foreman was born in Lake Forest, Ill. The exact date his first immigrant ancestor arrived in what is now the United States of America isn’t available, but as a Nimiipuu, Carter-Goodheart has at least 11,040 years more claim to a U.S. homeplace than does Foreman.

Apparently, he is ignorant of (does not know) Nez Perce history. We can excuse him for that. Few people do. But his racist explosion at a public forum cannot be excused.

The Daily News reported (Oct. 5-6, 2024) that Foreman’s Facebook page said, “They (liberals) re­sort to race-bait­ing and class war­fare to make their would-be con­stituents feel as though they have been vic­tim­ized. ... Well, Ida­ho isn’t buying into their agen­da. My po­si­tion on the is­sues is crys­tal clear. I have, and will con­tin­ue to tell, the peo­ple of my dis­trict ex­act­ly where I stand on the is­sues of the day. I am a Chris­t­ian, Con­ser­v­a­tive, Re­pub­li­can.”

During the candidate forum at Kendrick on Sept. 30, Carter-Goodheart responded to a question about racism in the state by pointing out that it remains a problem. That led to Foreman's outburst, and later — on Facebook — he accused Carter-Goodheart, Democrats and liberals generally, of “race-baiting” and “class warfare.”

Foreman’s race is white and his social, economic and politics are white supremacy.

His race-baiting accusation is racist.

Does Foreman also believe the false statement that America was unpopulated except for a few scattered Indians when Europeans arrived and the vast forests and plains were for the taking?

As many as 112 million Native Americans lived in the Americas before Columbus’ arrival in 1492.

This land was their land, whatever the number was.

Of course, there is no consensus among academics — historians, anthropologists, geographers and others — on the size of pre-discovery population. Some estimate as few as 8 million.

"The discovery of America was followed by possibly the greatest demographic disaster in the history of the world," according to William M. Denevan, author of "The Native Population of the Americas in 1492.”

White man’s diseases killed far more Indians than any other cause, including the massacre of men, women and children so settlers could steal their land. European settlers employed a variety of ruses, including signing treaties and then reneging on the fulfillment of their obligations.

Nez Perce and allied tribes were victims of Washington’s Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens’ land grab. He negotiated a treaty with the tribes for land for white settlement.

By law, the treaty did not go into effect until ratified by Congress, but Stevens communicated to newspapers in Portland before he left the Walla Walla treaty grounds that the land was then open to settlement.

Terence L. Day and wife, Ruth, have lived in Pullman since 1972. In 2004, he retired after 32 years as a science communicator on the Washington State University faculty. His interests and reading are catholic (small c) and peripatetic. He welcomes email (pro and con) at terence@moscow.com. Give him a piece of your mind.