Battle for equality: School board cancels Black history courses, ignites outrage | Opinion

Snuck it in

My daughter Isabella has been trying to make a change since the school board announced the cancellation of the Black history and literature courses at Francis Howell Central High School in the St. Louis area last month. As a parent of biracial children, I think it’s important they feel well adjusted and treated as equals, especially as students who’ve attended a school that consistently boasts awards of excellence.

The sneaky way board members slipped in that ballot and voted at the last second, without the knowledge of the school administration, says a lot about how they feel and how others would feel about their embarrassing and distinctly racist and backward views regarding equality.

This has been a fight since the birth of America, and it shames and embarrasses me that in 2024 we are still fighting a gross underbelly of indecent humans. I was wondering if you would be interested in helping us spotlight this issue and prove that there are good people who want to fight for equality don’t want to be represented by people who refuse to evolve.

Would you help us expose the rot threatening the effort to keep things equal for all students? Isabella would like to create as much awareness as possible.

- Polly Duncan, St. Peters, Missouri

Editor’s note: The school board president has said the courses would return, but under a “politically neutral” standard. Students held a walkout Jan. 18 to protest alterations to the curriculum.

Yes, we’ll watch

The record viewership of 23 million who watched the Chiefs-Dolphins playoff game on Peacock — far surpassing the nearly 9.2 million for Game 1 of the 2023 World Series on linear TV — has settled a long-debated point: Sports fans will tune in to streaming. (Jan. 16, 1B, “Chiefs-Dolphins playoff game set streaming audience record”)

My family already watches “Thursday Night Football” on Amazon Prime. This data could have saved the Pacific-12 Conference if Apple TV+ had the foresight to double its offer.

Of course, the product must be there, and the Chiefs (and the Patrick Mahomes-Travis Kelce matchup with Tua Tagovailoa) delivered.

- Adam Silbert, New York, New York

Do right, Jawaan

Chiefs fans are lucky to have a great and fun team to root for. I hope they go all the way, again.

But hey, Jawaan Taylor: Please get your game mind in the right place and keep it there. It seems like you let it drift too much. Even Travis Kelce has been making mind-drift mistakes this season. You can’t run with the ball ‘til you catch it. That’s unheard of in him, but we’re all human.

I just hope you’ll all use your fine human talents to play right.

- Jonny Haydn, Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Don’t panic

Kansas U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner’s Jan. 8 guest commentary, “Biden must not let the CCP steal Kansas’ secrets,” (7A) reminded me of Chicken Little’s shout when hit by a falling acorn: “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” Both have about the same level of validity.

- Leo M. Schell, Manhattan, Kansas

Trump’s results

Donald Trump is, by his rhetoric and behavior, encouraging hatred and distrust of Jewish people. Isn’t his son-in-law Jewish? Donald Trump is, by his rhetoric and behavior, encouraging hatred and distrust of immigrants. Aren’t his wife and in-laws immigrants?

It’s a conundrum.

- Shirley Lewis, Overland Park

No trickle

Tyler Cowen’s assertion the U.S. government is increasingly redistributing wealth to the bottom is like declaring a forest flows from a single tree. (Jan. 10, 9A, “America spreads the wealth — and redistributes it, too”) Factually, the entire U.S. tax-and-transfer system historically reveals that America’s resources and wealth are vastly more redistributed to the wealthy.

Federal revenue comes from taxes on individuals, businesses, goods and services, estates and elsewhere. Federal agencies collect revenue from leases, sales of resources, usage, license fees, tariffs on imports and more. Since the days of President Dwight Eisenhower, income taxpayers have come to shoulder more of our tax burden, while corporations and the wealthy are sheltered.

During the Eisenhower presidency, the top tier for corporate taxes was at least 50% and provided about 30% of federal revenue (now reduced to 7%). Eisenhower believed that taxing corporations would incentivize them to invest in their workers and expand their operations. The top tier for individual federal income taxes then was at least 90%, and the estate tax generated considerably more revenue than it does now.

With wealth comes power. The wealthy hire lobbyists promoting tax policies benefiting the wealthy. The New York Times quoted Warren Buffett in 2006: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

- Angela Schieferecke, Prairie Village

Debt realities

Claudia Sahm’s Jan. 17 commentary on the national debt makes some good points, but she only skims the surface. (10A, “US debt is now $34 trillion, but don’t worry. Seriously”)

The level of the debt must be kept in perspective, but the most important points she omits are the ratio of debt to the nation’s gross domestic product and the trajectory of the ratio. The debt stands at 126.4% of gross domestic product. The reported deficit for 2023 was $1.7 trillion, but more accurately it was $2 trillion since revenue was inflated due to an accounting adjustment related to student loan forgiveness. In every year this century, debt growth has exceeded GDP growth. Former Federal Reserve chairs and many other economists have warned that this trend cannot continue indefinitely. The longer it goes, the harder it will be to reverse.

Sahm is correct that the U.S. has the capacity to deal with the problem. But we must start using that capacity, including the power to tax. In 2019, the last year before the pandemic, Donald Trump’s tax cuts resulted in income tax revenue as a percent of GDP declining more than 20% below the level in 2000. The problem is not just “runaway spending.”

If you are curious how I was able to respond to the article on the national debt so quickly and in such detail, I am in the process of completing a book about the debt ratio trajectory, which I plan to publish this spring.

- Howard Mick, Prairie Village

Greater good

While we expect our police to enforce laws, we also expect them to use good judgment. Engaging in high-speed chases that can result in the injury and death of innocent bystanders is not using good judgment.

There are many other ways to apprehend these criminals. They might take longer but are safer for the rest of us, and safer for the officers.

- Bob Stothart, Kansas City, Kansas