Our KC Star Finally Gets It on Race -- Will KCPT?

 Yes, as I wrote earlier last week, I thought it pretty incredible and courageous and soul-searching for our Kansas City Star local newspaper to own up and 'fess up to their very racist, white supremacist past. Great for them, great for us. Progress. Surprising and again, incredible. Very encouraging and hopeful.

So now, a next step, it makes me wonder aloud here if our local PBS station will ever "get it" on race, too. If KCPT will ever be truly inclusive. I've written about it before.

They used  to have 2 weekly news programs and now they're down to one. Both were heavily, heavily represented by---wait for it--white people. Only. Singularly. And the one now gone was also heavily full of Right Wing and/or conservative and/or out and out Republican Party guests and viewpoints. It was dispiriting to say the least.

And even now, still, to this day, their "Week in Review" program is heavily all white. Here's the latest example.

Where it used to be a solidly, dependably, weekly all white panel, now they seem to have finally, finally committed to having a reliable, token Black person, a Black man.  At least there is that improvement.

But to this day, as in this week's episode, there are 3 white people.

That's it.

Three men, one woman and one Black man, that's it.

Occasionally, occasionally they will include a Hispanic or Latinx member of the community but it is rare, at best. They apparently take money from and advertise the Dos Mundos newspaper but no steady representation of our Hispanic community. It's almost as though they don't live here. Or at least, it's as though KCPT either just doesn't or doesn't want to recognize them, Hispanics in the community.

In their defense, I know this isn't true. I know the station and the host, Nick Haines, want to be fair and representative of us all.

But it ain't happenin'.

It's 2020, very nearly 2021, of course, and still no representation, no reliable, steady, dependable representation of ALL in our community.

But hey, if you're white? Or more, if you're a white man? They got you covered. Great for you.

So come on, KCPT. Do it. Somehow, do it. Get it done. Commit to, somehow, having, say, one white maile, one white female, yes a Black person, male or female and the---wait for it---a Hispanic or Latinx person, again, male or female on your program, on this program, on "Week in REview", week after week after week. Reliably. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to good, fair representative media. 

You owe it to all of us.