Johnson County commission Chairman Mike Kelly has proposed a new advisory board on diversity as a way to include the county’s increasingly diverse population in local governance.
Kelly announced the idea at the end of a recent commission meeting at which commissioners went back and forth in a sometimes-tense discussion about race and equity that included references to the shooting of Kansas City teenager Ralph Yarl, the availability of “pronoun pins” for county employees and whether the term “colorblind” is culturally insensitive.
In the end, Kelly said it’s important to maintain a welcoming and inclusive county willing to stand up for all.
“It’s clear that we all have more learning to do. It can’t just be the same people talking,” he said as he announced the idea.
Later, he told the Post he wants a variety of voices to identify things the county could improve. He said he expects the idea to be on the commission’s agenda in May.
Two commissioners object during DEI discussion
The commission has struggled with its stance on diversity, equity and inclusion – commonly abbreviated to DEI – for the past couple of weeks as it met in committee sessions to compose its priority list for the coming year.
The list, which was approved April 20, encouraged diversity, equity and inclusion under the broader priority of “health and safety.”
The idea drew objections from Commissioners Charlotte O’Hara and Michael Ashcraft during a committee discussion the previous week.
O’Hara said a more appropriate interpretation of DEI would be “division, exclusion and inequality,” and called it a “fairy tale that is not happening on the ground.”
Ashcraft also questioned the wording of the priority.
“What gives me greatest pause is the phrase ‘diversity, equity and inclusion,’” he said. “I’m wondering if we couldn’t focus more on the outcomes intended along the lines of equality, merit and colorblindness,” he said, and offered that as an amendment.
A back-and-forth about ‘colorblindness’
That drew opposition from Kelly, who said some politicians have not argued in good faith about what DEI means, particularly equality versus equity.
Equality generally means people all receive the same resources, while equity focuses on adjusting resources to encourage a better outcome for those who have been disadvantaged.
County Manager Penny Postoak Ferguson added that words like “colorblindness” have unintended consequences.
She pointed out that as a person of color (she is a member of the Choctaw Tribe of Oklahoma), the word doesn’t sit well.
“It’s hurtful, to be honest,” she said, but emphasized she didn’t think Ashcraft meant it that way.
Ashcraft said he did offer his comment in good faith and meant only that, “we should be judging on merit rather than getting tied up in these tropes.”
“The intent was trying to move us away from those frameworks that antagonize people,” he said.
He later said he did not mean to be hurtful by using “colorblind” as a descriptor.
“I did not intend to imply we should be culturally blind because people have distinct and rich cultures that should be celebrated,” he said.
Kelly also later said he’d not intended to aim his remarks about bad faith at Ashcraft personally.
Yarl shooting, pronoun pins also touched upon
The list of priorities eventually passed 5-2 at the April 20 meeting, with O’Hara and Ashcraft voting “no.”
But as that meeting wound down, the earlier discussion was clearly still on a few minds.
O’Hara mentioned the votes against amendments to the priorities that she and Ashcraft supported.
“That doesn’t sound very inclusive,” she said.
She added that she wants an agenda item about pronoun pins the county is offering to employees. The lapel pins display which pronouns they’d prefer and their use is voluntary.
Commissioner Janeé Hanzlick then brought up the recent shooting of Ralph Yarl, a Black teenager who was shot multiple times after mistakenly going to the wrong address in north Kansas City, Mo., looking to pick up his twin brothers.
The 84-year-old white man who lives at the home has been charged with allegedly shooting Yarl after he rang the doorbell.
“This situation shows to me that we absolutely need to have conversations about the perception of race,” she said, calling it a “cop-out” and “insulting” to claim to be colorblind.
“We need to see color. We need to see Black and brown people have a very different experience in our community,” she said.
Commissioner Shirley Allenbrand added that people are discriminated against for all kinds of reasons, including weight, religion and “looking different.”
“All kinds of people are feeling discriminated against and it’s about all those things. I’m proud of our county for standing up and making sure our staff and county can wear and do what they want,” she said.
Roxie Hammill is a freelance journalist who reports frequently for the Post and other Kansas City area publications. You can reach her at roxieham@gmail.com.
