Letters: Readers discuss the NAACP travel advisory, Black Lives Matter and immigration
Discrimination
For those who think the NAACP’s Missouri travel advisory is “nonsense,” part of what prompted it was the governor’s signing Senate Bill 43, which will become law Aug. 28 and will roll back workplace protections for employees who’ve been discriminated against based on age, ancestry, color, disability, sex, religion, race or nation of origin.
The argument that the law brings our state into line with federal law and other states is false. No other state explicitly prohibits liability against individuals, and most states allow the bad actor to be named in a lawsuit. It also makes us the only state to reduce protections in cases of housing or public accommodation discrimination — in other words, the “We don’t take your kind” approach.
The law also guts whistleblower protections, which sponsor Sen. Gary Romine readily admitted April 3. Rep. Gina Mitten posed a hypothetical in which a nursing home employee reports fraud and is fired in retaliation. What could that employee — fired for doing the right thing — do?
Romine’s exact words? “Under this bill you’d have no recourse.”
Nonsense, indeed.
Jeannie Brandstetter
Missouri Association of
Trial Attorneys
Jefferson City
Missing protests
My heart was heavy after I read about the parents of Le’Andrew M. Vaughn and all the deaths they have dealt with in the last year. (Aug. 9, 1A, “Grieving parents of slain teen urge community to break down wall of silence”) Three relatives dead, another innocent girl allegedly killed by a relative and a nephew on trial for his life — horrific.
After I contemplated this man-induced tragedy, I reread the article and wondered: Where is the Black Lives Matter movement? Four avoidable deaths later, and we have a distraught mother beseeching a crowd for help with no justice in sight.
Do black lives matter only when they are killed by the police? What a bunch of senselessness.
Mark Salas
Leavenworth
First fix
There is nothing more basic for municipal government than proper handling of sewage. So, Mr. Mayor, councilpersons, department heads and bureaucrats, I will vote no on everything and everyone until the sewers are fixed.
No streetcar. No single terminal at the airport. No to your re-elections.
You willingly asked for your jobs. You took the responsibility on yourself. You are paid to do the work. You have no higher priority.
Clear your agendas and fix the sewers.
Brock Rule
Kansas City
Immigration policy
The Star’s Aug. 4 editorial, “How immigration bill would hurt Kansas City” (10A), attempts to argue that if legal immigration is cut in half, businesses will be unable to find cheap, dependable labor and immigrants will no longer be able to bring their extended families to America.
Nothing could be further from the truth. By replacing our current relative-based chain-migration immigration system with one that takes into consideration America’s cultural and fiscal interests, based on merit and skills, Republican Sens. David Perdue of Georgia and Tom Cotton of Arkansas’ RAISE Act would strengthen immigrant families and actually help businesses grow and prosper.
A 2010 Heritage Foundation study of the fiscal costs of immigrants to the U.S. found lawful immigrant households receive significantly more welfare on average than U.S.-born households, mainly because most members of those families have no more than a 10th-grade education.
The Brookings Institution recently reported that adults with limited English proficiency earn 25-40 percent less than their English-speaking counterparts — something the RAISE Act attempts to address.
Our current migration system hurts American taxpayers, businesses who want to expand their bottom lines and actually — in the long run — immigrant families themselves.
Michael Kalny
Shawnee
Travel advisory
As a white person, I’m not offended that the NAACP has listed Missouri as a dangerous place to visit. The organization’s members are just looking out for their own.
Growing up on the predominantly white south side of St. Louis in the 1970s, we had our own informal travel advisories. Never publicized, just accepted as fact.
If you go to predominantly black north St. Louis or East St. Louis, Ill. (overwhelmingly black), you’re likely to be harassed merely for being white. I’m sure that’s why even today white folks with common sense stay away from Kansas City’s east side.
So NAACP, what took you so long?
Ed O’Toole
Kansas City
This story was originally published August 12, 2017 at 2:30 PM with the headline "Letters: Readers discuss the NAACP travel advisory, Black Lives Matter and immigration."