A Continuation, Perpetuation of Racism on Kansas City's East Side?

An article in The Pitch today really caught my eye.

Developer eyes Troost for 

immigrant child detention center

A detention center.

For immigrants. 

Minorities. 

In a part of town segregated, by law, by laws, decades ago, for minorities, for African-Americans.
Could they be more time deaf or blind?

And I assume this developer wants to put it there because--hello?--land and property and buildings over on that side of town are less expensive??

Because of that same racism and legalized segregation all those years ago?

Could you be more cruel? Or exploitative?

This very much reminds me of the prisons that were opened and created in the Southern United States that were put on former plantations. Own them first the, when you don't own them any more, trump up charges and throw them in jails and prisons.

And then, if you read the article, which I personally highly recommend, for what it's worth, you'll see how the company that runs these ICE shelters for the government, has been abusive and racist, to say the least and repeatedly, over time.

America, we're supposed to be better than this.

One thing seems sure and true.

Old J.C. Nichols would probably have approved.

How qre KCPT's "Week In Review" and "Ruckus" Not Racist?

What do you call a news program in a major city of America that only has white people on it, discussing what are supposed to be local issues?

Not one African-American. Not one Hispanic or Latina/Latino. Nothing.

Only white people.

What is that but racist?

On both programs' panels, not one "person of color." "Ruckus" did, this week, have the head of our local Jazz Museum, Rashida Phillips on at the beginning of the program but no minority, save a woman, on the panel.

Only white people can give answers to what our problems are and what the solutions might be?

And how, exactly, can people like Dave Helling and Steve Kraske and Mike Mahoney support and continue to support this and these programs?

Why does the local Hispanic media like Dos Mundos support this group?

Yet One More Lily White "Ruckus" Last Evening

Yes sir and ma'am, yet one more lily white, bleached white, exclusive, exclusionist "Ruckus" news weekly last evening on our PBS station KCPT. Not one--not even one--person of color on the show. One woman but that, as usual, is as close to a minority as they got.

They go out of their way, every week, to include a middle-aged, middle-class, irrelevant white guy who calls himself a "Libertarian" but again---not one person of a minority.  And then there's always the really old, white guy with silver hair and moustache because, you know, old white guys' opinions just aren't "out there" enough already, right? (Other than the moustache, isn't that what Mike Shanin is already there for?).

The only question now is, will they do the same thing, yet again, with their other news weekly show, Nick Haines' "Week in Review"?  It's usually what they do, of course.

Pitiful

Entertainment Overnight -- New Work

I've rather passively followed Kurt Elling's work for years. Once again, I'm reminded how I like his work.

Another bad list Kansas is on

This little gem:

These states are trying to stop young people from voting

No, it's no surprise but still, it's disheartening. From the Washington Post:

Earlier this year, North Carolina lawmakers passed a bill aimed at stifling the newfound political muscle of their youngest eligible voters. The package of laws, known as HB 589, stripped away crucial policies that made it easier for young people to cast their ballot and participate in the political process. This week, lawyers have descended on Winston Salem to argue that eliminating these policies may have violated the 26th Amendment, which prohibits age-based voting discrimination.

The programs under attack have been proven to boost youth participation. In 2012, young people in the state were 2.6 times more likely to take advantage of same day registration.  And over a three-year period, 160,000 eligible young people were automatically registered to vote from pre-registration of 16- and 17-year-olds. Now these options are unavailable to the young residents of North Carolina.

Laws like HB 589 are part of a troubling pattern taking hold across the country, triggered by the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, thus allowing Southern states to make changes to their voting laws without securing federal approval. A raft of voter ID laws—designed primarily to suppress turnout of minority voters—are also turning away young people, and often, both at the same time. Millennials are the largest, but also the country’s most diverse generation, with 43 percent identifying as people of color. In all, 22 states have new, restrictive voting laws that will go into effect before the 2014 midterms.

An undisguised attempt to block new immigrants and minority voters, new laws in Kansas and Arizona require voters to present proof of citizenship in order to register to vote in the first place. That means when you’re stopped on the street by a nice kid with a clipboard, you have to have your birth certificate, passport or naturalization documents just lying around in your purse or back pocket. Rock The Vote recently joined other community-registration arms including Voto Latino to sign an amicus brief, arguing that the laws unduly impair efforts to register new voters. It also launched an online petition to spread the word.

It seems the opposite of what we thought America was and Americans are about, doesn't it?

I'm telling you, folks, we have to fight to get our country back. We have to fight to end campaign contributions. We have to get the big, ugly, corrupting influence of money from the wealthy and corporations out of our elections and government. Until we do that, nothing will change.

Link:  Get the Big, Ugly Money Out of Our Election System and Government

A friend, today, on the Republican Party

"How can you gain followers being anti-gay, anti-black, anti-Latino, anti-abortion, anti-progress, anti-infrastructure, anti-regulation and anti- compromise, and expect to go into the 21st century?"

Whole new world

The American people, by and large, don't know that the world around them is changing, wholesale, in so many ways, and isn't going back to the way it used to be.

At all.

One study I saw recently pointed out how our workforce is going to end up being occupied, mostly, by females.

Don't get me wrong--I'm no sexist.

This, to me, is not a bad thing, it's just a matter-of-fact.

And the thing is, up to now, it's not been the other way around, uh, let's see--FOREVER?

And the thing is, it combines two factors.

One is that it is cheaper in the entire world, sadly, to hire women than men so that lends to this trend significantly.

The other thing is that, at least in the United States, more women are going to college than men--and that's a change, too, of course.

There are so many worldwide and nationwide changes that are taking place right now, it's hard to keep up.

Many, many political scientists and economists think that it's highly likely that the United States may have already lost its position in the world, politically and financially.

Smaller issues are about the fact that Caucasians are fewer in number all the time in the US. Hispanic and Latino populations are growing in size every year. We've already passed the place where "White" people were the majority.

If the financial situation pans out the way so many economists warn, America will have fallen from our place of power and strength, at the same time the White Man realizes he's lost his place alongside both women and Hispanics and Latinos.

Believe me, it's not a problem for me.

Let's hope it's not a problem for people of lesser educations and financial means.