Kansas City School Board Candidate Challenges Star Report

Not so long ago the Kansas City Star determined the course of most municipal elections by exercising a print monopoly over voters with few places to turn for differing perspectives.

Now, in the age of social media . . . Reporting from the newspaper is less important but bias and politicization persist. 

Accordingly . . .

Here at TKC we continue to do our best to serve as an ALTERNATIVE news outlet so that locals can gain a broader understanding of our community outside the mainstream and even beyond social app chatter. 

Accordingly . . . 

This note was recently sent our way and it merits attention because the author is a veteran, a dedicated volunteer and seems to have his heart in the right place. 

Here's the word for Sunday so that readers can judge for themselves . . .

From the Inside Out: Why I’m Running to Reform a Broken System By Joe Nelson

My story is about more than what happened to me. It’s about what’s happening to thousands of Black and brown young people in Kansas City—students who are funneled from classrooms to courtrooms by a system that criminalizes poverty and weaponizes authority. This is the school-to-prison pipeline, and I know it well because I lived it. And now I’m running to end it.

For too many in our city, one mistake or false accusation becomes a life sentence—not in prison, but in opportunity denied. I was falsely accused and railroaded by senior officers who saw me as expendable. My innocence was ignored because protecting the system was more important than protecting the truth. But I fought back. I cleared my name. And I learned just how deeply broken the system really is.

Despite what The Star might suggest, the facts are simple: I was exonerated. I followed the law. And I never gave up on my community. But this paper, which has acknowledged its own history of racism and bias, chose to frame me in the same tired and harmful ways it has framed Black men for decades. In 2020, The Star apologized for “failing to serve the Black community” and reinforcing segregation in its coverage. And yet here we are again—an old institution falling back into old habits.

We deserve better. We deserve a justice system that holds everyone accountable, including those in power. We deserve a second chance policy that actually gives people second chances—not a bureaucratic expungement process that leaves people permanently stuck. And we deserve leadership that’s grounded in lived experience, not political convenience.

I’m not running despite my story—I’m running because of it. Because I know what it means to be counted out, locked out, and lied about. And I know we can build something better.

Kansas City doesn’t need more politicians who’ve read about injustice in a policy memo. It needs people who’ve felt it firsthand and are ready to fight like hell to fix it. That’s what I’m offering. And I’m not going anywhere.
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