Week in Review is heading out on the road.

We're tackling what is set to become one of the most powerful and polarizing issues in Kansas City.

Reparations.

Give us what we're doing.

How do you determine who's supposed to be?

I don't know why they would be giving more status and any other group of people if you haven't been paying attention.

Kansas City has just approved a new panel to compensate black residents for slavery and the city's historic role in segregation.

The first Reparations Commission meeting Halilu.

Why do we see such a different life expectancy on one side of Troost versus another?

Why don't we see the same opportunities for community wealth building in certain parts of our city?

And why is it so darn hard to get a loan?

So how will it work?

Who will be helped and who's on the hook for paying?

This hour, we joining American Public Square on location at the University Academy at 68th and Holmes to lift up the hood on the issue.

What we're asking for is justice.

What are we going to accomplish?

Who pays?

How do you determine who pays?

And only when it comes to black people.

Is it an issue of, well, why should everybody have to pay for it?

What about reparations for Native Americans?

This is uncompromised, unapologetically black for the harms and crimes against black people in our city, along with reparations supporters and skeptics flying into town to join us as someone who's already making it work.

The architect of the nation's first black reparations program in Evanston, Illinois.

People have been extremely nasty to me.

Stay with us.

Reparations in KC straight ahead, this special presentation of Kansas City Week in Review was made possible by So what on earth is reparations?

How do they work?

Who gets helped and who's on the hook for paying?

Hello, I'm Nick Haynes.

And those questions and so many more we're going to be answering together for the next hour as we bring together leaders and critics of the reparations movement.

It is no longer an academic exercise.

Kansas City is on the clock.

Mickey D's was picked by the man to serve as an advisor to the new Kansas City Reparations Commission.

The panel has been given 12 months to come up with ways to make amends for slavery and the city's role in the historic enforcement of segregation.

Seeing one, if not two, eyebrows about the city's new push is author, commentator and documentarian Jack Cassell.

Jack has a Ph.D. from Purdue University, where he taught media and literature.

While some say it won't work, it simply can't be done.

Meet Robin Rose Simmons, the architect of the nation's first publicly funded reparations program in the Chicago suburb of Evanston.

She flew in from Illinois to join us on this panel.

Pete Mundo made a much shorter trip to be here.

The Kansas City talk radio host tracks the latest news from a behind the microphone at KCMO Talk Radio, where reparations has become a hot topic with Kansas City listeners.

And Melissa Robinson is the Kansas City councilwoman who spearheaded the reparations ordinance through city hall.

She is president of the Black Healthcare Coalition.

Please welcome our panel.

By the way, the sixth panelist is you will be taking your questions during the course of this program.

But first, Micki Dean, it's over 150 years since the abolition of slavery.

70 years since we desegregated public facilities in Kansas City.

Why are we moving forward right now with reparations?

And why should we be doing it at all?

Well, for instance, has been a demand for black people since prior to the end of the Civil War.

So black people have been demanding reparations for quite a long time.

Why reparations?

First of all, African people were brought here in chains and forced to work.

Not only did they were they forced to work, but they were forced to work for free.

And the value of their labor basically was the foundation of the initial accumulation of capital in this country.

Just the wealth of this country was built initially on slave labor, and once they were emancipated, they were emancipated with absolutely nothing.

There was a brief period of reconstruction where this country tried to do right by black people that didn't last.

And after that, we went through this whole period of Jim Crow.

There was abuse.

There was there were lynchings.

And most importantly, we were not able to take advantage of those opportunities to create wealth, particularly to two things.

One was the homestead at 1862, where families were given 160 acres to form a homestead.

Black folks got very little with that.

And in fact, today it's estimated that about anywhere from 40 to 70 million white families are still benefiting from the wealth of that.

Then you had the G.I.

Bill where veterans were allowed to get money for education, for to start businesses and for to buy homes.

Black people were left out of it.

And this was in what little was this tremendous wealth gap between black and white.

And the estimate is that in order for black people to catch up on this wealth gap with white people, it's going to take about 220 years or so.

Most of us don't have 220 years.

We owe reparations and we deserve reparations.

You have talked about a lot of examples there from the Homestead Act, the G.I.

Bill.

Those are all federal policies.

Why is that the city's problem?

Melissa Robinson.

Well, we know that reparations through reparations, there will have to be.

It is an issue that the federal government is going to have to take up.

That is not up for debate, but or I guess it is up for debate today.

But with the city, we need to look at our participation in upholding in the laws that we had on our books.

So, for example, it wasn't until, you know, very recently in which some of the deeds were changed that, you know, we remove them saying that you can sell your homes to African-Americans.

There's a lot of policies that are on the books today that the city has contributed to the problem.

And so in order for us to repair those things, we have to make amends.

You helped make this possible, this reparations commission has you spearheaded.

That's what city hall back in January.

But what will this actually do, this reparations commission?

What this commission will do will be able to look at things from a comprehensive lens.

Let's just talk about a vote that we took today on Isaac 70 about the deck over Isaac 70.

I went in there and I said, you know, I really can't support this because, you know, we have this extreme issue with asthma in the black community.

So we're thinking about, you know, making an amenity for individuals who are primarily, you know, visitors that they don't have to experience the smog over Isaac 70.

