La Raza Pulls 2009 Convention from Kansas City

After some time of threats, hand-wringing, a vote, and the passage of a final deadline, the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic civil rights organization, pulled its 2009 convention out of Kansas City on Friday. The move is reportedly directly due to the fact that one Kansas City Parks & Recreation board member, 73-year-old Frances Semler, is also a member of the Minuteman project, a group who has in the past taken up arms to guard the Mexican border against illegal immigration.

The convention would have brought thousands of people to the city, and would have reportedly brought $5,000,000 to the local economy here. The NAACP is also reportedly now threatening to follow suit and relocate their upcoming 2010 conference. The organization delivered the deadline to Mayor Mark Funkhouser last month: she must either have stepped down from the parks board, or from the Minutemen. The mayor, however, did not move from his initial position that Ms. Semler had every right to be part of both organizations, although it was important to him to keep the convention in Kansas City.

I’ve done a fair amount of reading on Ms. Semler and this debacle, and have found no evidence that she has committed any illegal acts, nor have I run across any evidence that the Minutemen do. From what I understand, all positions on the board are appointed by Mayor Funkhouser and are not publicly elected positions. Does it matter that she is a member of the Minutemen if she does her job effectively as a commissioner on the parks board?

Immigration is an issue which exists between countries, not between races of people. The Minutemen advocate against illegal immigration, which amounts to upholding a set of United States federal laws. I’m sure some of them have extreme views, but haven’t we seen this in other venues as well?

Allow me to make it clear that I do not believe Ms. Semler to be a racist. I count two other black men serving on the board along with her… if race was an issue for her, don’t you think it would have manifested itself somehow before now? Simply for the sake of argument, let’s say we pulled her out of this situation and replaced her with the most pernicious racist you could think of. Is it not the spirit of American law that everyone gets a voice, and that all who are represented in the populace should be equally represented within the government? We have Christian lobbies, Muslim lobbies, and even Communist ones. I read once that the foremost paradox of the Freedom of Speech is that even those who would crush it are protected by it.

Since there are extreme Christians here in the KC metro area who view psychics as heretics (and I’ll bet we can find at least one in the ranks of municipal civil service), should the Psychical Research Society of Kansas City pull the Fall Psychic Fair from now on and move it somewhere else? The only difference here is that the NCLR had leverage, to the tune of dollar signs in the seven-digit range. There are relatively few psychics who achieve such notoriety and wealth.

Don’t get the impression here that this a race issue: this was about the NCLR throwing around its weight to achieve what it perceives to be a moral right. I cherish Ms. Semler in this city’s government and thank her for her service to this city, even if I may not agree with her every view. I also wish to convey a huge congratulations and thank you to Mayor Funkhouser (for what it’s worth) for standing up to intimidation against mounting criticism, and for not buckling under the crushing weight of the almighty dollar.

~ by kcweirdo on 2007.10.23.