Solution For the Mill Creek Fountain?

Then, meanwhile, also a good to great solution for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, too?

Kudos and thanks to Carrington Harrison for the ideas. Great on you, sir.

Kansas City?

Let's do this?

On Institutionalized Racism: Now, Two Things Kansas City Can and Should Do

Given the killing of George Floyd and the consequent race protests across the nation and world, now would be an excellent time for Kansas City to make a couple more changes. Sure, it's been announced the local police are finally going to have and wear cameras on them all the time and that's a great change but here are two more we should make.

First, as Steve Kraske so well and rightly said some time ago, we need to rename the JC Nichols Fountain.

Steve Kraske: Kansas City should confront racist past and rename J.C. Nichols fountain

JC Nichols was a publicly known racist. He's one of the biggest reasons the city was and still is, to this day, so racially segregated and separated. Mr. Kraske did a great job of calling it out at the time, thankfully. Unfortunately, that was 3 years ago and nothing has yet been done. It's incredibly ironic that these racial protests are taking place around the fountain named after him and at the shopping center he created.

Then, next, the second thing we should do, as a city, is to finally, at long last, take down the Andrew Jackson statue downtown. There is no bigger or worst, known racist than Andrew Jackson, former President or no.

Andrew Jackson, President, Patriot, War Hero, Racist

Andrew Jackson was a slaver, 

ethnic cleanser, and tyrant

The 11 Most Racist U.S. Presidents

Andrew Jackson Racist Quotes

The state and Governor of Virginia are doing it, so should we.

Virginia governor announces removal of 

Robert E. Lee statue

Philadelphia, too, removed a statue of racist former Mayor Frank Rizzo.

Philadelphia removes statue 

of controversial former mayor

Birmingham, too, did the right thing and removed a statue. This was 2 days ago.

Birmingham Mayor Orders Removal 

of Confederate Monument

This was announced late today.

Kentucky governor: Jefferson Davis statue should be moved

To be clear and complete, too, we should take down this Andrew Jackson statue downtown and melt it down, not put it anywhere else.

It's time, Kansas City. It's time.   In fact, it's long, long past time.

Let's do this.

Let's change both.

Additinal links:

Steve Kraske: I’m still talking about J.C. Nichols, racism and renaming the fountain

Kraske: Rename Plaza Fountain Because Racism

Kudos and Great Thanks to Steve Kraske

In the last couple of months, at least, if not longer, it seems reporter/interviewer and "man about town" Steve Kraske, of the Kansas City Star and KCUR 89.3 FM radio, has posted and posed more good questions and issues and history of our area than just about anyone.

I think what really first turned my head, so to speak, in his reporting, was when he brought up the issue of whether or not the name of our one very prominent fountain in town, on the Country Club Plaza, the JC Nichols fountain, should keep its name or not, given Mr. Nichols deepset, historical, proven, public  racism.

Kansas City should confront racist past and rename J.C. Nichols fountain

The fact is, it's Mr. Nichols racism that was a huge factor in making us the very divided, very segregated city and metropolitan area that we still are, today. That impacted where people live, where they work, where they go to school and so, obviously, the education they get, the jobs that are possible and finally, how much they earn. Those are huge, huge ramifications and they've reverberated through people's lives and so, through the city, and for decades. It's what has made what and who we are today, personally and as a city and metropolitan area. We know it goes all the way out, across the state line, ito Kansas.

Then, he didn't just ask it once but twice in the Star:

 I’m still talking about J.C. Nichols, racism and renaming the fountain

With Yael Abouhalkah off the staff of our local paper, who else is covering the State of Kansas fiscal debacle like this?

Massive Kansas tax cuts were the result of Gov. Sam Brownback’s lie

Not to be done there, this week, just a couple days ago, he had this one in the Star:

We’re taking down lots of monuments these days. But here’s one we should add

He proposed we should maybe, as a city or state, or both, at least, put up a monument---or two? more?--to the Americans who helped build our nation, innocent Americans, but who were lynched by fellow Americans.

Then, on KCUR, the local NPR station, he followed up that article with this interview and topic:

Death Sentence Changes A Juror's Life, And Understanding America's Legacy Of Lynching

He has singlehandedly done some pretty fantastic writing and interviews and is touching on stories that need to be covered no one else is, I think. He's really having us and helping us examine our history and by doing so, showing us where we are today.

With these examples alone, I can't think of one other person in the metropolitan area, or the region or state, for that matter, that is posing such provocative issues and questions for all the rest of us.

So kudos, Mr. Kraske.  Good on you. Thank you, deeply and sincerely, for getting and keeping the rest of us out here thinking and questioning what we might otherwise not question or think about. And please, do keep up this good and even important work. The only other challenges we seem to get are from the Right Wing and Republicans who seem to want us to be or get or remain selfish and stingy and even racist, lately.