What about the community that has been left out?

The city is going to invest $10 million in this deck over Isaac, 70 what about $1,000,000 to address urban parks and the disinvest the community?

The third District has the least amount of of of green space.

And that's by design.

It's not by coincidence.

We can't just talk about the things and talk about the disparities and talk about the facts.

We have to follow it up with action and we have to follow it up with investment.

Robin Ruth Simmons Many people say that this can't be done.

It's not possible.

It's not even wise to do it.

Yet you've done it in Evanston, Illinois.

How did that actually work?

Did everybody in Evanston, Illinois, who was African-American get a check from city hall as a result of your work?

Well, we're in process right now, and it worked because we had a city that was committed to the liberation and repair of the black community for specific harms in Evanston, not for addressing federal harm, but specifically, Evanston was anti-black, had discriminating zoning practices and other laws and policy that were responsible for our racial gaps, our racial gaps in wealth, homeownership, life expectancy, and so on.

And so we had overwhelming support from a very diverse community, a predominantly white and predominantly affluent community, in fact, to advance reparations.

And we did it through community engagement, ongoing public education around reparations, understanding how it's very different than ordinary public policy.

And we had a city council that voted yes to reparations.

And so we're taking our path forward.

Setting aside budgets, initially it was $10 million from cannabis sales tax.

We've added an additional $10 million for real estate transfer tax.

And last year we began dispersing reparation benefits in the amount of $25,000 benefit.

So it's $25,000 to eligible black residents to use towards things like home repairs or a down payment on a house.

How did you, though, decide who could get that money?

So we used a narrowly tailored legal framework advised by our corporation council with support of other experts like Howard Law School.

And so we have a period of harm From 1919 to 1969, after fair housing was passed that was anti-black as it relates to housing.

And so that informed our first remedy.

And you had to live in Evanston, Illinois, African American.

Between those years, you had to live in Evanston, be black between those years, or be a descendant.

So I qualify as a descendant.

What if you weren't born during that period of time and weren't a descendant of someone who lived during that period of time?

Was there huge resentment about other black residents there saying, You left me out?

I can't believe you?

And that huge resentment, what the community did prioritize was making sure those that were directly harm were ward at first.

And so in that case, we have those that were directly harmed that made residents around 70 years old, the first recipients of our benefit.

But there's tons of disagreement and and disapproval from the form of reparation to who is eligible to the amount of the budget and that sort of thing.

But we have to move forward in consensus, learn from the actions that we've taken and build on it.

Now, if you thought that everybody would come out of the woodwork to claim, whether it be a down payment on a home or 25,000 for home repairs, that didn't happen, did it?

As we speak, around 650 residents applied.

And as of now, only 16 people have actually seen any money.

How can that be?

Well, I'll tell you, we had over 600 that applied.

And after we started dispersing our first beneficiaries, we were hearing from residents, they were saying, I wish I would have applied.

I didn't think it was real.

I didn't think anybody would get a dollar.

So there was some regret where people didn't believe, understandably didn't believe in a system that had long oppressed and discriminated against black people, but now believe.

And so I'm happy to say that not only have we increased our budget, we've reinvented the way that we can disperse.

So initially we had large allocations.

Now we have rolling every $25,000 that we accumulate.

So the benefits are getting out much quicker.

Now folks are taking cash that's creating less barriers and we're still building on the work.

Now, according to polling by the Pew Center for Research, only 29% of Americans support the idea that the government should make payments to black Americans for historic wrongs.

Pete Mundo Why is that and what is the biggest objection from your listeners when they hear about Kansas City adopting a reparations program?

Well, there's two things.

There is the priority list of the city.

What where does that issue land when it comes to fighting crime, when it comes to infrastructure, things of that nature?

911 Dispatchers, right.

Where we're really short on those, we're triple the national average.

I believe I'm picking up a911 call and then it's the the fairness of who pays, who pays.

How do you determine who pays if it is a tax?

Is that the best allocation of that tax money, whether it is for home ownership, whether it is for direct payments?

Those are the issues that that people fairly bring up.

If they look at that and they say, hey, if you have a new Hispanic immigrants in this city in the northeast part of Kansas City, they had nothing to do with any of this.

Why is a cent of their tax dollars going towards this?

So I think you look at that and you say to yourself, what did I say that was incorrect?

Why does it matter what they think?

Okay, We have people on the panel to answer this question.

So as I was saying, that's why they're here.

But there are two points that you made that I think are interesting.

And I'm going to ask Mikki and Melissa to respond to them if I can.

But first of all, the political point that we do have, all these other homicide is going through the roof, all of these other issues in the city, how can we justify the focus and spending on reparations when there are all those other city priorities?

I'm so glad that Mr. Mooney brought that up, because when you think about crime and violence, African-Americans make up the vast majority of those who are perpetrators and victims of crime and violence are homicide.

The third District is predominantly the place in which a lot of the bullet to skin shootings are happening and also the homicides that are happening.

Those are just symptoms of a greater problem.

And so we have to deal with the root causes.

And reparations is about repairing that harm this time so that we can get to a level playing field so people can actively participate in the economy.

The issue of violence is about poverty.

And so we have to address those root causes.

