Jackie Robinson statue theft? We’ve got bigger issues in Wichita’s Black community | Commentary
The cruel theft and senseless destruction of the Jackie Robinson statue from a public park in our city’s predominantly Black neighborhood is bigger than a criminal act or even a potential hate crime that generates national news.
It’s bigger too, than the well-intentioned youth baseball league for which the statue was crafted.
It offers all of us a new opportunity to revisit the larger community discussion about representation, about the distribution of resources to Wichita communities, and who gets to make those decisions.
We’ve gotten representation from Brandon Johnson, from Lavonta Williams, from the late Carl Brewer and a host of others, but watching this incident and the coverage afterwards left me feeling like those of us in central northeast Wichita deserve more.
It might surprise you that more than a few of us who live near McAdams Park really aren’t heartbroken about the theft and destruction of the statue.
We had very little to do with it or the youth baseball league.
No one is celebrating, but we aren’t crying, either.
Just a few years ago, many of us showed up at City Council meetings to advocate for the McAdams swimming pool, a historic landmark designed by the great Charles McAfee, and the council members treated us like we had tails.
It was almost as though council members felt we worked for them.
Then we watched that council, and others that followed, roll out the red carpet for League 42, an idea birthed outside our community, and watched the city and the council lavish the league with resources Black residents could only dream about.
The flood of news coverage has been interesting, too.
We don’t see this kind of coverage when actual Black men are killed. We need diversity in news media management, not just in government.
Because once again, residents of central Northeast Wichita have to play the background in a story we didn’t create, in a city that doesn’t appreciate or respect us, over a league and statue we didn’t ask for.
Northeast Wichita needs stronger representation in every facet of life here.
The fact that we don’t have it now, and it took this theft to elevate this issue once again, is the real crime.
It’s the story no one wants to write or broadcast, and it’s the discussion Wichita’s political machine avoids in favor of its own interests.
LaWanda DeShazer is a community advocate for residents of the historically Black community in central northeast Wichita.