To other reporters and writers and people in the media, you would do well to copy this example.

Please.

Now if only he could get KCPT to include minorities, "people of color" on their "Ruckus" and weekly news programs. And every week, at that. Seems they don't think, down there at our local PBS station, that black and Hispanic people live here or that they have anything to contribute to our city and any possible solutions to issues and problems of the day.

Here's hoping.

The Kansas City Star, KCUR and we all are lucky, very lucky to have him in our midst and reporting and interviewing.

So again, Mr. Kraske. Thank you sincerely. Please don't stop now.

Links:

Up To Date | KCUR

Steve Kraske | KCUR

Up To Date : NPR

UM System President Bullish On Downtown KC Arts Campus And Improving Diversity

Inequality Reshapes Families, KC's Sandlot History, And State Senator Faces Likely Expulsion

The Psychobiology Behind Love (R), And Race Relations Under President Trump

How's This For Irony, Kansas City?

Last evening, there was a local protest against the racism and ugliness and ignorance and even stupidity of the Charlottesville, Virginia protests and murder. There were lots of them, city to city, across the nation.

What was ironic about ours, you might ask?

Stand Against Hate
Sunday 5 PM · JC Nichols Memorial Fountain · Kansas City
Shared to People Power KC

It was held at a public fountain honoring a well-known racist. 

A person significantly, personally, publicly and professionally responsible for the segregation of our city that lasts and still exists and divides us and keeps people down right to today.

Steve Kraske and the Really Excellent Proposal

They printed it yesterday.

Steve Kraske: Kansas City should confront racist past and rename J.C. Nichols fountain

Nichols was all about enduring legacies.

He was about something else, too. Like others of his time, he was a racist who went to great lengths to ensure that racial and religious minorities could not live in his neighborhoods. Nichols championed restrictive deeds that dictated the types of people who could move in.

Our own UMKC points this out very well---and we all know it.

'Troost Wall' the product of Kansas City's 

long-running racial plight

And sure, the Federal Government had their hand in it, as we also know, but that doesn't make it right, either. Here's a great bit of local background from way over in the UK with their BBC.

Why don't black and white Americans 

live together?

The US government had a hand in creating this segregation due to practices it instituted back in the 1930s, which prevented many blacks from getting on the property ladder in certain areas.

When the federal government began underwriting home loans for Americans to help boost the economy as part of the New Deal, strict guidelines were drawn up regarding where mortgages could be issued.

Areas where minorities lived were seen as risky investments and black families were routinely denied mortgages, locking them out of the housing market.

The practice was known as redlining because red ink marked out the minority areas. As Kansas City-based historian Bill Worley explained to me, these policies continued right into the 1960s, and excluded African Americans from one of the greatest motors of wealth in the 20th Century - home ownership.

And here's why all this history, from "way back when" is still pertinent and important today. In the first place, it's not that long ago and second, its effects still permeate the city, to this day:

Redlining is now theoretically outlawed in the United States, and has been since the 1970s, but it's still happening to this day.

"Banks continue to build and structure their lending operations in a way that avoids or fails to meaningfully serve communities of colour, based on assumptions about the financial risk," Vanita Gupta, the justice department's top civil rights lawyer, said last September, as she pledged more action to stop discriminatory lending.

Another factor which made access to housing prohibitive were the restrictive racial covenants written into housing contracts.

Until 1948, it was perfectly legal for a black person to be prevented from buying or living in a house.

Here's where the JC Nichols part comes in.

Bill Worley showed me an example of a restrictive racial covenant drawn up in Kansas City by the city's best known property developer during that time, JC Nichols.

"None of the said lots shall be conveyed to, used, owned nor occupied by Negroes as owner or tenants," it read. Other groups, including Jews, were also written into these kind of contracts.

So not only was JC Nichols racist, provenly, but he was racist against not just Blacks, not just one race, but two.

It can't be emphasized enough why this is still resonant today.

Kansas City is fifth most economically segregated 

city in U.S.

White people don't want to recognize this, first, let alone accept it and then, what few do think it only has to do with where one lives. That's not it at all. This, then, where you live effects where you work, how much your paid, what schools your children go to, everything. It very directly effects what your family will earn, in wages, where, again, you work, what and how you learn at school, who you socialize with, everything. It's not just housing, no way, though that's bad enough.

Check out these statistics on Kansas City.

