Barbara Richardson-Crouch. Who is she?

Moscow Couple Plan Move East

Vera White splotches a blotch in today's Daily News:

Barbara Richardson-Crouch and husband, Jeff Crouch, have their house up for sale and plan to head east at the end of the month. Barbara served as director of the Latah Economic Development Council for the past four years and Jeff is a former Latah County sheriff. They have two children and will be making their home in Norwich, Conn., where Jeff's parents live
When asked why they were leaving, Barbara echoed the sentiments she expressed during the panel discussion at last month's showing of "My Town" at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre.
"I have two bi-racial children and I don't feel comfortable here," she told the INKster Wednesday. "The community has changed because of what is going on in Christ Church."
Barbara doesn't feel Moscow is a safe place for her children when the community as a whole accepts and embraces someone who has, in her opinion, expressed racist views.
Barbara said she would be replaced at LEDC by an interim director until a permanent replacement is found.

She doesn't feel comfortable because of what is going on at Christ Church? Whatever "it" is was going on long before she got to Moscow; and when she arrived she apparently didn't notice anything amiss. What changed in the last two years? It wasn't anything at Christ Church -- which I would wager is the most ethnically diverse church in Moscow.
Could leaving have anything to do with the fact that her husband LOST the sheriff's election? Is she leaving because her husband was voted out of office and she got a higher paying job in Connecticut? The "unsafe" rhetoric is, well, rhetoric.
Oh, and by the way, I was appalled that the Director of the Latah Economic Development Council would publicly advocate an economic (business) boycott of Christ Church businesses during the My Town Q&A. Am I the only one who saw the irony in that?

HT: Greg & Mike

Published Friday, August 05, 2005 10:17 PM by Right-Mind Filed under: Vera

Another article about the family leaving Idaho

Shooting the Messenger

Moscow: We Have A Problem

By Joan Opyr, 9-04-05
My partner, who works at Washington State University in strategic planning and diversity education, recently attended a training seminar at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication in Portland. One of the sessions was taught by Terrell Jones, the Vice President for Equity at Penn State. Jones, who is African-American, began his talk by asking, “What’s the beginning of every nigger joke?�? Then he mimed white people looking over their shoulders to make sure there were no black people in the room.

Prior to her departure for Connecticut, our most prominent African-American citizen, Latah Economic Development Council Executive Director Barbara Richardson-Crouch, did us the painful courtesy of sharing a few home truths about how our small college town has fallen short of its liberal hype and its progressive self-image. In an interview with David Johnson of the Lewiston Tribune, Crouch said, “she's leaving a town where racism has been given tacit approval.�?

Johnson reports:

“The entire town seems to say, 'why are you so upset?'" [said] Crouch, who is black.

She acknowledges many people were upset with her after she told an audience of more than 400 that she was leaving because Moscow is not a good place to raise a multi-racial family. She made the comments during a panel discussion following a local documentary movie titled ‘My Town.’ The movie by [Michael Hayes] a Washington State University professor chronicled what some people are calling a cultural divide in Moscow.

‘I don't feel anyone has endangered my children or threatened to hurt them,’ says Crouch, ‘but it's stuff like little kids don't want to be brown, and I'm getting out before my little girl doesn't want to be brown.’�?

In the wake of Richardson-Crouch’s comments, white people all over the City of Moscow are turning to one another and asking, “Do you think I’m racist?�? And the white people they ask are invariably answering, “No, of course not. Do you think I am?�? Satisfied with the happy reassurance of the circular firing squad, Moscow’s majority white population has decided that we’re not the problem – Barbara Richardson Crouch is the problem. Who does that black woman think she is, trying to make us feel bad? We’re nice people! We’re good people! Black people feel welcome in our town – even when they say they don’t. How do we know this? (Look over shoulder for black people who might contradict this assessment. See none. Continue.) Well, we just do. Now shut up and leave us alone.