When you talk about infrastructure, we were looking at charging stations for electric vehicles, and we found that we couldn't put any charging stations in the third District because guess what?

We don't have any streetlights.

Why are there these differences in different parts of our community is because it's been intentional disinvestment in parts of our community.

And I always use Brush Creek as an example because it was designed with the concrete base dam in the affluent parts of our community.

But a mud base dam in the segregated black parts of our community.

You've got some great examples that I want to keep moving with the story.

It's about economics, it's about GDP.

You've got everybody's not participating in the economy.

Then we can't we can't grow as a overall city.

The second concern that Pete mentioned was who would be on the hook for paying?

And I want to ask Mickey Biden that you're just starting the reparations commission just been formed.

That's a big deal.

You've got a 12 months now to come up with some initial recommendations.

How are you going to answer that question of who is on the hook for paying that?

Their job is not to try to find out how it's going to get funded.

Their job is to determine what what would what proposals would create justice for black people.

Now, when it comes to funding, you know, it's really strange that this country can find money to fund whatever disaster it wants to fund.

They just came up with $4 trillion, I think for $4 trillion for for for college.

You know, any time that is there needs to be money for war, this country can find money for war.

This this country found money to provide the Japanese with reparations.

So so what I'm saying is that it only when it comes to black people, this is an issue of, well, why should everybody else have to pay for it?

You know, I'm paying for my taxes, are paying for killing machines, you know, for my taxes to pay for a lot of things that I don't support.

Right.

But we don't we're not getting asked, where can I get my taxes support this?

Should my taxes support that?

But it's only when it comes to us.

You mentioned at the very beginning, though, you mentioned that we've done this before.

Cast your mind back to 1988, Jack Cash.

That's when President Ronald Reagan issued an apology to Japanese-Americans who were forcibly rounded up on and placed in internment camps at the start of World War Two.

And Congress gave them $20,000 each for the harm the government caused.

That was more than 82,000 people.

And I've tabulated this.

That's $1.6 billion.

Jack, was it wrong to do that or is there a difference here?

There's a big difference.

What's the difference?

Well, one is time.

But I. Nick, if I could, I want to get back to what Melissa said about root causes.

I think we need to before we get into the micro questions.

We need to get to the macro questions.

First of all, I'm Melissa.

Totally agree with you on the park over Isaac 70.

I've been in town for a long time.

Stupidest idea I've heard yet.

And most expensive for what you get.

And then your points.

Exactly right.

However, when we talk about root causes and throughout the sixties, the black white income gap was narrowing.

It's not great, but it's heading in the right direction.

In 64, we have two things that come to pass.

One is the Civil Rights Act.

Fine.

The other one is not.

That is the Great Society.

And there's a trade off with the Great Society.

And the trade off is this We'll give you Medicaid, we'll give you food stamps, we'll give you AFDC, we'll target your income to your rent and housing.

But you got to the price you have to pay is to get the old man out of the house.

This is the beginning of the of the breakdown of in many ways the black community.

And it's the reason why.

Let me just tell you this.

You know what the difference in homicide rate between Johnson County and Jackson and Kansas City is 47 times more likely to be murdered in Kansas City than in Johnson County.

You are seven times more likely to be murdered by something other than a gun in Kansas City than be murdered by a gun.

The point of saying that is what this point is saying, that is that the root cause of this is family breakdown.

Total It is is the way it is.

If you could solve that, you could solve all these other problems, they would fall into place.

When you talk about the breakdown of the black family, let's talk about mass incarceration and how a lot of African-Americans were pulled out of the home.

African-Americans were pulled out of the home because of mass incarceration.

And so we have to again, think about how society has participated and how the government has participated through policies to address these issues.

But there is intentional disinvestment.

When the city has $1,000,000,000 of its special obligation funds going into one area, one area affluent areas, and not the same investment going into other areas.

That's the issue that we have to begin to grapple with.

That's the issue that we have to address.

But quickly, and we're going to get some questions from the audience.

Yeah, but but I just want to I just want to just just what he said.

He talks about this Tim Johnson County in Kansas City.

Well, here's the deficiency in Johnson County.

When they created the suburbs right in East River.

So basically to create it so white people will have somewhere to live outside of the city.

Black communities were red line at that time.

Black communities couldn't buy houses in the suburb because they couldn't you couldn't get mortgages.

And so and so therefore the suburbs were able to thrive.

Most of the people that that ended up in the suburbs took advantage of these government programs like the CEO, with which black people didn't have opportunities to like the job of education to be able to start.

So it's no accident that there's a difference in what's going on in Central City.

Can't see what's going on in Genesee County is Melissa said it was very intentional.

It was intentional to keep people oppressed and locked up in these crowded and poor conditions in the inner city.

All that was done with not only federal federal government policies, state government policy to government policy.

So what you're trying to say?

Well, the problem is, as black people, there's some folks out so pathological about black people, as opposed to the fact that black people were not intentionally oppressed, so didn't have the opportunities that people in Johnson had.

That's the difference in Johnson County.

I want to bring in we're going to have your questions in just a moment.

Thank you very much.

But Robin, Ruth Simmons, I mean, you're traveling all around the country with thrilled to have you here.

You've been you're going to tell, sir, you were just at the United Nations last week.

That's how far you're traveling.

