From the minds who brought you “Let us Play – An Only Slightly Racist Facebook Group That Started Out Supporting Kids Sports Then Shifted Into Trying To Oust Kansas City’s Black Mayor” and the producers of “Ivermectin: Why Not?” comes the latest chapter in Walmart aisle temper tantrum. According to a new poll of Kansas City, Northland residents indicate that as many as 41% support seceding from Kansas City in some way.
The poll, according to KMBC-TV, was filled with slanted questions that assume every resident of the Northland already considers themselves second class citizens in the eyes of City Hall. One question started “Given that City Hall provides the Northland no support….” yet, two in five residents supporting taking their football and going home is a pretty surprising number.
The Northland, a predominantly Caucasian section of Kansas City, seems to think they’re being singled out by the appropriation of resources or picked on because of COVID restrictions or any selection from a laundry list of gripes and gear grinders. The City of Kansas City has problems to be sure, high crime in the inner city, a growing homeless problem, and infrastructure as evidenced by the broken water main in my neighbor’s yard last month where the crew said the infrastructure in some parts of the city is over 100 years old. But those problems cover the entire city pretty equally. Northlanders have always, for some reason, felt entitled to complain just a little louder or pout just a little longer than someone living in Brookside or off of Truman Road.
When you look at the demographics of how the five major counties voted in the last presidential election, it’s pretty obvious why the cries of “we’re getting screwed” sound a little louder. And yet, that pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps mentality seems to conveniently fall to the wayside when you have to wait an extra day or two for snow removal or someone asks you to wear a mask inside the Hy-Vee.
So let’s all just make a new city, eh? We’ll call it Northiest Kansas City. Sure, we won’t have that pesky 1% earnings tax and why would we need it? Surely the Facebook warriors can do a better job than a city who has things like a water department and a police department. We’ve got Twitter!
The whole idea is, obviously, comical. I’m frankly tired of hearing from the same people crying abuse about COVID and masks and taxes and gas prices and potholes. If half the energy these folks pour into making poorly spelled signs on Barry Road and rambling posts on Twitter were put into working on committees or running for school board or city council, then I’d have a little more patience. But ever since “their” guy lost last year, the cries ring hollow. The take-your-football and-go-home mentality seems pretty odd–especially since you can’t play football with yourself.
Continue to write your nutty chapters. Write them in the Letters section. Write them on Facebook. Write them on your signs. I, a citizen of Kansas City, Missouri and also of the “Northland,” will continue to try to work to better the region for everyone – instead of just those in my secluded little cul-de-sac. Can’t wait for the rest of your book.
(You can find Chris Kamler on Twitter and now on TikTok as @TheFakeNed)