KCPT Fixed Their "Week In Review" Problem

What a surprise. I've written a few times here that Kansas City Public Television's show "Week in Review" had real issues of representation on their program. It was virtually always 3 white people and a Black man and that was it. Not one Hispanic or Latinx person represented usually on their panel. Once in a while, yes. Usually, regularly, no. Absolutely not.

So how did they fix it? They didn't have even ONE guest on the program for a panel whatever. Problem solved? Ironically, as Nick Haines interviewed Mayor Quinton Lucas on the show tonight, the Mayor mentioned his own going to the West side of the city on Cinco de Mayo to talk to the Hispanic citizens there. Pretty hilarious. At least he recognizes there is a Hispanic community here and they need to be included.

Question for Kansas City Public Television

You have someone named Vickie Diaz-Camacho telling us how great KCPT is in your advertising but you can't get an Hispanic or Latinx person on "Week In Review" every week?

Seriously?

KCPT and "Week In Review", Covering That White Person's Point of View

Yes sir and ma'am, Kansas City. If you're a contributor to KCPT, rest assured, Kansas City Public Television will cover the white person's point of view. And they'll do so with more white males than anyone else.

This week's version had, yes, two white men, one white woman--very blonde--and thank God for Eric Wesson, showing up week after week.They'll ask for money from everyone--including the local Hispanic community--but have a Hispanic, Latinx person on the show? Fuggedaboudit. I say again, in the year that the Kansas City Star so publicly apologized for covering only the white person's point of view over the years, KCPT keeps giving more of same old, same old. Stunning. Really stunning. And know this. I wouldn't write these things, time and again, if I thought what KCPT and PBS did and stood for was unimportant.

Quote of the Day -- On Kindness. And Hope

“I'm so tired of waiting, aren't you, for the world to become good and beautiful and kind?” —Langston Hughes

Quote of the Day -- Racial Obscenity Edition

"In America, it's safer to be a white man, overthrowing the government than it is to be a Black man doing anything." --Middle Age Riot.

Thanks, Republicans!

KCPT Week in Review--- 3 White People and a Token Black

Once more, one more time this week, KCPT, "Kansas City Public Television" and their "Week in Review" program has 3 white people and Eric Wesson, a token Black man, on their program. That's it. Three white people and a Black man.

Thank goodness, again, Eric Wesson shows up. Thank you, sir, for being there, time and again. To KCPT, "Kansas City Public Television", there are no Hispanic people in the community. Thank goodness they got 2 white women to appear on the program so they have at least SOME more minorities on the show. So hoping one day they fix this. Hey, we can hope.

Further Proof Why the US Owes Reparations

Anyone who knows American history--REALLY knows American history--knows we owe African-Americans reparations. This is just one more example and reason. Segregation, legalized segregation, is why our cities all across our nation, including, of course, our own Kansas City, are split by race to this day. Then we had them go to inferior schools, have fewer jobs, if any job at all because they were further away from those jobs and certainly farther away from the better jobs, farther away from transportation and so, finally, they got and would get less money. It's all outrageous. And blatant.

We Have a Dream, America

Martin Luther King, Jr's full "I Have a Dream" Speech, given this day, August 28, 1963. 

Still unfulfilled today, America.

In fact, far, far from realized.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds.

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: in the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny, and they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating for whites only. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification," one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning: "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!"

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that: Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

The Present Racial, Police Brutality Problem As Today, But 50 Years Ago

I found this yesterday on YouTube. Some of their marketing their own videos, I'm sure. Regardless, it is stunning that it's the same, exact discussion and debate and problem we have today, now---and it's from 50 years ago.  This was posted on the video by one David Hoffman:

This was on national public television (PBS) in the prime time in 1971. It was considered shockingly bold to present this debate and to hear police officers and chiefs of police honestly and bluntly state how they saw the racial injustices in the department and in the society. Some things have clearly changed for the better. But it is, at least for me, strangely familiar and uncomfortable to see what has not changed. Since the murder of Floyd George, once again, police injustice and inequality is front and center in the news across America.

Stunning.

We haven't changed a bit.

Quotes of the Day -- Clueless, Shameful, Shameless Presidential Edition

From the article:

'The Bible is not a prop': 

Religious leaders, lawmakers outraged over Trump church visit

The Rev. James Martin, a prominent Jesuit priest and author, said in a statement,

"Using the Bible as a prop while talking about sending in the military, bragging about how your country is the greatest in the world, and publicly mocking people on a daily basis, is pretty much the opposite of all Jesus stood for."

He added: 

"Let me be clear. This is revolting. The Bible is not a prop. A church is not a photo op. Religion is not a political tool. And God is not a plaything."

Rabbi Jack Moline, president of Interfaith Alliance, said in a statement Monday, 

"Seeing President Trump stand in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church while holding a Bible in response to calls for racial justice — right after using military force to clear peaceful protesters out of the area — is one of the most flagrant misuses of religion I have ever seen. This only underscores the president's complete lack of compassion for Black Americans and the lethal consequences of racism."

Additional link:

REPORTER: "Is that your Bible?" 
TRUMP: "It's A Bible."

Having defamed an Episcopal church, 
 Trump decides to violate the sanctity of Catholic shrine

Shameless.

The man is shameless.

Thanks, Republicans.

#VOTEBLUE

Quote of the Day -- Timely, Protest, Riot Version

"Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are."

