The Worst Aspect of Racial Segregation

Vital Conversations is a monthly discussion group that meets in the Northland of Kansas City. June and I have been regular members of that group for more than twelve years now, and we have enjoyed many profitable discussions there.

Some of My Best Friends are Black

At the March 13 Vital Conversations meeting, the 25 or so who attended discussed Tanner Colby’s book Some of My Best Friends are Black: The Strange Story of Integration in America (2012).  

The meeting was a very helpful one, especially since there were four African-Americans present—including the venerable Alvin Brooks (b. 1932), a civil rights leader who is a former police officer and former city councilman of Kansas City.

The second part of Colby’s book is about racial segregation in housing—and in getting loans for purchasing a home. The situation in Kansas City is a prime example of segregation having been actively enforced by housing planning—and restrictions.

In particular, Colby writes about J.C. Nichols, whom Colby (no doubt rightfully) calls “the most influential real estate developer” in the U.S. during the first half of the twentieth century. Colby adds, “One could make the argument that he still holds that title today, despite being dead for sixty years.” (p. 82).

(Specifically, Nichols died in February 1950, several months before his 70th birthday.)

Nichols was the developer of Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza, regarded as the nation’s first shopping center. After his death, he was memorialized with the impressive J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain, just east of the Plaza, and the nearby street renamed the J.C. Nichols Parkway in 1952.

The King of Kings County

In addition to the County Club district and Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri, a lasting legacy of J.C. Nichols is the development of Johnson County, Kansas, whose eastern border is just a mile west of the Plaza.

That story, which is told to some extent in Colby’s book, is the theme of the novel The King of Kings County (2005) by Whitney Terrell, a nephew by marriage to J.C. Nichols’ son Miller.

As Colby writes, the novel “tells the story of Kansas City’s blockbusting and suburbanization in a way that only a novel can: fictionalized, but brutally truthful” (p. 291).

(In the book, Nichols is called Bowen, the Plaza is Campanile, and Johnson County is Kings County, but for those who know the history of Kansas City, the identification is obvious.)

“Troost Avenue”

Adam Hamilton is the best-known Christian pastor in Johnson County, Kansas. He is pastor of the 20,000-member Church of the Resurrection, said to be the largest United Methodist Church in the U.S.

“Troost Avenue” is the title of the fifth chapter of Hamilton’s 2018 book Unafraid: Living with Courage and Hope in Uncertain Times.

As also explained in the books mentioned above, Hamilton writes, “The street in Kansas City that serves as the dividing line between predominantly white and black communities is Troost Avenue” (p. 57).

As some blacks sought to move west, Nichols and Bob Wood, an unscrupulous realtor, found ways to profit greatly by the development of Johnson County. They developed “restrictive covenants” that prevented African Americans from buying homes in many of the new, and white, communities.

Black homeowners and communities were also greatly disadvantaged by redlining and other means that meant financial loss.

I used to think that racial segregation was bad because of the deprivation resulting from being separate—and certainly repressive restrictions and lack of freedom are major problems.

But I have come to see that maybe the worst aspect of segregation has been the financial inequity entwined with forced separation.

Perhaps now the major goal is not integration (or equality) but rather thoroughgoing equity.

Combatting Islamophobia

Back in May 2013 I wrote about Islamophobia (see this link) and mentioned it again in October 2014 (here). But fear of Muslims, which is basically what Islamophobia is, seems to be stronger now—especially since the San Bernardino shootings—than it was two or three years ago.

It goes without saying that there are radical terrorists in the world. ISIS (ISIL) is a real and ongoing threat to peace and safety in the Near East as well as in the Western world. The extremist activity of some groups or individuals who self-identify as Muslims cannot be denied and should not be ignored.

At the same time, the lumping of all Muslims together and harboring suspicion against, or promoting rejection of, all Muslims because of the terrorist activities of some who say they are Muslims is grossly unfair.

This month the group which meets under the name Vital Conversations discussed the book Radical: My Journey out of Islamist Extremism (2013). The author, Maajid Nawaz (b. 1978), is an ethnic Pakistani born in England. As a teenager he was radicalized, and then a few years later he rejected the Islamism that he had embraced.

Nawaz became the co-founder of, and continues as the leader of, Quilliam, a think tank based in London that seeks to combat Islamism and its extremist activities. (To understand the distinction between Islam and Islamism is crucial.)

In 2011 Nawaz gave a TED talk in Edinburgh with the title “A Global Culture to Fight Extremism.” He is an admirable example of a Muslim fighting valiantly against radical Islamism.

Ahmed el-Sharif was our guest at the January Vital Conversations meeting. Ahmed was born in Sinai and came to the United States in 1979. He is a chemist, and became an American citizen in 1985.

Ahmed is also the founder of the American Muslim Council of Greater Kansas City. There is no question about him being a devout Muslim. But for those who have met him and heard him talk, there is no question about him being a peace-loving, sweet-spirited man.

This evening (Jan. 25) Central Baptist Theological Seminary here in the Kansas City area will be holding its Spring Convocation. Following that, at 7 p.m. veteran professor Richard Olson will lead a discussion of Todd H. Green’s book The Fear of Islam: An Introduction to Islamophobia in the West (2015). 

Green, who is a professor of religion at Luther College in Iowa, has written a very helpful, easy-to-read but scholarly book that I found well worth reading.

To pick up on just one point, Green explains that just referring to “Islamic terrorists” encourages Islamophobia. That is the main reason President Obama has generally not used that term.

Even back in 2008 Rudolph Giuliani’s criticized the Democratic National Convention for not using those words, and the President has been repeatedly castigated for not using that label.

For example, about a year ago CNN reported that Sen. Lindsey Graham had said, “We are in a religious war with radical Islamists. When I hear the President of the United States and his chief spokesperson failing to admit that we’re in a religious war, it really bothers me.”

Last month Donald Trump called for barring all Muslims from entering the United States (at least temporarily). Then early this month, in his first television ad of the presidential election campaign, Trump reiterated his call for a ban on Muslim entry to the U.S.

Trump’s statement about Muslims is clearly an expression of, as well as encouragement of, Islamophobia. And sadly, his strident voice is just one among many.