This is what I wish Josh Hawley would hear about the Ralph Yarl shooting | Opinion
Message sent
I sent the below to Sen. Josh Hawley yesterday and a very similar letter to Sen. Eric Schmitt. Then I woke up this morning and remembered who Hawley is and what he stands for, and the futility of my efforts hit me like a brick wall.
Dear Sen. Hawley:
I grew up in Midtown Kansas City, falling asleep to train whistles and emergency sirens. My mom, a third-generation Italian who lived out her 20s in New York City, told me never to go east of Troost Avenue. My dad, who was never in the picture, immigrated from Yemen in 1988, the year before my birth.
Half Yemeni with no sense of what being an Arab meant and half Italian with skin too dark to pass for white, I found that KC was not good to me — especially after 9/11. I spent two years being physically abused at Overland Christian School before switching to Rockhurst High School, your alma mater. Although it was better, I’m sure you remember how deafeningly white the school was.
I left Kansas City, and Missouri altogether, as soon as I could, looking for somewhere I felt safer. But those lessons I learned as a kid have never left me: Black men are dangerous. I look more Black than white, and therefore people think I’m dangerous.
When I read about Ralph Yarl, it reminded me of what Kansas City always felt like. The potential always resting just below the surface. And it infuriates me.
You can chalk the nation’s staggering gun violence numbers up to a mental health crisis, a gang epidemic or the tremendous ease with which Americans can get guns. But when an old white man hears his doorbell ring, sees a teenage Black boy and shoots him, you have a problem of perception.
I know you’re paying attention to this case. I’ve read your comments to the press. Do not let Ralph Yarl’s shooting be treated as the actions of one deranged old man. Make a conscious effort to undo white Missourians’ perceptions of Black people — especially Black men and boys — as dangerous and violent.
Failure to do so both perpetuates racism in your state and pushes Black men and boys toward violence. Few of us can endure being kicked around our whole lives without kicking back.
- Christopher Fiorello, Santa Barbara, California
God needed
In America, church and state are separate. At the same time, Americans shall not murder, steal or bear false witness against their neighbors. The Declaration of Independence opens with god and creator and ends with supreme judge and divine providence, while the Constitution secures “the blessings of liberty” — secures, not creates. And ultimately, who blesses but God?
Second Corinthians 4:13 may have inspired the First Amendment. Mankind formed in God’s image sounds like individual freedom. The oaths we speak mean little without a higher, objective authority to hear — and that authority cannot be government, for we the people cannot be higher than ourselves.
This is one reason “our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people,” as John Adams said. Because self-governance by any other kind of people is not sustainable. Without morality, anything goes, which means nothing stays. Without religious adherence to — at the very least — the self-evident, there cannot be one out of many.
In America, church and state are separate. But America was built on God.
- Mike Kline, Kansas City
No new stadium
If a new stadium for the Royals is built at any of the much-discussed downtown locations, the fan experience will change forever. A growing trend is the opportunity to tailgate before the games. This would be lost.
Also, I haven’t heard anyone talk about the beautiful view of the current location from the highway. What an awesome sight for everyone traveling across our town. A downtown stadium could never duplicate this image we share with visitors to our city.
We have a great ballpark. Why not make necessary improvements to it, or rebuild on site?
- Burt Walker, Raymore