--Benjamin Franklin

Leave It To This Sports Announcer to Put President Trump In Perspective

Lots of Americans need to see this man's speech. And he's a sports reporter.

Divided St. Louis, Divided Kansas City, Divided America

This New Yorker Magazine cover ran in December, 2014.

It's still so tragically true, of course, and so very still true of our own city and of too much of America.

We need to get and be and stay better than this.

We tell ourselves we are.

Quotes of the Day -- Now More Than About Ever

"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word."

"Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace."

"Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals."

--Martin Luther King, Jr.

Quote of the Day -- On Race in America

William Faulkner wrote these very insightful, telling, even indicting lines all the way back in 1956. They could not be more true of us, then as well as, sadly, even now, today, this much father along in 2017.

That’s what the white man in the South is afraid of: that the Negro, who has done so much with no chance, might do so much more with an equal one that he might take the white man’s economy away from him, the Negro now the banker or the merchant or the planter and the white man the sharecropper or the tenant. That’s why the Negro can gain our country’s highest decoration for valor beyond all call of duty for saving or defending or preserving white lives on foreign battlefields, yet the Southern white man dares not let that Negro’s children learn their ABC’s in the same classroom with the children of the white lives he saved or defended.

More should read the entire, brief article:

Southern Harm, by William Faulkner | Harper's

Additional link:

The White Man's Fear of the Educated Negro

Quote of the Day -- 1960 to Today

1960

The Weekly KCPT "White Watch"

I think I've decided I'm going to post out here, weekly, who, precisely, is included and excluded on our local PBS station, KCPT's two weekly news shows as to who is on it and who is off. I've pointed out here, several times, how few minorities are included on the shows. And the shows are "Ruckus" and "Kansas City Week In Review."

Normally, weekly, it is virtually always, as I've shown, merely and only, singularly, white people. Maybe one woman, one white woman but that's it. No Blacks. No Hispanics. No Asians. No one else but white people as though we are some Northeast United States, completely white society and any input from anyone else is unnecessary.

This week, a small gain was made in that "Kansas City Week In Review' with Nick Haines had---count 'em!---one "person of color." They included one, one Black man, God love 'em.

But check this out.

For that one Black person, that one Black person in the chair this week?

The female got bumped.

Apparently, on this show, if not on KCPT, period, they can only allow one minority. One minority at a time.

Isn't that wonderful?

Meanwhile, back on "Ruckus"?

Lily white.

Once again, one more time, the "Ruckus" show had nothing but middle-aged--or older--white males. And yes, they included, on this program, one white woman.

Bless their little hearts.

KCPT and PBS does so much good otherwise and gives us such great programming otherwise but on these two weekly news programs?

They fail the city greatly.

American History for Black History Month from 1965

I wasn't aware of this debate or film clip until last evening. I didn't know James Baldwin debated the very Right Wing, Conservative William F. Buckley at all, on any subject, let alone this one. And the topic was "Is the American Dream at the expense of the American Negro?"

My response is that not only is and has the American Dream been at the expense of the American "Negro", the African-Americans, the Blacks, but it has been built on their backs, figuratively and literally.

Historic debate between James Baldwin v. William F. Buckley Jr. at Cambridge University.


Far too few Americans have seen this video or know of this debate. Far too will, I feel sure, sadly and unfortunately.

William Faulkner on Donald Trump

There is a fantastic, intelligent, rather low-key article over at Atlantic just now that I think nearly every adult a  American should read, I think.

Will America Earn the Right to Survive?

William Faulkner’s provocative question from 1955 echoes loudly in 2016.

This, below, isn't the point of the article--and it's a great point--but I love this author's comparison of one of Faulkner's characters compared to current Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Faulkner had created in his fictional universe a minor Southern incarnation of Trump: Flem Snopes, an unscrupulous and voracious predator with “eyes the color of stagnant water”, who claws and lies his wily way to power, cheating and conning anyone naïve enough to think they can outsmart him. In Flem and his clan, Faulkner excoriated many of his fellow citizens who “know and believe in nothing but money and it doesn’t much matter how you get it.” He harbored no doubt about the harm people like the Snopes tribe could inflict if allowed to reign and proliferate, if their “stupid chicanery and petty corruption for stupid and petty ends” were ever to prevail. Given the latest polls, such an electoral apocalypse seems increasingly unlikely, but the mere fact that Trump is even a viable candidate, would be terrifying to the author of "Absalom, Absalom."

It's a terrific, brief read. I'd argue it's nearly an important read, for all of us.

What Is It With KCPT and White People?

(crackers.  far as the eye can see).

Okay, so I asked here 3 weeks ago about our local PBS station, KCPT and their local, weekly news program, "Ruckus" when they had a fully bleached-white guest panel.  I will note that, since then, for whatever reason, they've wisely and kindly had mixed-race guests. Hopefully, that will go into the future.

Now, this week, their local news program "Kansas City Week in Review" with the very British and wonderful Nick Haines discussed two issues this week--the upcoming Missouri tobacco tax and the Johnson County Public Safety tax.

On neither issue was their even one "person of color."

Just saying.

Now, we know there are no Black or Hispanic people in Johnson County, sure. (Right?). That's why everyone moved out there, all those years ago, of course. And still, to this day, we know there are no "people of color" in any positions of authority, in government offices out there. I'm just sure of it. (Is it even legal?).

But on that first question? The Missouri state tobacco tax?

Nothing but white people?

Over the entire state?

Just asking.

Link:  Kansas City Week in Review - KCPT