I haven’t bought an Idaho Statesman since I left the newspaper’s employment 15 years ago. I have long maintained it’s wrong, even in the slightest, to put my money behind a media outlet that aspires to be the Official Fishwrap of the Liberal Left. Now, I have chosen to extend my boycott. I will never again lay eyes on the Statesman, or respond to another of its reporters’ questions. I cannot and will not give a moment of my attention to a “newspaper” that gives cover or support to a racist politician, as it has done and continues to do with Boise City Councilwoman Lisa Sanchez. 

Sanchez’ recent bigoted statements are breathtakingly stupid, offensive, and putrid. And, with the blessing of the state’s former official newspaper of record, her narrow-minded, discriminatory comments have grown worse.

In June, Sanchez took to social media to condemn “the parents (if they exist) of the white man, Michael D. Wallace,” who was charged with a misdemeanor in the alleged accidental discharge of a weapon on the Capitol grounds during a protest. Sanchez went on to claim that Wallace “tested the boundaries of his white supremacy and privilege, and now he knows what his community will allow him to do--live through the night when he was the one who could have killed innocent people.”

She signed her letter, “Love, Lisa Sanchez, Brown woman who chose not to have children for fear of their abuse and murder by white people.” 

Wallace was charged with a misdemeanor because that’s what Boise’s ordinance says is supposed to happen to people who unlawfully discharge a weapon within city limits. The Stateman’s editorial board certainly knows this, but pays no mind to this fact. Instead, this editorial board panders to Sanchez and her vitriol. 

“So while her words may have been incendiary and provocative, it’s a message that we need to hear,” the editorial board wrote on June 23, the last Statesman editorial I’ll ever read. 

On Thursday, Sanchez continued parading her open bigotry that the Statesman has granted her license to spew. She wrote on social media that “open carry is a legal way for white supremacists to intimidate the rest of us.” You hear that, Second Amendment supporters? If you’re white, and you carry a gun, you’re a white supremacist. I’m not sure where that leaves my non-white friends who also carry. 

This is an elected official who is unhinged because she’s being hailed by the media as a hero for her hate speech. The newspaper refuses to condemn, let alone question, her filthy, disgusting, misinformed rhetoric. I doubt the Statesman would respond similarly if it was a white elected official making intolerant statements about minorities. Especially if that elected official were a conservative. 

The Idaho Statesman editorial board says Sanchez is “speaking her truth, and we need to listen.” Sanchez’s truth is that everyone with lighter skin than her’s is a racist. Call it unfair and deeply insulting to the people around her who, though white, have nothing but love and compassion in their hearts for others. But Lisa Sanchez is quite obviously the definition of a racist. She judges people, and assumes the worst about them, based solely on the color of their skin.

Racists, and the “media” that defend racists, don’t deserve our money, and they most certainly don’t deserve a single moment of our time or attention.