Johnson’s article reports that Moscow Mayor Marshall Comstock addressed Richardson-Crouch’s concerns with the following observation:

“Crouch has a right to her opinion . . . [and] he respects her as a person and a professional, but he doesn't agree with her assessment of Moscow. ‘It's frustrating when we have accusations that this is a racist town. I've had many friends, who are minorities, who say this is not a racist town.’�?

Some of my best friends are black. Once you’ve had black, you never go back. If you’ve ever been black on a Saturday night . . . well, ha, ha! Yes, Moscow, Idaho is predominantly white, but what can we do? That’s just the way it is. The University of Idaho has two (count ‘em, two) black faculty members. Okay, that’s two out of more than a thousand, but I’m sure they’re treated fairly. Why? Because I treat everyone the same – black, white, yellow or purple.

Have you ever seen a purple person? Me neither. But I’ll bet you’ve heard all of this – or some dull variation – before. No one likes to be told that he or she is racist, even if only passively so.

Johnson’s interview with Richardson-Crouch continues:

“While [Richardson-Crouch’s] disappointment is directed mostly at local leaders and residents who won't acknowledge the problem, Crouch says her ire is directed at Christ Church Pastor Doug Wilson. ‘If racism were compared to pregnancy, says Crouch, ‘Doug Wilson might be four months along.’

Wilson counters that Crouch has taken a cheap parting shot at him and a community that's anything but racist. ‘The obvious thing is that her husband lost the race for sheriff,’ Wilson says. ‘I doubt they'd be moving away if he'd won.’�?

I spoke with former sheriff Jeff Crouch a few weeks before the family moved to Connecticut. After he lost his reelection bid last November, he took a job in private industry that paid close to twice what he’d earned as sheriff. As for Pastor Wilson, on his blog, he recently dismissed Richardson-Crouch’s concerns about racism in Moscow, in Christ Church as “laughable.�?

Pastor Wilson is the co-author with League of the South co-founder Steve Wilkins of a booklet called “Southern Slavery: As It Was,�? which, among other dubious claims, describes the slave-holding antebellum South as the most racially harmonious society the world has ever known. Southern Slavery: As It Was is now out of print, but excerpts, criticisms, and other information about the controversy that arose in Moscow over the booklet can be found here.

“Southern Slavery: As It Was�? is only one of Pastor Wilson’s more troublesome publications. In his book, A Serrated Edge, which defends biting, or even vicious, sarcasm as a sound tool for Christian proselytizing, Wilson writes:

“Jesus was not above using ethnic humor to make His point either . . . (Mt. 15:22–28; Mk. 7:27) . . . My understanding of this encounter is that Jesus was pulling his disciples’ chain. This woman was not a Jew, and the Jews had problems dealing with such people, considering them beneath contempt—in a word, dogs. Put in terms that we might be more familiar with, Jesus was white, and the disciples were white, and this black woman comes up seeking healing, for her daughter. She gets ignored. The disciples ask Jesus to send her off. She comes up and beseeches Christ for healing. It’s not right, He says, to give perfectly good white folk food to ‘niggers.’ Disciples mentally cheer. But she sees the look in His eye, and the inverted commas around the epithet, and answers in kind. He relents, which was His intent all along, and heals the woman’s daughter. If this understanding is right, then Jesus was using a racial insult to make a point. If it is not correct, then He was simply using a racial insult.�?

(Douglas Wilson, “A Serrated Edge.�? Moscow: Canon Press, 2003, pp. 43-44.)

I find it hard to believe that Wilson was “floored�? by Richardson-Crouch’s declaration that she didn’t want to raise her multi-racial family in Moscow. Taking a leaf from Mayor Comstock’s book, Wilson points to the fact that some families in his congregation are inter-racial. David Johnson quotes Wilson:

“’If I’m a race baiter, racist or a racist pastor, then I’m a thoroughly incompetent one . . . ’ [Wilson] claims to have a ‘happily integrated’ congregation that includes several inter-racial families where Crouch would have been more than welcome.�?

