Hard Questions

Good evening and welcome to Heart Questions, an examination of racial issues in South Central Kansas. I'm Randy Brown, editorial page editor of The Witched All Eagle, and I'll be your moderator tonight as we listen to a number of local voices on the issue of racial discrimination. Now if you want to skin deep, the program that just aired on Channel 8, you got a taste of how difficult it is to resolve issues of race in our society. Now for the next hour we'll look at those issues in a more local light, paying particular attention to how racial issues present themselves in the area of economic opportunity, and crime, and education. We don't expect to resolve those issues tonight, but we do hope to provide an opportunity for a variety of voices to

participate in this discussion of racial equity in Wichita and its South Central Kansas and elsewhere. We'll use three different panels during the hour. We'll introduce those as we go along, and near the end of the night's broadcast, we'll give you the viewers a chance to participate in the program by calling in your questions and comments. We'll give you a phone number to call in later in the program. We won't be able to get to everybody on the air, but we do hope to add at least a few viewers to our conversation. Now to begin our discussion of racial issues in the area of economic opportunity, we'll start with some pre-recorded comments by David Wright, a Wichita State University professor, and by James Barfield, a businessman in the area known as near Northeast Wichita, where most of the city's African-American population lives. Well, we know that nationally, if we take a look at median family income, or the last year of data that we had, which would be 1995, 1996, black families earn about 55% of what white families do. That's median income, and at 55% is the same as it was in 1960. Now between 1960 and today, it has gone up, but as well as gone

down. Hispanic families are about 61% Asian families actually have about 13% greater median family income than white non-Hispanics. So we can see that there's a disparity alone just in the family income that's available. If we take a look at wealth assets that people have, ownership over items at their own houses, cars, things of that nature, we can begin to see a great divide. If we take a look at white non-Hispanic households, the average wealth last year was 45,000, whereas for black households, the average wealth holding was $4,000. So a tremendous divide taking place there. One specific instance is when you have banks in the city that will red line against any particular group area of the city, that definitely has a negative economic impact upon that particular area or that group of people. And here in Northeast Wichita, being a largely minority area, there are banks in the city that do red line, or are discriminated against businesses in this particular part of the city. And that

certainly has a negative impact. It affects us in terms of producing jobs, providing jobs, providing the goods and services that any community needs to thrive economically. Another thing that affects businesses in this area is when you have the news media that portrays a certain area, and the particular say this area in Northeast Wichita has basically extremely high risk or dangerous, then that sets in the minds of a lot of people, a perception that this whole general area is dangerous. And from an economic standpoint, that affects the businesses who are located in this area in terms of people willing to come into the area to shop for the goods and services they provide. So all I'd like to see more blacks starting businesses, operating business, providing the goods and services, because in Northeast Wichita, certainly there is a lack of goods and services. A lot of people that live in the community have to travel outside of their community for a good. And let me give you one example as a grocery store. And of course that's not a luxury, that's a necessity. And in this area, a media area, we don't have a full service grocery store. A drug store is another one. Those are the types of

businesses that I think would be certainly viable in this community. Okay, let's meet our panel on economic development tonight. The first Wichita Mayor Bob Knight. Mayor, thanks for joining us. Next, Reggie Davis, division director of the Kansas Human Resources Department to peak of Mr. Davis. Thanks for driving down to see us this evening. District Judge Greg Waller of Kansas 18th Judicial District in Wichita. And Mark McCormick, the minority affairs reporter with Wichita Eagle, who's sitting on all of tonight's panels, and help us with some more information. And Mark, obviously the economic opportunities for minority people here in Wichita are to certain extent limited. And in some cases, severely limited, to fill us in a little of that. I mean, Wichita is primarily a blue collar, high skill city. But there are white collar jobs here to be had. But some of the basic realities of the city's employment picture are these 830 doctors listed with the Cedric County Medical Association. Only six of those are African-American.

If you talk to the bar association locally, none of the law firms have any black partners or even black associates. And even the media that covers the city, there's just a handful of us at the Eagle and in covering and working for the TV media. So, obviously these are times a great economic opportunity for most Wichita in this May or night. Yet we can't afford to waste any of our human resources here. A lot of jobs are still going begging. What give you assessment of what's going on in terms of minority hiring and the minority situation here in Wichita? Well, first of all, I agree with you. I think this is arguably the strongest economy in my life. And, you know, from all indicators, unless you have some kind of global calamity, I think it's sustainable well into the next century. But it's very uneven. While I think that it's true, you have more people working today in Wichita, Kansas than any time in our history. As evidenced by some of the reports that you've heard, there are certainly large

