‘Everybody can do something’: KC area leaders discuss ways to combat systemic racism
Mayor Quinton Lucas said Tuesday he plans to soon introduce a Kansas City ordinance that would eliminate the ability for arrest warrants to be issued for residents who have, among other things, not paid parking tickets.
It is one way Lucas believes the city can further reduce unfairness. Another, he said, was the City Council’s vote last week to strip the crime of marijuana possession from the city code.
“It’s those very simple things that have criminalized entire communities,” he said.
Lucas announced his intentions during a virtual discussion about tackling systemic racism in Kansas City, during which panelists talked about solutions to combating disparities in legal, educational and health care systems. The conversation, hosted by The Star, was moderated by columnist and Editorial Board member Toriano Porter.
Following the killing of George Floyd by officers in Minneapolis, much of the national conversation has been about policing. But Lucas said the focus of that discussion needs to become “much broader.”
One example of inequity, Lucas said, came this week when it was reported Robert Courtney, who diluted thousands of prescriptions as a pharmacist, will be released from prison early as part of a review in response to COVID-19. Courtney, who is white, was projected to be freed in 2027.
Lucas was joined during his segment of the panel by U.S. Congressman Emanuel Cleaver II, of Missouri’s 5th Congressional District. Cleaver, who served as Kansas City’s first African American mayor, told viewers to not tolerate racism in their communities.
“The last thing anybody should do is drink a cup of coffee watching George Floyd die and say, ‘Well somebody ought to do something. This is terrible,’” he said. “Everybody is somebody and everybody can do something.”
Another panelist, Qiana Thomason, president and CEO of the Health Forward Foundation, said while it’s wonderful to see Confederate statues coming down across the country, it is more of a cosmetic issue.
“We need to get to true, reparative work in terms of policy,” she said.
In health care, that would mean, among other things, ensuring hospitals are diversifying their workforce, which would reduce health injustices, Thomason said. She noted Black women die at four times the rate of white women during their childbearing years.
Thomason also said Missouri and Kansas need to prioritize funding for public health infrastructure. Missouri, she said, ranks the 50th among U.S. states in public health funding; Kansas ranks 47th.
And the coronavirus pandemic, Thomason said, has highlighted for mainstream Americans that “racism is still alive.” Black Americans, including residents in Kansas City’s 3rd District, have been hit particularly hard by the virus.
“Statistically, people of color factor or fair far worse in all societal outcomes as compared to our white counterparts,” Thomason said. “In education, in homeownership and in so many other factors, and racism is the culprit of much of that.”
Similar to COVID-19 deniers, some people falsely do not believe racism exists because they have not experienced it firsthand, said Kevin Willmott, a professor of film at the University of Kansas. Willmott, who won an Academy Award for cowriting the screenplay of the movie “BlacKkKlansman,” said there needs to be more honest conversations about race.
“That’s kind of the dilemma with racism in the country,” he said. “People don’t believe it even though it’s obviously very real.”
This story was originally published July 14, 2020 at 5:03 PM.