(An aside: several members of the extended Wilson family and a number of very angry New St. Andrews College students have asked me if I’m aware of the fact that there’s a black student – a, as in one – attending Wilson’s Seminary, Greyfriars. The answer is yes, I’m aware of that fact. Doug Wilson’s black student is as prominent on the New St. Andrews College website as the University of Idaho’s minority students are in that school’s advertising.

I am a white Southerner and, by many accounts, a traitor to my race. I have been around the bigoted block. I am not impressed nor am I fooled by predominantly-white schools with minority-laden advertising. I won’t use the word “token,�? but I will say that if I took a couple of New St. Andrews and University of Idaho brochures to our local video arcade, I could play Area 51 all day without spending a single quarter.)

Moscow has a problem. Doug Wilson is part of that problem, but he’s not wholly to blame. Johnson writes:

“Barbara Crouch also asserts local racism was quickly exposed in the pending murder trial here of three black men charged with killing another black man. Grand jurors investigating the shooting death of 19-year-old University of Idaho football player Eric McMillan have made statements, according to court records, that defense attorneys claim are racist in nature.

‘If they're convicted, they're going to be convicted purely because they're black,’ Crouch says. ‘And I'm sick of people in this town saying it (the trial) is going to cost so much money. That's the price of having a civilized society.’

Latah County Prosecutor William Thompson Jr. acknowledges that allegations of racial bias have been raised in the murder case, but insists that race never played a factor in any of the charges filed. In addition to three principals, six family members also were charged with perjury in connection with the case.

‘The whole damn family went to jail for lying,’ Crouch says. ‘And that's never happened before in Latah County.’�?

The white people of Moscow need to stop turning to one another for reassurance and instead take a close look in the mirror. When people of color tell us they don’t feel comfortable here, that they don’t feel safe raising their families here, that they don’t want to shop here, dine here, or walk down our Main Street, who are we, the safe, white, friendly folk of Moscow to tell them that they’re wrong? Who are we to say that they don’t know racism, that we’ve asked our minority friends about bigotry, and they’ve assured us that everything’s hunky-dory? Have we grown so sheltered, so comfortable, so insensitive that we can’t shut up and simply listen to what Barbara Richardson-Crouch and other people of color have to tell us?

One of the things that dismayed Richardson-Crouch the most was the community’s weak response to Doug Wilson’s “Southern Slavery: As It Was.�? Again, David Johnson reports:

“Crouch says she was taken aback when only a few outspoken people were upset by what Wilson wrote about slavery . . . ‘The first thing I want to say is that there are some wonderful, wonderful people here in Latah County,’ says Crouch, who at her job with LEDC was charged with helping diversify and strengthen the local economy. ‘It's that just regular people won't say this is a racist thing.’ And while Crouch says many good people belong to Wilson's church, she's disappointed they don't take their pastor to task about his views on race.�?

People of color spoke up at both showings of Michael Hayes’ film “My Town�? to say that Moscow is not what it once was, that it’s not what many of us still want to believe it is – a liberal, progressive island in a sea of reactionary red. White people of good will don’t want to believe that we’re racist; we don’t want to believe that there’s no such thing as a level playing field; that we benefit from a racist system that gives us a leg up from birth onwards. Rather than face these facts, we prefer to point the finger at those black people who take a risk and bring us face-to-face with our problems. We declare that they must be mistaken, that they’re just disgruntled or annoyed or, to paraphrase Pastor Wilson, “out in left field.�?

Perhaps Doug Wilson is right, and Barbara Richardson-Crouch is out in left field. Alan Keyes is out in right. Why are people of color in the outfield? Because white people are standing on first, second, third, the pitcher’s mound and home plate. Take a look at the Fortune 500 – Oprah Winfrey’s in the bleachers, but white people own the infield.