gaps between the haves and the have-nots and it seems to be growing and it seems to be predominantly minorities that's on the bottom. I think that there is, you know, some very mixed signals going out. It's very interesting to me that anyone that is to suggest that there ought to be more done in the minority community. You know, you would have to assume that those people would appreciate the importance of infrastructure. And it's interesting to me to note that Mr. Barfield and others were the most vociferous opponents of putting in the infrastructure that's going to support the growth and the opportunity that everyone wants. So I think you have a lot of mixed signals here. I don't think there's any question about the fact that there are an awful lot of people in

the minority community that are either under-employed or certainly restricted from reaching her, his potential, but there's been tremendous investment in this city over the last five or six years to try and support a brighter future. Mr. Davis, give us an idea of the picture at the state level and how do we, we need these human resources. How do we maximize them? We can't waste people these days. We need these folks working. What's going on at the state level? What we found out in the state level is that training and education is very important for job preparation. So what we emphasize when we talk to different people about training and about seeking great employment is to be prepared with education and specific training. Mr. Waller, Judge Mark mentioned the situation with black professionals in town, law firms, doctors, obviously, you've obtained a judgeship, but you came up to the district attorney's office. How's your assessment of the situation? Well, you know, it's a byproduct of

desegregation, unfortunately, prior to desegregation. The black community was a very close-knit community. Today we see a run-ravelling of that close knitness. There was a time prior to desegregation and we did have many black viable businesses in the black community and they serve the black community. Today there's a situation where no longer is it necessary for blacks to deal with blacks and because of that, many minority businesses have suffered. I guess I'd pitch the question out to any member of the panel of Mr. Davis, Mark, Judge Waller, Mayor. What can we do about this? How do we turn this around? Well, I might say I think as Mr. Davis pointed out, education and training is a very key and important factor. One of the problems that I see on a day-to-day basis is failure by many youth to take advantage of educational opportunities and we really need to get involved with that as far as minority youth.

Mr. Davis, a point that we see is that the education and grades K through five are very important because I think it gives the personally opportunity for to give the proper education levels. If they fall behind those early ages, early grades then makes it very difficult to catch up. Mayor, your economic development has been a big key to your political career and you've used the former Kansas Secretary of Commerce. What's the city doing now? What's going on with the attempts to maximize the human resources in this town? Well, you know, what appears to be a very little action in some circles, I can tell you that this city is more aggressive now than any time in my memory in terms of trying to develop and participate in new strategies. It was mentioned that job training is essential. I think at least from my point of view, the very essence of human dignity is self-reliance and the ability of

people to provide from themselves and the people that they care deeply about. It's very difficult if you don't have the essential complement of skills. So we've invested in partnered very heavily in job training, whether it's Datamack on 21st Street, whether it's the assessment training center that has really won a lot of national attention so much so that the president will be here later this month to help dedicate it. But I think education is the key and you told us to be brief and I'll be very brief. But if you look at all the social and all the cultural and all the spiritual indicators the last 20 or 30 years, they've all been in a free fall. And I think Judge Waller is right. I think there are fewer things today that hold people together that they can have a support and I think that's unfortunate. But there are a lot of people in this community that believe that in order to pursue world class

status, you have to do it by allowing everyone to participate. You can't leave large groups behind because it's not going to happen. Mark is my cohort here tonight to help produce the program and you're a Wichita person. You grew up here. You went north high school. You went off to KU. Then you went off to Louisville. Went to work for a big newspaper there. Came back to the community. It seems to me that one of the criticisms we heard earlier and we've heard over and over over the years is young people leave. You know we lose their talent. We've got a brain brain. Give us your perspective on that. Just have to do things to make sure that they have opportunities here. I mean I'm involved in a lot of those projects on a local level. We have a lot of great programs. We have the judge here who's an attorney first and came through the prosecutor's office and is now a judge but there are fewer attorneys in Wichita today than there were in 1950. So what the Bar Association did locally was create a grow your own lawyer program. What about the problem that some

really serious problem that some people say we have in the minority communities, the red lining? First, I mean some parts of town is hard to get a pizza delivered but more important to people's economic well-being sometimes it's hard to get alone to buy a new house or to invest in a business. Mayor, why don't you give us a perspective on that? Well it's clearly the reality and a lot of people's thinking. You know I would say though that surely there's some progress when you have nations bank and commerce bank and other financial institutions that are building in that community today. Now that's not to guarantee that there's going to be financial capital available for various purposes but I would hope that it's different today than it was five years ago and I hope it's dramatically different five years from now than is today. What's your perspective Mr. Davis or Judge Waller? Is it different?