And we so appreciative to get you.

But you've been listening to some of the objections and I am sure some of those you've heard before.

What is your best advice to leaders in Kansas City about what they need to know about putting a reparations program in place and what they should not do?

Based on your experience in Evanston?

Well, I have to start by saying I'm here because of the leadership in Kansas City already.

Mr. Mickey Dean, thank you for your leadership, your mentorship.

He's been fighting this fight long before me.

Councilwoman, thank you for being the fearless legislator that this city needed to get the commission established.

So great job, great leadership.

I will say that I have been all across the country and the world really building the case for local initiatives, for reparations and public education.

I think ongoing public education is the most important piece to a successful community supported reparations initiative.

Understanding why reparations.

Some folks just don't understand.

The anti-blackness is still baked into the current public policy right now today.

Is there one thing you wouldn't have done if you would have known in advance?

In hindsight?

No.

Okay.

All right.

Claire Bishop, executive director at American Public Squares.

We taking your questions and we have plenty of them, Claire.

Thank you.

Next.

First question tonight from our audience.

This comes from Phillip, who is a KC PBS viewer.

What did Kansas City do in the past that would make them responsible for today's economic disparities?

Was redlining a city policy or a banking insurance policy?

And then how about restrictive covenants?

Were those policies from the city, or were those a real estate policy?

That's question number one.

Okay, let's get to that.

Melissa, do you have an answer to that?

Aren't they really private businesses who are doing that or the mortgage and insurance industries and not the city?

No, there were city policies on the books as it relates to where you could buy a house.

Redlining and enforcing those those policies and so are the establishment of the commission really did talk about Kansas City's participation in uphold seeing segregation, upholding oppression, those segregation laws.

I mean, those are on the city's books.

Those were city policies.

We heard from Robin about what was happening in Evanston, that it was really people who were in Evanston between the years like 1919 and 1969 who lived through those housing policies.

Is that what Kansas City is going to do to narrowly frame this through a very narrow period of time that people can be eligible for reparations?

Well, there are legal advice.

We have learned that it does need to be directly related to city policy.

It cannot be that we're just applying reparations because of slavery.

It has to be a specific policy.

And so the work that the commission is doing, the research that they're doing is really critical to determine what those things are.

And so those things are forthcoming.

We don't know how much the reparations are going to be.

We don't know if it's going to be housing.

We don't know what the recommendations are going to be.

We don't know how we're going to fund it.

We first have to get a report and we have to get recommendations, and then we'll have to go through the legislative process.

Another question, Claire?

Yes.

Marilyn in the audience asks, What about reparations for Native Americans?

Yeah.

I mean, it's certainly certainly for Native Americans.

I think it's a worthy issue and a worthy topic.

And that's where I think, you know, from the broader picture, what do you do when there's not enough satisfaction around what's being done on the issue of reparations?

We heard about Evanston and it started off as a housing issue and it became the ability for cash payments.

And then, of course, you have ideas coming out of San Francisco, four or $5 million direct payments out there.

So who, how, what, where.

It's a snowball effect.

And that's where I think there remains a lot of concern.

Well, the Native Americans were major slave owners, which is unfortunate part of American history.

So that it gets really kind of complicated there.

Yeah.

Two things.

First of all, we support the all of the groups, Native Native Americans and anybody else who's been oppressed by this government getting their do.

So we have we have no conflict with that whatsoever.

But but that's not part of the purview, though, with this mayoral reparations commission.

This this is about black reparations, strictly black reparations.

But that's not to say that we we're not in support of because because obviously, you know, listen, I know the whole story about, you know, some Native American slave owner, but Native Americans basically were forced off their land.

They were decimated.

They were driven into reservations.

We addressed that with them about the whole slavery thing.

But the story of the Native Americans is not, you know, slave holders like the white slaveholders was doing it for Native Americans that they, too, were murdered.

They were they were kicked off of their land and they were they were forced onto reparations.

So that's just not a good analogy.

Robin Ruth Simmons, how did you handle that in Evanston?

Were a Spanish involved?

Were Asian-Americans, were, um, did you have Native Americans?

Were they part of the reparations program?

Um, what about if you were mixed race, Did you actually get involved in that?

Well, absolutely.

Every community was involved as an ally and as a support.

But how about to gain reparations?

Absolutely not.

You limited this is black reparations.

This is on compromise, unapologetically black for the harms and crimes against black people in our city.

And so I also want to make the point that I hear support for Japanese reparations, loans and Civil Liberties Act of 1988.

H.R.

40 was modeled after that and introduced only the next year in 1989, using that as a precedent.

But here we are now, over 30 years later, and still no commission established for the black community.

I want to hear another question from you, Claire.

So first, from Jim, who submitted this question ahead of time.

How is it justifiable to harm people today financially of any race, ethnicity, religion or gender by choices made by people in the past who had to the people today who had no involvement in those choices?

That's the first part of the question.

And the second one, I think, relates nicely to it.

What harm will reparations do to Caucasian Americans if awarded?

Okay.

Who would like to answer those questions?

What is the second one?

What would be the harm to Caucasians as a result of paying reparations?

Was that am I correct?

Yes.

Well, the answer is nothing, because we're not a monolithic group of white, black, Asian, Latino.

