So that there’s no confusion, Kansas Day is actually next week–January 29th, to be exact.
But I have a full week of posts about inequality scheduled for next week and, besides, Kansas deserves a whole birthday week, right?
I just finished reading For the Common Good (review coming before too long, once I get some other posts cleared out), and there’s a part in the very beginning that made it clear that this isn’t just a book about leadership.
It’s a book about leadership in Kansas, written by Kansans.
Because it’s different.
Those who aren’t from our state (and, I must admit, probably even some who are) are certainly forgiven for not knowing, but Kansas is sort of a big deal.
Historically, unlike Iowa, the Dakotas, Illinois, Indiana, and other states founded based on geography, “Kansas was founded for a cause: freedom” (p. 8). When Congress passed the Kansas and Nebraska Act in 1854, the choice between being a free state or a slave state was left to the residents of those territories. Abolitionists came from the Northeast and elsewhere to flood the Kansas Territory and influence it to enter as a free state. “Their success helped put Kansas on the right side of history.”
And, in my house and among many of my colleagues and friends, we take that very, very seriously.
Several of the proponents of our instate tuition legislation for immigrant youth referenced our anti-slavery background in their floor speeches; to them, standing up for equality now is more than just the right thing to do.
It’s our birthright as Kansans.
It’s who we are as a people, every bit as much as the sunflowers.
American historian Carl Becker described it in the way that my family still sees it, “The origin of Kansas must ever be associated with the struggle against slavery. Of this fact Kansans are well aware…It is a state with a past.” (cited p. 8, For the Common Good)
My oldest son and I spent a day at the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of Quantrill’s raid on Lawrence this summer.
When we stop at Civil War cemeteries (which, yes, happens with some regularity around here), one of the boys usually wants to know if “someone made them fight for the confederacy”.
They just can’t contemplate willingly putting your life on the line for something so wrong.
I’m not naive about the state of Kansas politics today, and how far less than noble are many of our aspirations in 2014.
And I’m not even ignoring the injustices perpetrated in the name of ‘freedom’ then.
We were the Brown v. Board of Education state, after all; we certainly have known our share of racial and social injustice.
I don’t try to encourage my son’s animosity toward the University of Missouri; he comes by that all on his own.
But, I do think that keeping alive a sense of where we came from and why it matters is important, not just for a sort of ‘pride of place’, but also because it is the right side of history, and I want my children to know very clearly that there is always–always—a choice to stand there.
As one of my Facebook friends said at the time of the Quantrill commemoration, “the massacre of innocent civilians by Quantrill and his rebels, just because they stood for freedom and justice, is nothing that needs to be gotten over anytime soon.”
So we celebrate Kansas Day, and celebrate Kansas.
Ad astra per aspera–to the stars through difficulty–is a reminder of where we have been, and an exhortation about where we must go.
We should not be applauding
Last week, I attended the keynote breakfast at the Midwest Conference on Philanthropy.
Eleanor Clift and our local political reporter, Steve Kraske, were the keynote speakers, and the topic was one that would lure me at any hour: the impact of the 2012 elections on the nonprofit sector.
I’ll get to the insights that I gleaned from the actual presentation in some future posts.
But the title of this one?
It refers to the introduction, which, honestly, is the part that has been stuck with me for the past week.
The nonprofit executive and committee member for the conference who had the job of introducing Kraske and Clift started his remarks with this statement: “Republican or Democrat, we all agree on one thing: we can’t wait for this election to be over!”
And about 2/3 of the room applauded.
And I was appalled.
I mean, I know that I’m in the minority, in terms of my fascination with politics. And, of course, I don’t watch television, which means that I am mostly protected from the attack ads on TV. I get the mailers, sure, and a few phone calls (how I LOVE political polls!), but I mostly opt-in to political debate and discussion, rather than having it land in my living room.
But, really. This was a room of nonprofit executives. Collectively, our ability to achieve our missions, and even our very existence, depends to a large extent on the tenor of social policies. And those policies are absolutely influenced by the outcome of elections, these elections.
So, what you’re saying, with your catcalls in response, is that you can’t wait to get back to your regular business, uninterrupted by something as apparently trivial as the future of our professions, our industry, and our nation.
We cannot afford to leave this election to a political vacuum. We have to be there. Not reluctantly, with our eyes half-averted.
Full on.
I’ll save my applause for election night. I’ll celebrate democracies that work, those who have poured their hearts into the business of winning the public’s, and, I hope, those courageous and visionary candidates with whom we’ll now get to work as elected officials.
I won’t be clapping just because it’s over.
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Posted in Analysis and Commentary
Tagged elections, nonprofit organizations, politics