Is it different? I think it goes back to being able to have African Americans or a new person of color in positions to make decisions and in positions to prevent some red lining. I think it's important that one is prepared and can get those opportunities to have some positions of power. Judge Mark, go ahead either one of you. I've been saying it's a catch-22. If you're not a part of the employment structure, if you don't have the advantage of being in a white collar position, it's going to be hard to get alone to begin with. So maybe we should establish some opportunities in the business field first. Maybe the community could establish some businesses of their own. Do we have other places to look? Do we have examples we can look at that would waste to commit businesses to minority lending and helping minority business get started, helping folks get a home. Are there other other programs and places to look?

African American churches across the country are starting credit unions. Buying up land around their churches and building homes and giving out loans to people. That's a good place to start and that's a good example. We have a communities united credit union here in town just starting on that road. So we have some examples here locally of some good work. Is black capitalism a factor in this? Is it working? You hear mixed results across the country. Does that work? I guess is my question. Mr. Davis? Well I must agree with Mark. Certainly I think the African American churches have made great strides in trying to create some economic development in those areas and have create opportunities for housing for example. Judge? Well I think there are many great strides and I think what we have to do is obtain our sense of community again and this really is true of all of society but as Maronite has said we have done made some great strides in the city of Wichita as far as economic benefits

for the whole community and especially for Northeast Wichita. I guess the bottom line on the economic opportunities segment is that we can't afford to waste human potential we have in this community. We have lots of jobs and we have a powerful economic movement going and and the city and the community and it's up to all of us to keep that momentum going and that means giving everyone a chance. I'd like to thank the panelists for joining us and that's going to conclude our our economic development segment and now let's turn our attention to racial issues and our criminal justice system. Set the tone for the next panel we're going to begin with a pre-recorded segment with Wichita attorney Dan Monnet in his comments about the death penalty and about drug enforcement. I think probably the most important effect of racism is in the death penalty context. It affects who shall be charged. For instance Professor Baldes' study in the state of Georgia shows that prosecutors seek the death penalty

in 70% of those cases where black individuals are accused of killing white individuals. However prosecutors seek the death penalty in only 15% of those cases where black individuals are accused of killing other black individuals. As if the prosecutor were to say the killing of a white person is a more grievous crime than the killing of a black person. Who shall be convicted of a capital crime? Well the statistics show that 20% of the population of the United States is comprised of people of color. However 50% of the people on death row are individuals of color. Black males account for only 6% of the population of the United States but over 40% of the people on death row are black males. Who shall be executed? In the past 20 years 50%

of the people executed have been people of color and 38% of those have been black individuals. 82% of those executed were accused of killing white individuals. Now follow that up with this statistic. Over 50% of the victims of homicides are people of color but only 3% of the people executed in the past 20 years have been white individuals accused of killing individuals of color. If you are a white individual and by the powder cocaine available in your suburban white neighborhood and that cocaine is 5 grams or less and you're convicted you'll receive a sentence of probation. However if you're a black individual and by the cocaine more readily available in your neighborhood

and it turns out to be crack cocaine you'll receive a mandatory sentence of 5 years without the possibility of parole or probation for your conviction of that same amount of cocaine. All right everyone let's meet our criminal justice panel tonight. We start with district judge Rebecca Pilshoff, Kansas 18th judicial district in Wichita, Secure Jamila Community Organizer. Keith Morton of Wichita Aircraft Worker and Mark McCormick is back with us and Mark over the last year so you've done that we've done what it was talking about crack cocaine and powder cocaine and some of the apparent or obvious injustices there and you've done some amazing work in the last year with eagle illustrating that on the local level. Explain some of that to us and give us a background. Putting the context of the national level the American Medical Association says that crack cocaine laws have been applied to African-Americans at 22 times the rate even though white people use far more crack

than African-Americans do. If you look here locally in the in the county, uh, Cedric County, Cedric County's Black population is 9% and yet African-Americans account for 60, 65% of those convicted in state and federal court on these charges so that's a pretty glaring example of I think I think the issues here are far clearer than they are in really most most other areas. And you've talked to the police here in Wichita, the police chief himself about the number of crack cocaine bus since 1990. Tell us about that. There's an amazing number in there and we don't want to get bogged down statistics but this is a truly amazing number. Have one in the last uh three years? One. One white cocaine dealer in the last three years. What's the explanation? It's myriad of them. One has to do with just community level enforcement when people are when the police are walking the streets. Apparently they're only seeking

