Kansas governor takes occasion of Kwanzaa celebration to decry racism
"Racism and prejudice have no place in Kansas," Governor Laura Kelly told community members gathered on the second day of Kwanzaa.
When Kansas Governor Laura Kelly hosted community members for a Kwanzaa celebration this week, she left them with a strong, unequivocal message about the wrongs of racism.
“I want to be clear that racism and prejudice have no place in Kansas,” Kelly said Wednesday in remarks reported by the Topeka Capital-Journal. “As governor, I will continue to call out and condemn racism, prejudice and any behavior or rhetoric that aims to discriminate and divide whenever and wherever I see it.”
The Democratic governor made her remarks at the Kansas Statehouse in Topeka, the fifth time the state has hosted a Kwanzaa celebration, the Capital-Journal reported.
Her anti-racism stance comes as Kansas has found itself embroiled in several high-profile incidents.
In August, Highland Community College said it would address campus racism after the Justice Department investigated complaints of Black students who alleged harassment by campus police and unfair treatment by school coaches, according to KCUR.
Republicans have rejected systematic racism, railed against critical race theory and advanced stereotypes, the Kansas Reflector reported, noting Adam Peters, GOP chairman for Ellis County, said at one meeting that “Black suspects are disproportionately killed by the police (because) they disproportionately tried to kill the police.”
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In November, students at a Kansas school — Shawnee Mission East High School in Prairie Village — walked out in protest after a white sophomore who shouted racial slurs punched a Black female schoolmate and broke her nose.
But at the Kwanzaa celebration at the statehouse, those in attendance — guests that included Kansas ministers, advocates and leaders — focused on togetherness.
Noted the Rev. Karla Cooper, a featured speaker, the Capital-Journal reported: “We have allowed the social constructs of race and gender, denominationalism, religiosity, social class, partisan politics, geopolitical domination to keep building up barriers that block us from living out in unity.”
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