COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho — A group of children from the Coeur d’Alene Tribe were racially harassed at McEuen Park over Memorial Day weekend, according to tribal leaders.
The alleged harassers were a group of middle-aged white men, according to a release from the tribe. Just before noon on Friday, the men allegedly mocked the children with gestures imitating feathers behind their heads and making mocking sounds.
The children are students at the Coeur d’Alene Tribal School, and they were on a school field trip when the incident took place.
Per the release, one harasser yelled, “Go back to the f***ing reservation, you aren’t allowed here.”
“These racist cowards felt emboldened enough in our community to approach a group of Native kids in public and essentially tell them to ‘go back where they came from,'” Coeur d’Alene Tribe Chairman Chief James Allan said in a statement. “Quite an ironic charge, given that Coeur d’Alene is our homeland and our people have always been here and always will be.”
Allan called on the community to respond the latest incident of racial harassment in north Idaho in a productive manner, something he said hasn’t happened in recent high-profile cases.
In March, a Post Falls teen shouted a racial slur out of a car window at the University of Utah women’s basketball team while they were in town for the NCAA tournament.
Dozens of Patriot Front members were arrested on their way to a Pride event in Coeur d’Alene in the summer of 2022.
“The University of Utah incident received national attention but has since devolved locally into a debate over whether it even happened, rather than a call to do better,” Allan said. “The Patriot Front incident wasn’t long ago. Instead of denying that these things happen or minimizing them as isolated acts of hooligans, it is time to face the fact that racial harassment is a serious issue and face it head on.”
The tribe said it’s offering $25,000 to anyone who can identify and provide information leading to a conviction or civil judgement against the men behind the alleged racial harassment incident.
