If love really lives here, then let's act like it

If attracting diverse people to the Flathead is the goal of “Love Lives Here,” then I recommend they stop providing pro bono marketing for the white separatist group, the National Policy Institute, and its president Richard Spencer. Their undying efforts to convince the world that Whitefish is racially tolerant is delivering the exact opposite message, and to folks out of state, our wonderful community is now being unfairly portrayed as the Northwest headquarters for hate and intolerance.

Before my family moved to the Flathead over two decades ago, the top news coming out of Montana were stories of extremist groups such as the Montana Militia and the Freemen. From out of state, it appeared Montana was a hotbed of rabid neo-Nazis, anti-government militias bent on seeking revenge for the sieges at Ruby Ridge, and Waco, and white supremacists committed to starting a race war.

Even though our visit to the Flathead revealed the locals to be warm, kind and welcoming to our mixed race family, the constant flow of negative stories coming out of Montana prompted my wife to wonder out loud if people would burn a cross in our front yard if we moved here. After 23 years we can laugh about how ridiculous our fears might have been back then, but at the time all we really knew about Montana was learned from what we read in the national press.

For the past two weeks our out-of-state friends and family have been inquiring about Whitefish’s white supremacist problem they heard about on NPR and other national news outlets. Our assurances that we don’t have a racial intolerance issue in Whitefish is unfortunately met with a trace of skepticism.

If a woman needing her hair done in Whitefish walks into a salon with a sign in the window that reads “We Don’t Tolerate Lice,” and approaches the stylist wearing a lapel button that reads “We Don’t Tolerate Lice,” who in turn invites the customer to a candlelight vigil to express our town’s intolerance for lice, she can’t help but be concerned about a lice epidemic in Whitefish. In the same way that we don’t have a lice problem in Whitefish, we also don’t have a racial intolerance problem, and ubiquitous rallies, protests and grassroots efforts decrying our non-problem do more to hurt our wonderful town’s first impression than help it.

I know the members of Love Lives Here have good intentions, but their misguided efforts aren’t helping — if the goal is to make Whitefish attractive to diverse people. Many of us would appreciate it if Love Lives Here would stop promoting Whitefish as a town that needs their help in eradicating our non-existent racial intolerance. I think most marketing experts would agree, the best way for us to draw more people to the Flathead is for Love Lives Here to behave like love already does live here.

Joe Coco is a resident of Whitefish.