African-Americans who happen to be dealing in what they call open air areas as opposed to the way dealing occurs in other communities in a more covert manner. I don't think we really have to debate the racial bias in this this kind of drug enforcement and particularly dealing with cocaine. I guess the question is why do we have it and what do we do about it? Judge Pilshaar, your comment. Well I do want to comment that uh Mr. Monett's comments were about federal court. We have different sentencing guidelines in state court where I operate but I don't really see that the result is much different. I see for example today someone on a second charge or a second conviction for possession of cocaine was facing a sentence of 134 months. Those were his only two crimes he'd ever committed whereas someone can commit 10 20 burglaries and they may be looking at a sentence of maybe 60 months for another burglary. I think we've placed a lot of emphasis

there in the drug enforcement. It's being enforced and I've seen it every day. It's being enforced almost exclusively in my opinion against African-American people. I very rarely see someone who is not a person of color is charged with cocaine charges. Well we don't have the police in the district here to defend themselves tonight but the facts seem to speak for themselves. Mr. Miley you've been a community activist or organizer involved in these racial issues for years. The problem is there. What do we do about it? I just want to say Dan truly was talking about the federal system but I think it's important to point out and I think you know Mark probably have this in his statistics as well and that is that the majority of Africans that are arrested for cocaine are automatically put over into the federal system so they tend not to even get a chance to be in the state court of the district court. But yeah definitely I think we start need to begin to look at the solutions on what needs to happen because it's clear it's not

even a debate about the disparity. It's clear there's all kind of information from many sources so I think we need to start looking at what the solutions are and we believe that one of the first ones is that the 100-to-1 racial law that Dan was talking about be repealed. That's number one. That's the cocaine possession law and there's been there's been some movement toward that in the last year to obviously the solution is not the the problem's not solved. Mr. Morton you work in a which do I aircraft for an air which do I aircraft company and how does this problem what do you think is somebody out there? I don't know how it falls far as the aircraft but I know far as the community when you start looking at drugs and crime you know it's profitable and so when you start looking at dysfunction being a profitable entity you're not going to be able to police that up. You figure that a lot of people tend to gain from the drugs that's sold in northeast area and when you look at the people

who are selling drugs where they're spending the revenues that they make off the drugs it's everywhere but in northeast area. So you know when you start looking at the activities that's happening over there you're not going to get a lot of response far as people trying to come in and police it up because really when you look at it it's it's actually taking care of a lot of bases. It's selling drugs so it's penalizing our kids far as their education opportunities. It's creating revenues where you not find anybody going in the northeast area buying toyotas when you look at how it's housing people based on our federal laws we got more people going to jail for selling drugs and I'm and I'm sure that the city is aware what's going on. The thing is is that we don't really want to get rid of it we just basically want to keep it in the bottle. We don't want it to spread out because if it's spread out now it becomes an issue but we want to try to keep it focus and keep it there. That's the reason why now down on ninth and grove

we have cameras on top of the stoplights because basically what we want to do is that we want to monitor the activities but we really don't want to resolve the activities and so as long as drugs can provide our financial wealth for those other than African Americans we're not going to be able to place up this problem. What's the flip side? What's the community's role in this? We can work to change laws and we can talk about the Kansas Justice Commission which I'd like to talk to the judge about in a minute or so but what's the community's role? Mark? Good. I think what we have to recognize is that there's a human dimension to this problem. The National Household Drug Survey for example said that white Americans use crack at five times the rate and yet when you look at the people who are being locked away it's almost exclusively African American males and Hispanic males in addition. If you see that kind of disparity it should stir in you some sort of sense that maybe we should try

and rectify the problem but one of the gentlemen who wrote the mandatory minimum sense is that Shakur was referring to he said that what this amounts to is racism by negligence that we see the disproportionate impact it is having on people and yet we do nothing about it and I think until we get people to understand the human dimension to these problems that we won't begin to get at the problem. Well yeah it's it's certainly said and it's undoubtedly true and the judge could probably vouch for this there's a lot of young black men in prison for feeding the young white men's cocaine habit. One thing I would like to see one other thing that I think the community can do is I think we need drug treatment on demand. I see a lot of people that appear in my court who do not want to go to prison they're highly motivated and would like to do something about a drug addiction and yet there's a six to nine week waiting list to get into any meaningful drug treatment program if they can find one. This especially hits those people

who don't have the economic resources health insurance or a number of things they can put them into a hospital and so what we see a lot of times are people who are convicted of crimes of possession of cocaine who have trouble abiding by conditions of probation who continue to have problems because they can't beat their cocaine addiction and I don't think anyone would argue that a drug addiction is a very difficult thing to be so we're putting these people who are basically addicted to drugs into prison rather than we're putting them in prison for ten years and more on a second conviction for a possession of cocaine charge and the problem is if we would spend a whole lot less money if we would put some money into drug treatment and make it available and fix the problem at the root. Well it seems like that's a waste of time and money and effort isn't it simply filling our judicial system with people that are drug users? Is it not, Joe? I think it is. Yes, you can jump in here. First I think we need to go back to the question