Right.

That's the answer.

The answer is that in this country, if you look at the data, the wealthiest race in America are Asian-Americans.

They make about 100 grand a year for family income.

Then it's whites at 71, Hispanics 58.

Black is 46.

You are not guaranteed more money in this country based on your skin color.

So therefore, a Kansas City Caucasian person who makes 30 grand a year could theoretically get hurt more than a white person making 100 grand a year just because if there's a sales tax, an income tax, whatever it is.

Obviously, the person at 30 is going to get hit worse.

But guess what?

There's plenty of people in Kansas City who are white, black, Asian, Latino, who make $30,000 a year.

So it's really not a that is an issue of of income, not an issue of race.

This is an issue of race.

Right.

We talk about the wealth gap in this country.

The racial wealth gap is based on race.

The and I'm not saying there are poor white people.

I'm not saying they're are not wealthy black people, because, you know, when we start talking about reparations, everybody said, what about over what about over?

What about this person?

That person?

Okay.

What about the the point is this is that is that the the racial wealth gap in this country was something that was intentional and deliberate.

And what we're talking about is that in what white people really should understand is that it does it's the whole of society.

It hurts the whole of society to have one segment of the society that this oppressed.

If you lift up everybody, then everybody, everybody benefits.

But this whole racial wealth gap is something that I think has to be addressed because because no matter, you can you can put out this example and an example, I think in Kansas City and I've got the data here.

I think the average work for white families 187,000 average wealth of black families is 24,000 or something like that.

I don't know the exact number.

I actually have it right here.

What is the median household net worth of a white family in Kansas City is 188,000 compared to 24,000 for a black family, nearly eight times less.

That's the problem.

See, that's the problem.

Well, what's so if that's the problem, does that mean that we have to make up that difference?

That would be a payment of about $160,000 per black resident.

Does that sound about right?

Well, again, we don't want to put the cart before the horse.

We have to let the commission do its work.

We're not going to I'm I'm not going to say what we need to do a cash payment of X, Y and Z.

The issue is what does it take from a from a from an investment from the city to address the racial wealth gap?

And there's a lot of recommendations that could come from that.

The Urban League produced a report there, say, to black Kansas City.

It talked about a 50 year tax abatement.

So there is a lot of different things that could be done, but we have to let the commission do its work.

Did people in Evanston feel insulted when you did put a price tag on their home and said this is worth $25,000?

Did some people say, I can't believe this?

Well, I'll say that everyone understands it.

It's a down payment.

It's a step towards it's not a settlement.

We're still doing the work.

Question.

Yes.

We're going to switch gears a little bit here.

Virtual attendee asks, Will the changing of street names such as Troost also have a role to play in reparations?

Becky.

We heard that right now about, you know, truth changing to truth is that part of reparations, too?

Yeah, I think that that there is a part of reparations that talks about racist monuments, racist statute, racist names, the streets, all of that is part of the the refer to injustice.

All of that is part of repair.

And so, yeah, I think I think that that is inclusive.

Everything that repairs the damage that's been done to us, which includes things like changing street names.

So yeah, we will accept that as part of efforts to justice.

But actually that came up a few years ago.

And didn't the City Council charged the park board with examining all place names and monuments in Kansas City that had a slavery or racial connection and in the park will do absolutely nothing about it.

Melissa Robinson.

Yes, I champion both of those pieces of legislation.

One, a more comprehensive approach for Parks in our monuments and memorials, which the parks board has a separate, you know, authority and can choose what they do and don't do.

And they decided not to do that.

And so we're left with doing a piecemeal approach, looking at the streets that the city has oversight of.

And so I introduced a resolution to look at getting public feedback about changing the name of truth, because truth, we're on a great system.

It's not just south of the river.

Truth goes all the way up north as well.

And so we want to make sure that we get feedback from people who are directly impacted by it.

But we certainly I agree that it is a part of that repertory justice that we can't continue to uplift a slave holders in Kansas City.

I'm curious to know with all of these changes, whether it be reparations, whether it be the changing of names, do any of these require to go to the ballot box or can the reparations commission decide these things in the city council, approve them and they become the law of the land in Kansas City?

Our charter does say that there are certain things that the Council can not do that the voters do have to weigh in on, especially when we look at taxes.

So it depends on how those those the revenue is going to be collected.

And so individuals that we've talked about up here as examples.

So if you are, you know, someone who who has recently settled in, you have the your voting rights, you can go in and weigh in at the voting at the ballot box.

We talk about changing a street name.

If reparations was a polarizing issue, Pete, just even changing a name, we had it, of course, with the poor sale where there was the consent, whether it was going to change the name to Martin Luther King.

These have become hot potato issues and the for sale pushback was across all racial backgrounds, too.

Do I think it changes anybody's life?

I don't believe so.

But I'm willing on that issue to say if it means something to somebody who had a different background than me, if that makes them feel better, more inclusive.

The street name to me is is a non-issue.

Is it a non-issue for you, Jack?

Well, you know, we live in Jackson County.

This is named after Andrew Jackson, who is both a slave trader and an Indian killer.

We'll tell you that when two.

So I start.

And you support that?

I do support that, too, but I support changing Jackson County.

I don't know.

I don't know which changes to Reagan County, Lincoln County or somebody.

