Quinton Lucas: Kansas City has momentum on social justice. Keep pushing the institutions

I was only 7 years old when Rodney King was beaten at the hands of Los Angeles police officers, and when riots broke out throughout L.A. Twenty-eight years ago, those officers were acquitted of any crime. I remember it vividly, because it was the first time America broke my heart.

I remember one day my mom and I were in Leawood at a park, and a police officer driving by pulled over, got out and came to ask us what we were doing there. What we were doing was simply sitting in the park eating McDonald’s. The only thing suspicious about us, I guess, was that we were Black in a predominantly white and wealthy neighborhood. And again, America broke my heart, because to be Black in America means these moments find you when you’re just a kid, often through no fault of your own, and they seem to repeat again and again throughout your life.

The lessons I learned growing up in Kansas City’s urban core — never talk back, “put your hands where I can see them,” yes — are the lessons I taught my nephews a decade later, even though one is a United States Marine and an aspiring Kansas City police officer. We remember the incidents that too often reflect a broken system.

I often reference Gil Scott-Heron’s 1971 poem and song, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” I’m proud that so many in our community understand this moment offers an opportunity for real change, even after the news and protests move on. We’re making progress, and we’ll continue to.

In recent weeks, I’ve worked with the Kansas City Police Department to enact several oversight reforms for the department, including sending all officer-involved shootings to a third party enforcement agency for review. Per my request, the City Council now receives weekly updates from top police leadership on the department’s efforts to build community relations. And I recently introduced an ordinance to allow Kansas Citians the opportunity to weigh in on local control of our police when they go to the ballot box this November.

But our work doesn’t end until all Kansas Citians can safely walk around their own neighborhoods without fear of being harmed — by anyone. Already this year, 104 Kansas Citians have been murdered, and hundreds more have suffered gunshot wounds. This shocks the conscience. It demonstrates years of continued failure on the part of our leaders, myself included.

Now is the time to rid ourselves of what isn’t working and build on what is. Police will also need to be part of our solution.

That solution will require a renewed focus on those individuals who are most at risk of engaging in gun violence, a group that unfortunately often overlaps with people who are victims of gun violence themselves. This difficult reality means we need to rethink how we engage on this issue across all aspects of government — building police and community trust, ensuring effective social services are provided to shooting victims, recruiting a department that looks like our community, and improving our enforcement and prosecution strategies for those who commit repeated acts of violence.

I’ll also note this moment isn’t just a justice reform moment — and to limit it to that would be a shame. This is a moment to examine our economic development strategies and consider how to make them more equitable for our underserved communities. It’s about supporting our public schools. And it’s about our overdue efforts to remove minor offenses from the city code to break the cycle of ticketable misdemeanors that entrap a disproportionate number of Black folks in our community.

Am I hopeful? I think so. We are making progress, but progress that’s still too slow. My message to our community is this: Keep shaking the walls of seemingly unchangeable institutions.

That’s where the revolution is.

Quinton Lucas is mayor of Kansas City.

Lifting Black KC Voices

This is an installment in our new project, Lifting Black KC Voices. We’ve asked African Americans from a variety of walks of life to share their experiences about being Black in Kansas City, with an eye toward the future we will all build together.

This story was originally published July 14, 2020 at 5:00 AM.