about what can we do about what should the community be doing? Number one I believe that we have to educate ourselves within the community about drugs why they're there, how did they get there you know on the purpose of that and I think Mark was alluding to some of that I think it's important and Keith also said about the economics drug the drug trade has brought billions hundreds of billions of dollars into the USA-ling economy and I think that we can't overlook that and I'm not saying that but there's lots of lots of information out there that backs that up and then prisons are being built the federal government stated I think it was in USA today and as well as the ego back in June of this year stating that you know violent crime has been on a decline for six years even before the crime bill and some of these other things that the police now are taking credit for causing to come down when it was our you know the violent crimes were on a decline but we see there was a call for more police a call for more prisons and these prisons have to be filled so it's a lot of revenue entire towns and

cities are being built off of that so I believe that the community to be educated what drugs are doing and but within the community there are resources and assets within the community I'm talking about the human I'm talking about the businesses the churches the organizations that are already there that we need to come together and begin to deal with with these issues but we have to understand the root of some of this problem as well Mr. Morton you talked about keeping it in the bog you know as long as we keep it in one area and it doesn't bust out it doesn't really become an issue what do you do about that I mean is this a is this a by accident is this on purposes this is definitely by design because if you sit down and you look at historically looking at Wichita let's just take an incident that happened I think in 93 and 94 down at Centre 2 on 4th of July there was a white lady and a black child that was killed at the same time now before that over a hundred and thirty-six lives were taken when that happened right there they immediately took action

move the festivities down on the riverfront and now they that and I'm talking about white feel a little bit more comfortable about coming into or going down to the 4th of July festivities so I think that the only way that we're going to see some immediate action here is that somebody other than African-Americans have to be affected by this and when you start seeing others being affected by this then you're going to get an immediate response because gang violence or gang rap music really didn't come into play until white children start listening to it and then it became an issue so if we start looking for a solution we're going to have to to look that this disease is going to have to spread in the other communities before our city fathers and those guys really jump into it and get involved sounds like you're saying we're going to have to look at ourselves to find

that solution I think the members of the criminal justice panel we're going to have to move on to the rest of the program this evening thanks very much that does conclude our segment on criminal justice issues and during the next segment on racial issues on education and elsewhere in the community we're going to display a phone number for viewers to call into participate in the last segment of the program and let's get started on the last segment of program let's turn to our final segment the pre-recorded comments of Wichita State University professor Anna Chandler and the Reverend Lincoln Montgomery of Tabernacle Baptist Church located northeast Wichita on education thank you well one of the ways that manifests itself in education is that in the public schools the representation of minority students in the remedial classes and in special education classes is more than their representation in total population and the representation of white students in gifted classes

is more than their representation in the total population another way it represents itself is that in many cases outside of the sports arenas you don't see minority students excelling in public education on university campuses such as Wichita State you see a very low representation of minority students for example the black percentages here Wichita State are like 5 percent where the black percentages in the city Wichita are like 11 percent and those students who do matriculate here are not afforded a very welcoming atmosphere they report being not quite wanted and shown that in a number of different ways questions not being answered be if they're the only student in a class

they have to be the representative of the race and answer all the questions about their race and you know that kind of thing so that those are kinds of manifestations you see you also see the low numbers of minority faculty especially on college campuses and those that are on college campuses seem to be relegated to certain areas in the social sciences and certain departments. The best and the brightest of this particular congregation is congregation as probably 1,500 members and so we have a broad cross section of young people that you know that we nurture that we eventually receive you know through college and and a great majority of them the great majority of them in the 10 years that I've been privileged to share here have have left the city in their pursuit of greater economic opportunity so it and that's unfortunate in my opinion it's unfortunate for this congregation because we lost them it's unfortunate to the city because they are obviously lost to the dialysis and the lannas and the other area some say well that's

just a function of greater opportunity in a larger metropolitan area and I say not so that that which it does is vibrant probably in in terms of its business community as any mid to larger size city it's just that I think that there is still this fundamental notion of closure in terms of opening the ranks of the management of many of the industries and businesses in this area to to appreciate the fact that the that their management ranks ought to reflect the diversity of this community. Let's meet our community panel on education we'll start with Charles McAfee which are architects and practices here and around the world Mr. McAfee welcome Meredith Arrow guidance counselor at North High School in Wichita and Melody Miller which is a Sedgwick County Commissioner as Miller welcome to the program and of course Mark McCormick who joins us again uh Reverend Montgomery was talking about the brain drain we talked about a little bit earlier in the program but Mark obviously that's a real deal here