I know some of respect.

There you go.

I'm curious, when we talked about putting issues on the ballot box in Evanston, Robin did it when you were using a marijuana tax to provide $25,000 payments for down payments for homes, home repairs, Did that require voter approval or were you able to do that just directly through the city council?

It was through a legislative action.

It didn't require a ballot action.

Now, there are some communities that have used the ballot.

Detroit is one that was probably the first, maybe still the only that passed with a ballot initiative.

Mickey, you mentioned just a little bit early on an answer that people do ask about Oprah and all of these people who have lots of money when it comes to reparations.

But is there an income cap being considered in Kansas City that we would say, you know, if you are out of a certain income threshold, you wouldn't be eligible Should it be dedicated to people of lower income?

Should, you know, professionals like judges and surgeons be able to get this money?

You you know, Nick, you're asking me questions I simply don't have an answer for.

As Melissa has said over and over again, those are the questions that the commission will take up.

The commission will determine eligibility.

Commission return will determine how repertory justice is dispersed.

We just don't know all of that right now.

Keep in mind that we're early in this process and this is a one meeting, but that's part of their charge, is to develop answers to those types of questions.

Well, the marijuana tax here's another question you may not be able to answer was paid the way it was paid for in Evanston, Illinois.

How would it be paid for in Kansas City?

Do you have a sense of where that money would come from?

Well, I just wanted to make the point about the marijuana tax that the voters did decide on how that was used.

But we introduced the ordinance and we said that 3% is going to be used on violence prevention, houseless ness.

You can't just take that money that you said at that time was going to go to those issues and now use it for reparations.

We cannot.

Okay.

Do you have a sense of where that funding could come from?

I do not, but it will probably because we do have, you know, hand the Hancock Amendment and things of that nature.

It will probably we will probably have to look to the voters to approve something.

Okay.

Is this a one time payment, by the way, or is this something you're going to be continuing moving forward with?

I mean, if we decide today that it is $25,000 like Evanston, Illinois, and say we're going to do it home repairs and putting a down payment on a home, will that be something that we'll be doing again in 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028?

Or is it a one and done?

Well, I think that one of the things that I think might possibly happen is that we understand that municipalities are limited in what they can do and they may not be able to do everything at once.

They may say that this needs to take a three year period of five year period, etc..

But again, I just I just can't answer that at this point because we're just not at that point yet.

Well, you've got more questions you may not be able to answer clear.

Yeah, we do.

Let me start with this one here from Howard.

Is the discussion today about reparations due to being enslaved or for the bad treatment of black Americans for the last 150 years?

This discussion has seemed to be seems to have been focused on the latter.

Are we talking at all about the former the history of slavery?

Yeah, it's all of it.

We're saying that that reparations is basically designed to repair the harm that black people have been suffering.

And of course, a lot of it originated during the period of enslavement, but it just didn't end there.

We're talking about now the vestiges of slavery.

All of those things happened because we were initially enslaved and we were never fully compensated for that.

And so because of that initial period, we've been oppressed and depressed all along.

And so so all of the things that has happened to black people after slavery in slavery, of course, is this is clearly the the the the fundamental part of this.

But but what we're saying is that damage has been done to black people from from after Reconstruction to the Jim Crow era up until this point.

So, yeah, we're talking about compensation for harm.

And all that harm did not occur solely in slavery.

All of it that that harm has continued to occur up to this day.

And we think that all of it deserves repertory justice.

If and once reparations are approved, will their payment make racial race relations better or worse?

And what's the reason for your answer?

It'll make it worse.

I mean, except for the fact that a lot of people will say, give them one more reason not to live in Kansas City, Missouri.

I live in Kansas City, Missouri.

And part of the reason I want to get back to the root causes is this.

I have a book coming out in July.

It's called Untenable.

And it talks about my own growing up, watching my hometown of Newark, New Jersey, collapse around me.

And I got to see why it was collapsing in 1960.

My neighborhood was how it was integrated and the school on my block was 50% black.

It was intact.

There was no street crime.

It was stores up and down the street.

By 1975, it was it was a hellhole.

And we have to look what happened.

The real damage started by the black community, did a brilliant job surviving slavery, surviving Jim Crow.

The communities were strong in Kansas City in the fifties and sixties.

If we don't look at that, we're just.

We're talking around the issue.

Yeah, but Becky, Dean, though, is rubbing his head, thinking, I don't agree with that.

He can say last week we did a brilliant job doing slavery.

Is that what you said?

I'm saying you did a brilliant job overcoming the effects of slavery.

The community with the civil rights era.

I mean, the era of institutional racism created.

We're heroes with the era of institutional white guilt created are opportunists.

And until you face the reality of the world we're living in today and let's face it right now, everyone in this audience is a one percenter by world standards.

Every every black person in Kansas City, no matter their circumstances, are living better than 1995, 99% of the people in the world.

So we all have a lot to be grateful for.

We have to, Robin.

Robin wants to respond to that.

Let me.

So I will agree that we are brilliant, resilient, incredible, dynamic, culturally rich on and on and on and on.

But what I wanted to do is add to that question from experience.

And having passed and Evanston dispersed and how it has improved, race relations improved, it hasn't worsened race relations.