There is no escaping the fact that Moscow has allowed itself to become home to an appalling collection of bigots. For the past ten years, Doug Wilson has invited League of the South co-founder Steve Wilkins to come here and deliver speech after speech about such edifying subjects as his opposition to The Enlightenment, his support for forced Native American assimilation, and, of course, the glories of the slave-holding South. Doug Wilson’s magazine, Credenda Agenda, has railed against gays, lesbians, feminists, Muslims, Mormons, Catholics, Hindus, Buddhists, pagans, Wiccans, and all non-Reformed, anti-patriarchal, liberal-minded Christians. If you’re not with Doug Wilson, you’re against Doug Wilson, and if you’re against Doug Wilson, then you’re on the A-Train straight to hell.

In both Credenda Agenda and on his Blog and Mablog, Wilson frequently lapses into Uncle Remus-style black dialect for humorous or ironic effect. I don’t find this funny. I don’t find it witty or clever or amusing. When Wilson recites the lyrics to “Hambone, hambone, where you been,�? and says that liberals like myself can’t tell the difference between this and “We Shall Overcome,�? I wonder if he might be due for one of those involuntary vacation at the nice quiet hospital down in Orofino. Why don’t people of color feel comfortable in Moscow anymore? Two words: Doug Wilson.

But don’t think that lets the rest of Moscow off the hook. After all, who has allowed this to happen? I have. Me and my progressive friends, Moscow’s lazy, complacent, latte-sipping liberals. Shame on us. Damn us. What the hell is the matter with us? It’s my understanding that some misguided souls actually believe (and have had the gall to say publicly) that Barbara Richardson-Crouch ought to apologize to the City of Moscow. She ought to be sorry for telling us the bald, ugly truth. Yes, we know there’s a bogeyman in our closet, but did Barbara have to speak his name out loud? Did she have to say “Lord Voldemort?�? We were happy going along with our eyes screwed shut, muttering the 23rd Psalm as we whistled our way through the graveyard. Whatever it took to keep the peace.

We didn’t make our bogeyman, but we didn’t lift a finger to stop him. Now, thanks to Barbara Richardson-Crouch, we’re obliged to open up the closet door and shine a 10-million candlepower flashlight on his face. By God, it’s an ugly face, and that ugliness is contagious. That’s why we’re not looking so hot ourselves these days. We’re looking a bit like mutton dressed up as lamb; we’re looking like flower power gone to seed.

Time for a face-lift. Time for a make-over. Time to throw out the cold lies and pick up the hot truth. We can take it. Ours is the easy part. Barbara Richardson-Crouch’s was the hard row to hoe.

Another article about the situation in Idaho


Departing official sees racism in Moscow
By DAVID JOHNSON
of the Tribune
MOSCOW -- When she moved here four years ago to possibly attend the University of Idaho, Barbara Richardson Crouch says she found Moscow to be "the friendliest place I'd ever been."
But the 40-year-old Crouch, former executive director of the Latah Economic Development Council and wife of former Sheriff Jeff Crouch, says she's leaving a town where racism has been given tacit approval.
"The entire town seems to say, 'why are you so upset?' " says Crouch, who is black.
She acknowledges many people were upset with her after she told an audience of more than 400 that she was leaving because Moscow is not a good place to raise a multi-racial family. She made the comments during a panel discussion following a local documentary movie titled "My Town." The movie by a Washington State University professor chronicled what some people are calling a cultural divide in Moscow
"I don't feel anyone has endangered my children or threatened to hurt them,"
says Crouch, "but it's stuff like little kids don't want to be brown, and I'm getting out before my little girl doesn't want to be brown."
Mayor Marshall Comstock says Crouch has a right to her opinion, that he respects her as a person and a professional, but he doesn't agree with her assessment of Moscow. "It's frustrating when we have accusations that this is a racist town. I've had many friends, who are minorities, who say this is not a racist town."
While her disappointment is directed mostly at local leaders and residents who won't acknowledge the problem, Crouch says her ire is directed at Christ Church Pastor Doug Wilson. If racism were compared to pregnancy, says Crouch, "Doug Wilson might be four months along."
Wilson counters that Crouch has taken a cheap parting shot at him and a community that's anything but racist. "The obvious thing is that her husband lost the race for sheriff," Wilson says. "I doubt they'd be moving away if he'd won."
Jeff Crouch lost his reelection bid last November.
Barbara Crouch also asserts local racism was quickly exposed in the pending murder trial here of three black men charged with killing another black man.
Grand jurors investigating the shooting death of 19-year-old University of Idaho football player Eric McMillan have made statements, according to court records, that defense attorneys claim are racist in nature.
"If they're convicted, they're going to be convicted purely because they're black," Crouch says. "And I'm sick of people in this town saying it (the trial) is going to cost so much money. That's the price of having a civilized society."
Latah County Prosecutor William Thompson Jr. acknowledges that allegations of racial bias have been raised in the murder case, but insists that race never played a factor in any of the charges filed. In addition to three principals, six family members also were charged with perjury in connection with the case.
"The whole damn family went to jail for lying," Crouch says. And that's never happened before in Latah County.
Crouch and Jeff Crouch, who is white, have a 20-month-old adopted daughter, MinaBella, who is black, and a biological 1-year-old son, Donald Howard (D.H.).

