Letters on racial divide, library parking, liquor sales, indoctrination

Racial divide persists in nation

For years upon years, I have seen letters to the editor and Opinion Line comments that criticize syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. for being obsessed with black issues. The events in Ferguson, Mo., among others, have highlighted the fact that we indeed have a deep racial divide in many sectors of our society.

We sometimes forget that the first student-led drugstore sit-in occurred in Wichita, not in Greensboro, N.C. We may not examine why Kansas was a cornerstone of the civil rights movement that brought about a positive result in the case of Brown v. the Topeka Board of Education.

The Deep South fostered a loud voice, but in the more subdued Midwest, there were voices and actions and plenty of evidence that issues revolving around race are endemic in our nation – in every corner of our nation.

Pitts nailed it in his most recent column on Ferguson (March 9 Opinion). As his column concluded: “Ferguson is not an exception. It’s an example.”

Media omissions

After I finished reading the article “Ferguson residents tell of arrest fears for ‘walking black’” (March 8 Eagle), I wondered if the media would accept responsibility for their blatant attempt to incite more violence and unrest at a time when our country balances precariously on the edge of a “race relations” cliff.

The Los Angeles Times article stated that Michael Brown “had been returning from a nearby commercial strip when he was stopped and eventually shot and killed on Canfield Drive.” A few crucial details were missed in that snippet of media malpractice: What about reporting the fact that Brown had robbed a store in the “nearby commercial strip” and reportedly assaulted a police officer right before he was “shot and killed”?

It’s time for the media to step up and report the facts. Quit sensationalizing. Each and every story that is reported with half-truths and obvious omissions is journalism malpractice.

The media can and should do better.

Scarce parking

A recent busy period downtown included the Women’s Fair, the Kansas Music Educators Association conference and a traveling Broadway show. Each of these is a great thing for Wichita – unless you are someone who wants to use our Central Library.

As a loyal library supporter, I have never given up on going to the library because I could not find parking. But I have at times spent entirely too much time driving around until I could find a place.

Over the years, I have listened to people say they tried to find a place to park and gave up going to the library when all of the parking was taken by people going to Century II or the only parking places were farther from the library than they could walk.

Wichita deserves an active convention center but also a Central Library that is more easily and consistently accessible to those who use it. Let’s keep the plan for the new Central Library moving forward so that Century II and our Central Library can complement each other as important civic assets rather than continuing the competition to accessibility that now exists.

Not my choice

The push by big-box stores in Kansas to sell liquor and stronger beer is represented as being “for the convenience of their customers.” But the biggest of them are focused on getting bigger, especially in their profits. And to heck with the small-business liquor stores.

When I go to the liquor store to buy wine, there is always someone I can consult with. That’s customer service. Customer service counts more with me than convenience. I have noticed there is nobody to talk with when out-of-state travel takes me into a grocery store selling liquor.

Replacing an aisle of grocery merchandise with an aisle of liquor products makes a big increase in profits, because of the profit difference in liquor sales versus grocery sales. Then, too, the big-box outfits buy by the carload while the independent liquor stores buy by the case.

It’s all about big business driving to get bigger. That’s not my choice.

The ‘true’ way

Looking at history, one of the most fearful things that can happen in society is to have influential and powerful forces that believe their ideology is the “true” way and it is their duty to get everyone in their camp.

Indoctrination is the order of the day, rather than objective open-minded education. (Broad-minded educated people ask too many questions.)

They often believe society is going to the dogs and their way will save the day, or the world. They often claim to be doing the will of God. They polarize people and situations. Compromise is considered a slippery slope. Social policy is based on ideology, not humane rational thinking based on scientific research and evidence. And, usually, wealth is sucked to the top.

It has been a centuries-long and bloody road to get to the human rights, equality and democracy we have today. But we seem to have those in the United States and Kansas who would reverse the direction.

This story was originally published March 10, 2015 at 7:05 PM with the headline "Letters on racial divide, library parking, liquor sales, indoctrination."