in Wichita. Oh absolutely just just think about some of the people that this community has lost we lost Ron Walters who's an internationally known political scientist we've lost John Gaston who's an esteemed professor out at Wichita State and a host of others and what that does is it robs all children whether they're black or white of some African-American role models that they might use to build their own lives in their own careers. Mr. McAfee you can speak to the brain drain in a very personal way I think a lack of opportunity for black professionals here in the city. Talk to us a little bit about that. Mark and I one day we're having lunch in the Commissioner Miller's barbecue place and we've talked about the brain journey and about a year later the article came out in the paper and I was quite pleased about it. I was pleased the article came out I'm not pleased of you know why it even had to be said in the area that was once called

crack alley there were 15 black PhDs out of that neighborhood who were professors and in business all over this country. Numerous doctors and lawyers. It was a neighborhood that was allowed to die and so the lack of opportunity just kept pushing people away and pushing people away to the point where it's almost next to impossible to convince a young person who very talented through high school and college to even come back home. Right now I'm suffering with three of those so I have a personal feeling about that and it's terribly unfortunate. Your daughter is practicing I believe in Atlanta now is that correct and well I have three daughters and my youngest daughter manages our architectural offices in Dallas and Oklahoma

City. My middle daughter is head of the Occupational Therapy Department at Flow Rehabilitation Hospital right outside of Dallas. She's a KU graduate. My youngest daughter is a Nebraska graduate master's at University of Texas. My middle-dadder master's at University of Texas. My oldest daughter Cheryl graduate can the state that Harvard manages our office in Atlanta. I can't hardly get them to come on. And one of the reasons I guess is not much here for them is it is this just Wichita or or a lot of mid-sized cities like this and we got a special problem on this map. I think I think the problem is is that it's truly lack of opportunity. The sad part about is our major corporations in this town still have very very few people of color in any positions of importance whatsoever and that's very obvious and so it's it's very difficult to set there and say well you know the opportunities are here and when they say where

you know it's very difficult for us to show them where. Mr. Varro, this is obviously a problem for you at North High School which I believe is the most ethnically diverse high school in the city African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Native Americans. What do you tell the kids over there? How do you deal with this? As a matter of fact North High is the most diverse school in the state of Kansas and it's what our society will look like in the year 2000 and some. I think the students and I don't want this to be a black and white issue because I think Latinos are really growing in numbers. When I first started at North there were 9% Hispanics and now they're 31%. I think there's a sense of hopelessness among our students and there's a sense that they don't have enough role models. We have very few staff of color. I think our superintendent is doing a wonderful job in developing, grow your own teacher, grow your own police officer, grow your own journalist, grow your own lawyer.

I think we need to do that with the kids that are here and we need to level the playing field because it's so unlevel for our kids of color. Well Ms. Miller can work actually both of these things. You've worked a lot with juvenile justice and tried to work on that problem and to make sure that kids don't get lost in the system and obviously crime has a lot to do with economic opportunity which has a lot to do with education which is where we are in this particular panel. And you've taught too Ms. Miller at the high school level here. How do you inspire kids of color? How do I inspire them? What do you tell them about obviously people say well if you're a success and you can make it anywhere. Mr. McAfee's daughters are proof that they're success but they're making it in other cities and enriching those communities around the country. Well I'm going to be a maverick and I tend to do this sometimes and you'll have to really listen for the viewers because I've got a slight case of laryngitis but when I think about the city of Wichita and I think about opportunities

I think that they're vast and they're wide and I also think that it is and it is incumbent upon the community and particularly cultural enclaves within our community the city of Wichita and Sedwick County to provide appropriate role models to provide appropriate economic opportunities. I feel that as a business owner it is imperative that some of us are able to step out and take risk and to show our youth that it's worthy. It's worthwhile. It can happen and you can do it. Not only from a business perspective but also from an educated perspective just as Mary has stated within the school district when you think about role models and I keep hearing that role models are very very important not only as mentors as a adult but as youth very very important and when you are within the school age realm and you don't see those that look like you

sound like you and talk like you that has a very devastating effect on you and impact on how it is that you learn and what it is that you are interested in doing in the long term of things so when I think about what it is as our responsibility it's incumbent upon us as a community to provide these things for our youth. There's a saying that I have on the bench and it says something to the effect of he who opens a school closes a prison and I want to just leave that lay for just a moment because we will return to it. Well that's a good that's certainly a good saying. In your business about role models is obviously right on target. The problem seems to be that if we're losing our best and brightest we're losing those role models particularly in the minority community which in the year 2000 is Ms. Navarro pointed out it's probably going to be the majority community in this