The Daily Evergreen

Published: 02/28/2003

Local leaders came together Thursday with university officials from WSU and the the University of Idaho to discuss building a stronger community.


The event was the first step in a project intended to strengthen community ties between Pullman, Moscow and the two universities.


“The ultimate example of the community not being connected is Girl Scouts not going door to door anymore,” said Barbara Richardson Crouch, executive director for the Latah economic development council.


Other concerns dealt with racial, gender, generational and educational divisions attendees said exist in the community.


Thursday’s conference is the first step in a project intended to find out what people’s concerns are and how the community can be brought closer together.


Attendees were asked to brainstorm on four central themes: trust and respect; safety; sense of belonging; and inclusion. Solutions ranged from hiring a more diverse faculty to hosting community social events.


Herb Delaney, the event organizer, said the next phase will be to narrow ideas and focus on solutions. Surveys regarding the project will be sent out to all community members, he said. The final phase will be implementing the proposed changes.


“(We’ve) got the materials, now let’s put the house together,” he said.


Delaney said he organized the project because he wanted the community to rally around something beside crisis, “I asked, why are we waiting?”


Attendees used the conference as a forum to voice frustrations with the local community.


Joscelyn Riley, a criminal justice major, said she felt uncomfortable in Pullman.


“I’m not used to very conservative ideologies,” she said. “I’m more of a liberal. It’s uncomfortable because I don’t come from this background.”


Rahwa Habte, of the Young Women Christian Association, said she was upset by the under-representation of students at the event.


“If (this event) was truly meant to be community building, I don’t see how you can leave two-thirds of the community out,” she said.


Many attendees thought the conference was useful.


“I think it’s been really good to hear what people actually think,” said Sally Savage, vice president of university relations. “I think if everybody takes it back to their organization and spreads the word ... then action will occur.”Local leaders came together Thursday with university officials from WSU and the the University of Idaho to discuss building a stronger community.


The event was the first step in a project intended to strengthen community ties between Pullman, Moscow and the two universities.


“The ultimate example of the community not being connected is Girl Scouts not going door to door anymore,” said Barbara Richardson Crouch, executive director for the Latah economic development council.


Other concerns dealt with racial, gender, generational and educational divisions attendees said exist in the community.


Thursday’s conference is the first step in a project intended to find out what people’s concerns are and how the community can be brought closer together.


Attendees were asked to brainstorm on four central themes: trust and respect; safety; sense of belonging; and inclusion. Solutions ranged from hiring a more diverse faculty to hosting community social events.


Herb Delaney, the event organizer, said the next phase will be to narrow ideas and focus on solutions. Surveys regarding the project will be sent out to all community members, he said. The final phase will be implementing the proposed changes.


“(We’ve) got the materials, now let’s put the house together,” he said.