People's people didn't start leaving Evanston, Illinois, as a result of that.

Folks are moving back to Evanston.

We are attracting talent in high level positions in Evanston because they believe in a city that has had the audacity to say yes to reparations.

We seen more black hires in leadership, inclusion on boards, committees and commissions.

We're seeing more support of black businesses.

We have seen more engagement in black community.

Black community has a voice, a sense of place, more ownership.

It has been a tremendous benefit.

We can already begin to look at the benefit, the public benefit, even before we disperse the 10 to $25000.

Does it does it help or hurt race relations?

Well, I believe the polling shows it will hurt.

And that's all I can look at right now.

I can't speak to what's happened in Evanston the last couple of years, but I think the polling shows it's a very divisive issue that breaks down along race.

So if it breaks down along race, then it can't be something that unites us based on different races.

Melissa, as somebody who serves on the city council, is this a very visible public figure?

You get the aggravation when you go to the grocery store or the restaurant, wherever you go around in the community.

Are you worried about that?

No, I'm not at all.

Because what's untenable is the fact that our education system, the Kim City public school system, hasn't seen a property tax levy in 50 years.

What's untenable is the, you know, lack of strategic investment in the third District.

I've been legislating for the past four years with like one arm behind my back because, you know, we're doing it policy by policy.

And we need a comprehensive approach if we're going to address these things.

So I think it will help race relations.

No one is asking anyone for their guilt.

What we're asking for is justice.

What we're asking for is repair.

What we're asking for is liberation.

And so we're asking for it to be treated with dignity and respect.

And so this is not about white guilt.

This is about identifying a specific challenge that the city has and being able to invest thoughtfully and to address and provide a solution.

Lastly, one thing about race relations.

You see, anytime I hear race relations, it's always about how white folks feel.

Okay, so let me tell you what hurts race relations.

All right?

All of this all of this legislation for voter suppression that hurts race relations, that hurts black people trying to take black history out of the schools.

The you don't hear that.

Does that hurt race relations?

Because it doesn't affect white people.

It affects black people every time It's about race relations.

Is what makes white folks feel bad.

But race relations has to do, first of all.

Well, I won't get into that.

But anyway, you know, you did a good job.

I want to get a rebuttal, though, from Jackie.

Wanted to say I wanted to say thanks for Melissa for repeating the name of my book three times Untenable.

But the schools I mean, and this is where we get back to the question of what good are we accomplishing?

So, for instance, in starting in 1977 and sort of peaking in 1985, those around Kansas City knew what Kansas City did.

We invested against the taxpayer as well in defense of the taxpayers $2 billion and the Kansas City School district.

And anyone think that it made any difference or any improvement, or did we just squander $2 billion?

These are the questions we've got to ask.

What are we going to accomplish, Melissa?

What are we going to accomplish?

I was on the school board for five years, and so this is a passionate topic of minds.

And the reality is, is that we invested in, yes, beautiful facilities.

But what we did immediately after that, sitting in this beautiful charter school, is that we started to take away resources from our school districts and destabilize our public school system.

And one of the things was, is that when we talk about reparations and bringing people back to the third District, because, by the way, we have a large population loss because of the conditions that are there now, is that we need to make sure that we have a good school system so that people will feel like they want to live in Kansas City.

And so when you give billions of dollars, we 100 million and they're probably facts.

Fact checking me right now, but $100 million on our city's balance sheet going to developers instead of going to our taxing jurisdictions, our schools, that's a problem.

And then we wonder why we have crime and violence, because we're not investing in education.

And by the way, we did try to do this forum in a Kansas City public school and went on the books.

And once they found out the topic was reparations, they didn't want to do it anymore.

Thus, we are here and we're very grateful to the university accountable for be so grateful partners.

Another question from you, Claire.

This is a follow up question for Robin Ruth Simmons.

So given that the effort in Evanston improved race relations in the city, can you provide some context for what helped the largely white population of Evanston understand the need and just cause for reparations?

Sure.

That was the public education piece.

We've had symposiums.

We've had town halls.

Initially, we were having them quarterly with local advocates and activists as well as national experts and scholarship to just educate the community.

But that's been the key there.

Can we make amends without having to do any financial help whatsoever?

The word reparations comes from the Latin word repair.

We've talked about that.

Can we repair with simply an apology?

No.

Why is that insufficient?

Because when we again, look at the outcomes that we have within the community, an apology is not going to be sufficient to get us to achieve parity.

That's what we're we're trying to get at is parity.

We're using an equitable lens of what does it take to make sure that we're all included and that we're on a level playing field and we cannot do that without an investment.

This is a reparations commission.

You've heard of things like blue ribbon panels and task forces that the city puts together.

That has happened over the years.

And what often happens with that?

How would you feel, Micki, after all of this work, getting to this reparations commission?

The report comes out a year from now with those initial recommendations, and that report just sits on a desk on a shelf, gathering dust.

Howard, I feel like I can tell you that.

But, you know, here's the thing about about reparations and the proposals.

There's nothing no progressive black people have made without having to fight for it.

What I have upset something where I have, you know, I mean, once upon a time people thought Nat Turner was crazy.

You'll never you'll never get out of slavery.

So what I'm saying is that is that when those proposals come forward, this is something that we're just going to have to fight for.