community and all over the country. How do we how do we save these role models? What do we do to keep them here? We cannot continue to export our intellectual wealth the way we're doing. I mean Mr. McAfee's daughter had a master's degree from Harvard I believe came back to Wichita and her most challenging project was a fire station. She goes off to Atlanta and builds all 32 Olympic venues. We can't continue to lose people like this and expect to have role models for our for our students. We have to create some opportunities here to keep people here because it benefits not just the students it benefits the entire community. Mr. Navarro you you have to talk to a lot of young people about this and again I ask you we understand there's a problem. Ms. Miller points out there is a a lot of opportunity this community and there's no question about that we may have more opportunity in Wichita community than we've had in its history but how to how to fit

talented kids into that of of all racism particularly the minority community so they can be those role models that Ms. Miller talks about. You know it takes a village to raise a child and I think that we need more partnerships with businesses and I think it's time for businesses to give back to the community and provide internships training for our students for our youth and I think that we need to take those students that are low social economic means and show them that there are opportunities out there in these businesses providing more opportunities for them so they can see what they can become and I think just you know inspiring them we have a lot of wonderful role models in our city and for them to come back to the schools to to encourage to mentor to become a big brother we're always having people like Mark McCormick in our schools talking to the classes inspiring them I think we need to have more of this

we need to have our businesses business people come into our schools and encourage and inspire and then invite the students to their place of business well all of you stayed obviously in the Wichita community Mark's case he came back which I suppose is good news Mr. McAfee you stayed you've been here although you practice all over the place why why are you still why are you still hanging around Wichita I stayed here on a bet that I couldn't get a job I had job offers in New York and Los Angeles and there was a Black architecture graduate from Kansas State who happened to be home on vacation and never was able to get a job in a state and he came by my house and said you can't get a job here and I don't allow people to do that to me I went out got a job I ended up staying here I want to read you something real quick all right it's a long way from 1319 Indiana Street Wichita Kansas to the making of a soldier a devoted husband a civil rights lawyer a community leader a public servant who now

in retirement and receiving reverence honor and deep appreciation we learned from Donald Hallowell that battles lost today can be one tomorrow and that the law that was used against us could be turned to protect us written by Vernon Jordan on a man by the name of Donald and all Hallowell born in Wichita Kansas right behind the present jail facility a man who out of his office came three or four federal judges a man who absolutely stayed in poverty because all he did was fight civil rights cases the whole time that he was practicing law and and this was another one of those people who left Wichita Kansas it's tragic Gordon Parks we had his whole collection at Wichita State University and it was trashed by Wichita State University and this this is a magnificent document that Ford Motor Company paid one

million dollars to create and the exhibit is now at the Cochrane Gallery in Washington DC right behind the White House you can't keep doing stuff like this and keep saying why are our children leaving I mean it's very obvious why our children leaving well thanks mr. McAfee and thanks for everyone on the panel on education we'll we're going to move on to the next segment some of you will be back and we can talk some more about these issues this does conclude our final issue segment now during the remaining minutes of the program we're going to bring back some of our panelists as i told you they'll respond to your questions questions from the viewing audience and while we get ready for that segment i'd like to call your attention to a booklet that's been prepared by KPDS as part of the part of the stations of community outreach project in conjunction with tonight's program this features a list of 28 community resources available to serve you and areas of diversity training and cultural awareness assistance with discrimination complaints a prejudice reduction programs cultural diversity projects all kinds of things

a copies of this booklet are available from KPDS and from the National Conference on Christians and Jews now the number for KPDS is 316 8383090 or toll free that's 1 8 8 367 57 87 and the number for the Kansas District of the National Conference is 316 2640356 in Wichita or toll free 1 800 5786 225 and have we got some callers can we go to our first caller do you have a question we have a first caller here yes you're on the air go ahead and and talk to us and ask your question of our panelists I would want to address the subject that was involved in the very first statement of your program okay first of all let me say I'd like to thank very much KPDS for hosting this particular program it never seems to amaze me and how politicians continue to attempt to deceive the Wichita public

we look at 21st Street between 135 and hillside and we take the city's own provided financial issue 22 million dollars has been spent in that area there has been no real economic development there has been structural development and I'll admit it looks very nice okay please ask your question sir my question is where here is the real economic development of the jobs and services in terms of black ownership black empowerment where's that all right I don't know if you all heard the question but the the caller suggests that too much money has been spent on 21st Street and it hasn't produced jobs in economic development and I guess the first person to respond maybe to that question be May or night that's obviously Mr. Barfield I will just invite anyone to go to data mac graduation to go to the assessment training center graduation to go talk to the people

in the senior citizen center there talk to people who are working in the banks talk to people who are planning the health facility and see how many agree with him it's it's not only significant it's dramatic and it's making a difference in many lives or formally there was despair there is at least some hope and promise so I couldn't disagree more with other comments responding to that as Jamelah I have yes I have to agree that to the point that on 21st Street I believe that there's not enough ownership see I believe that whether it is the mechino community the African community or any other community that the people within the community must have the ability to own land or own the businesses that's the only way now that's not to say that yes the entire community or whatever may need to help but the point is people within the community must own and operate and control what's happening does anybody else want to comment on the question about 21st Street