Delaney said he organized the project because he wanted the community to rally around something beside crisis, “I asked, why are we waiting?”


Attendees used the conference as a forum to voice frustrations with the local community.


Joscelyn Riley, a criminal justice major, said she felt uncomfortable in Pullman.


“I’m not used to very conservative ideologies,” she said. “I’m more of a liberal. It’s uncomfortable because I don’t come from this background.”


Rahwa Habte, of the Young Women Christian Association, said she was upset by the under-representation of students at the event.


“If (this event) was truly meant to be community building, I don’t see how you can leave two-thirds of the community out,” she said.


Many attendees thought the conference was useful.


“I think it’s been really good to hear what people actually think,” said Sally Savage, vice president of university relations. “I think if everybody takes it back to their organization and spreads the word ... then action will occur.”

Another article

The Mud Slinging Begins

I forgot how nasty local politics can be. This from Vera White:

Speaking of city races, the INKster called Councilwoman Peg Hamlett to ask about the ugly rumors floating around town that she was arrested on drug charges some 20 years ago.
“That is simply not true,” Peg reported. “It is nothing but malicious mud-slinging.”
When she heard the rumor, Peg said she asked Moscow Police Chief Daniel Weaver to do a complete record check on her. She furnished the INKster with a copy of Weaver’s findings.
In a letter dated Tuesday and addressed “To Whom It May Concern,” Weaver wrote: “This letter is to inform you that Peggy L. Hamlett (DOB 05/27/1957) has no local records or criminal involvements with our department.”
The INKster called Weaver Wednesday for permission to print his findings.
“Her (Hamlett) record came back clean,” he said. “We produced the check at her request, but we would do that for any citizen. We charge a fee and she paid it.”
Peg told the INKster she “hoped people would stop spreading lies and focus on issues.”

This reminds me of what Barbara Richardson-Crouche tried to do in order to ensure her husband's reelection as Latah County Sheriff:
This from the 28 Oct 2004 LMT:

Latah County sheriff candidate Wayne Rausch is accusing incumbent Sheriff Jeff Crouch -- and his wife -- of playing campaign dirty pool.
In an Oct. 21 letter to the weekly Latah Eagle newspaper, Barbara Richardson Crouch accuses Rausch of hypocrisy for saying he won't retain sheriff's office employees who have criminal convictions.
"Mr. Rausch states that he will not retain any employee who has been convicted in a court of law. However, Mr. Rausch has a criminal conviction in Arizona in 1969," Richardson Crouch wrote.
Rausch says there is no legal or ethical way Richardson Crouch could have uncovered that conviction, a misdemeanor hunting violation when Rausch was 18. He's now 52.
"She has quoted a criminal record on me, which is strange because it doesn't any longer exist," Rausch said Tuesday. He said old public records in his home state of Arizona are routinely destroyed, and the only way Richardson Crouch could have discovered details of the conviction would be from her husband. And that would violate employee confidentiality laws.

And this from the 3 November 2004 edition of the LMT:

Rausch resigned his deputy position with the sheriff's department earlier this year, claiming Crouch demoted him because of his intention to run for sheriff. Even Crouch's wife, Barbara Richardson Crouch, got entangled in the race. She publicly challenged Rausch's intention to not retain employees with criminal convictions after she uncovered a 1969 misdemeanor hunting infraction from when Rausch was 18.
Overstreet generally stayed above the fray, but did say Richardson Crouch shouldn't have second-guessed her husband when he hired Raush in spite of the infraction.

I have to agree with Hamlett's assessment, that she “hoped people would stop spreading lies and focus on issues.”
I hope it comes to light who started that malicious rumor. In the Crouch's case, we did find out who started the rumors -- and it backfired firmly.
If Hamlett's political opponents are found to be instigators of those false rumors (or even to have tried to dig up such dirt on her), it will very well backfire on them -- and rightly so. 20 year-old drug charges? Sheesh!
Published Sunday, September 25, 2005 12:58 PM by Right-Mind Filed under: Vera