You know, we have to get out in the streets.

We have to do whatever we got to do to get justice in this country.

Because because we can't afford to let proposals for capital adjust to sit on a shelf.

So the question becomes, what are we going to do about it if the city decides that they don't want to act on it, then we have to act on it.

With most changes comes when it's when it's forced, not through people's goodwill, but it comes when it's force.

So we have to hit the streets.

We have to say, what do we have to do to get this justice?

We have to do it, otherwise we won't get it.

Yes.

The other big component of this we have never mentioned that is the Missouri legislature.

What happens if they come in and say, you know, we're going to stop cities from actually having reparations programs?

They've done it with so many other areas blocking Kansas City from having its own minimum wage, for instance, blocking cities in Missouri from allowing, you know, grocery store plastic bag fans, for instance.

Have you heard of any movement at the legislative level to come in and, you know, put their heavy boots on Kansas City to say that's not going to happen?

I have not I have not heard anything on that front.

I think they are probably anxiously awaiting the recommendations.

But no, I, I, I have no knowledge.

I have not heard a word about any pushback that would come from the state on this.

What Is the biggest barrier to achieving as we leave this program today.

Reparations in Kansas City that we've discussed and how would we overcome it, Melissa?

Our public will and also the new see that city council because we will have to ultimately vote on these things.

And so these forums like this are so important because we do need to build public will build public support and we need to engage the public along the way.

As tonight, there were a lot of questions that could not be answered, but we have to bring people along.

They need to know about the recommendations.

They need to be involved, the recommendations.

So when they do come out and they go before the city council, there will be some public will to support that.

Without it, I think it's going to be very difficult with pushing it through to the City Council as a political watcher in this community.

What do you see as the biggest barrier and can it be overcome?

Well, it's hard to define the barriers without knowing what the ask is, and that clearly it's easier also to be supportive until you know what you might be asked to do, too.

As you know, as reading some stuff on Evanston where there was pushback, it seems like on on both ends, not enough, you know, doing something, whatever it is.

So I you know, the barriers are a lot of what we've talked about tonight and I think there's a lot of talking in circles and talking in corners.

And that's going to happen until somebody figures out how to deliver that message that clicks.

And I haven't heard it, but that's only because it seems like we don't even know what we're talking about yet.

Well, there's really no way it's flying in from Illinois.

We have the person who has that message that can click and that final message that can click.

For folks even watching on our television program this evening, who are going to say, I'm not quite getting this.

What is that message?

Continue to be engaged.

This is a great form.

This is an example of public education, I'm sure.

Show of hands.

Did anyone learn anything today?

Anyone?

Look at that.

Look at that.

That's positive.

And so just continue to be engage the open.

Jack, what is the biggest barrier and can it be overcome?

The way that you overcome the barriers.

If in Kansas City we just taxed stoners like they did in Evanston, they make it by they just as a marijuana tax.

But Kansas City is not Evanston.

Lawrence is Evanston.

That's a progressive university town or Evanston is the the barrier here is the resistance.

So not for instance, I raised this in my breakfast club last week as I am going to be, I think doing reparations with probably the nicest thing someone said was preposterous, you know, and it went downhill from there.

The uniformity of resistance among certainly a conservative white population is not that many conservatives in Kansas City.

They'll have to appeal to the guilt of their if the liberal part of the population.

But it's it's not a good idea here.

It won't succeed in a major scale until we begin to address the macro problem.

And if I could just say, Barack Obama at 2008, Father's Day at the Apostolic Church of Christ in Chicago, he gets up and he says, there is one problem plaguing our community and we have to address it.

And that's the absence of fathers in the home.

And then it goes through the statistics.

Kids who grew up father was ten times more likely to go to prison, five times more likely to drop out of school, ten times more likely to end up in poverty.

And that was Barack Obama.

He only said that once.

Got to address that.

If you don't, you're just moving deck chairs.

I'd you have had your word on that.

The biggest barrier in your mind, Mickey, is water.

And how do you overcome that?

Well, here's what would have to happen to see why people have to come is that they are so opposed to what they think.

Black people are getting some kind of unfair advantage.

Why do you understand that?

They've had an unfair advantage for 400 years.

Okay.

This is why.

Let me talk you.

This is why the situation is what it is now.

And what you have is you have a lot of these conservative politicians that are just stoking this racism by making white people think if we get something that is taken from them and that's not necessarily the case.

So I think that is as well.

I would say what they did in Evanston is that there has to be a lot of education about when we say reparations, what are we talking about?

It's going to be hard.

It's going to be very, very, very hard to try to convince enough people, But I think it can be done.

You have been listening to our panelists here on reparations.

I'm going to have to say this.

If you tells people you're going to do a program about reparations and ask people, would you be on a panel, they run for the hills.

Everybody's got an opinion about reparations.

Very few people are willing to put themselves on a stage or appear on television to tell you their viewpoint.

I want to commend this group of five for saying, yes, let's make it happen.

I might have reservations, but I think it's important and this is one of the few places you can have an ideologically diverse group of people talking about this issue.

Thank you for caring about this from our sponsors and from the American Public Square and the great people here at the University Academy at 68th and Holmes I'm the Cains of Kansas City PBS.

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