or do we have another question please yes sir thank you for taking my call this evening all right good I have a couple of questions in a comment again the the first question is that well actually the comment first I believe that in order for a program to be implemented you just cannot afford dollars into it so my question would be one has the city looked at making sure that there are capable people in place that when they put dollars into a community that there will be in place to make sure those dollars are spent on the programs that they're supposed to go to that's my question all right for the public let's take that first one the mayor night did you hear that question okay the the caller asks about accountability in city programs for economic development minority training and that sort of thing does the city feel comfortable that it has people in place to to provide that accountability make sure money is spent where it ought to be spent and for the programs benefits I think there's a lot of effort to ensure compliance is it perfect and no

but again I would only point to the thousands of lives that have been changed and I guess where I see a lot of hope and promise others see status quo and I just find that incomprehensible do you have another question sir yes sir and then my final question is this I would ask each of your panels is it do what they not agree with me that ultimately the responsibility for any type of suffering whether it be economic suffering or racial suffering it really depends on each individual with where they not agree and that mean that it's not necessarily just a city's fault it is a community it's then it goes down to the individual is that not would that not be agreed the gentleman asked all the panelists so Ms. Miller why don't you start I'd like to be able to chime in first on that because I think that's where I left off at when I was talking in my segment regarding education and I said that basically it what it boils down to is that

the community and particularly though if you want to if you want to actually specify it in terms of ethnicity a specific community they are and Chakura has said it they are the ones that are going to have to take ownership in the challenges and the problems that are before them they are the ones that are going to have to map out their plan of action of how it is to attack and bring some closure to the problem areas and I believe that we can I don't think it's a question I think that people in the communities can solve their problems and come up with ways there's other places in this country New Jersey and some others where it's very clear that people in the community define what the problem was and said how we're going to fix it but I do I need to speak to something that he said I know we cannot always continue to blame the victim and I certainly am not blaming I'll put it this way there's never been a tradition of democracy inside the United States for African people never so you know to speak to that speaks across the

board basically but to the criminal system and we know what that means economically and so forth throughout the years so I think that that just that just goes without saying so but I do believe that within the community itself we can define the problem and deal with what we have to deal with Mr. McAfee your response yes my response they're just not enough truly significant things going on you know for the community itself to change every every wrongness in the community we have a small company that the Jackson twins and I have started that's created jobs done job training we do all kinds of things we we've created businesses that didn't exist we've helped businesses along that that were struggling that the majority community doesn't even look at in order to make this work you know this business of

I find it very annoying when people start talking about proposition 209 and things like that the sad part about is they're always preferring by saying people unqualified well I want somebody to challenge me about how qualified I am in doing what I do I don't think that's going to happen but from a standpoint of the number of jobs that are available to black professionals in this town are very very small and so there are no role models there to help children look at success thank you mr. McAfee do we have time for one more quick question is there another caller okay you're on the air go ahead please your question please yes I was just was very interested in watching the show skin deep but afterwards I was disappointed in the fact that you all didn't have a more representation of representational view of Wichita I noticed that there were no Native Americans or Asians on the panel there was one Hispanic

and I felt like it kind of turned things into a black light issue in Wichita and I found that at the point in since I know that there are more groups that represent the whole of Wichita and I'm also I really appreciated you bringing up role models and I'm sorry that Ms. Navarro is not there to address the issue of role models and the Redskins mascot at North High and why there isn't anyone taking a role model stand on that it seems to be kind of a racist name well thanks for calling we we're not going to get into the North High Redskins nickname tonight but appreciate your call in fact our time is up and probably just in the nick of time I'd like to thank all of our panelists and everyone else who contributed to hard questions tonight thanks for coming back for the next segment we've probably raised a lot more questions than answers and in fact I'm sure we have but I hope that the problems like this will raise communities awareness obviously there's a serious problem in terms of economic opportunity in Wichita and and racial justice and criminal justice

system we're going to leave you with a final observation by the Reverend Lincoln Montgomery of Tabernacle Baptist Church again thanks for joining us and good night I'm privileged to travel all over the country and so you know you've given different regions and you know obviously race in America we've never really dealt with it in an open and honest manner you know you know you have extremes on both sides Wichita is probably the one thing that made the observation that I make is that that that our race problems here or we handle them in our typical Gentile Midwest in manner we have significant issues in the area of race but but we don't deal with them in a very open and forth right manner most of the racism that you will see demonstrated in this particular area is a very subtle benign perhaps even unconscious state affairs