The 9 Most Segregated Cities In America

>Pct. of population living in segregated areas: 37.8%
> Black poverty rate: 26.4%
> White poverty rate: 8.3%
> Black unemployment rate: 13.4%
> White unemployment rate: 5.6% 

Roughly 765,000 Kansas City residents — or 37.8% of the city’s population — live in a homogeneous zip code, or where at least 80% of residents share the same skin color or ethnicity, the ninth highest proportion in the country. Out of the 166 zip codes that make up the Kansas City metro area, 123 are home to predominantly white residents. White city residents have very little interaction with the city’s black residents. Of all the people a white person comes into contact with in the area, only 5.5% are black, significantly less frequent than the similar figure of 12.8% of contacts across the 50 largest metro areas. Segregation like this can have very discernible consequences. White households earn nearly twice the median income of black households. Three of the area’s zip codes are home to 15.9% of the metro’s black population, and the median household income in each is less than $30,000 annually. More than 26% of the metro area’s black population lives in poverty, slightly less than the national poverty rate among black Americans but more than three times as high as the poverty rate among the city’s white residents of 8.3%. School systems are also affected by segregation. While one-third of all metro area residents have at least a bachelor’s degree, in zip codes that are home to predominantly black residents, less than 12% of adults have a college degree. Read more at 24/7 Wall St.

Here, briefly, why segregation is so very, deeply wrong and why we still, to this day, need to recognize and

Everyone Pays A Hefty Price 

For Segregation, Study Says

Racial segregation in schools 

holds white pupils back

U.S. Education: Still Separate and Unequal 

Why Well-Being for Each of Us 

is Well-Being for All of Us

I have to say, I salute, again, Steve Kraske for writing and our own Kansas City Star for putting out such an article. In the first place, it surprised me. Usually the media and people in it like and want to go the safe, quiet route. 

This is not doing that at all. 

Instead of just asking the question of if we should do this, too, Mr. Kraske puts it right out there, that we should definitely, unequivocally rename our revered fountain.

So kudos, Mr. Kraske and the Star. Now, let the conversations commence.

Please check your racism at the door. (Along with your ignorance of the city's history. And any and all ugliness and hate).

Link:

How Troost Became A Major Divide In Kansas City | KCUR

How School And District Boundaries Shaped Education In Kansas City

Fun in Kansas City Today

This is apparently National Orange Popsicle Week, according to my trip across Kansas City today, to Mill Creek Park and the JC Nichols fountain on the Plaza.

And our buddy Slugger, of the Kansas City Royals showed, too.

I've no idea what it's about or why Slugger, of all people (people?), would be there, along with a table for KU Med Center but the fountain was flowing orange, as you can see. It was fun, if not nearly completely unexplained.

Have a great weekend, y'all.

And maybe have an orange popsicle.

Kansas City on "60 Minutes" "Lost Boys of Sudan" story last evening

Kansas City kept popping up last evening on CBS News' "60 Minutes" story:

The Lost Boys of Sudan: 12 years later

The day of the weird possible photos

Today has to be the day--the day of the weird, possible photos. First, I drive by the JC Nichols fountain at the Country Club Plaza in Mill Creek Park and there's a guy walking around down there with a protest sign. Sure, I know, not that weird, yet. The thing is, he's wearing nothing but an American flag, diaper-like and footwear (shoes, socks). That's it. The sign says "DISHONOR!" so I assume he's protesting the new photos that were released today by the Los Angeles Times, showing American soldiers desecrating Afghan war kills. Yikes. The 2nd really odd photo opportunity that made itself available to me today was in Midtown (of course) when I saw a very large man riding in a motorized chair in the street, no less, and he was carrying two big pink boxes of Lamar's donuts (their spelling, not mine). I mean, come on. It just doesn't get any better than this. And me with no camera. Ugh.

In an effort to help a good cause

End the Occupation Protest/Rally – STATEWIDE
Protest to end the occupations/the global empire

We’ve given President Obama enough time to fulfill his promise to bring our troops home. He said 16 months, it’s been 16 months.

Let’s peacefully demonstrate to end the occupation and bring our men and women home. Let’s rally to stop funding these wars.

KANSAS CITY AREA PROTEST/RALLY
Sunday, June 6th
2-4pm
At the Fountain on the Plaza
47th and JC Nichols Parkway
Kansas City, MO

SAINT LOUIS AREA PROTEST/RALLY
Sunday, June 6th
Noon – 2pm
The Hampton Round About near the Zoo
St. Louis, MO

COLUMBIA AREA PROTEST/RALLY
Sunday, June 6th
1-3pm
Corner of 9th and Broadway, Downtown Columbia
Columbia, Mo

Iraq Veterans Against War will be joining forces with LRP for this event.

After all, this is how the Vietnam War protests started and they did, in fact, have some effect on our getting out of Southeast Asia.

Think happy thoughts.

Link to original post:
http://www.libertyrestorationproject.org/2010/06/04/end-the-occupation-protestrally-statewide/