testing assumptions

Kansas City

The School of Humanities and Social Sciences at UMKC closed out our formal visit yesterday with a small luncheon for a number of folks. Hosted by Dean Tamara Falikov and orchestrated by Karen English, it was an intimate celebration of our last couple of days here, discussing China or strategy or the world.

Kansas City, as you likely don’t know, has an abiding interest in China among other reasons because the Edgar Snow was born here in 1905. On one of my initial trips into the library as an undergraduate, I saw an autographed copy of Red Star over China which recounted his experiences with Mao in the 1930s where Snow reported. I doubt he ever returned here often once he became an international reporter, Snow was part of that local journalist group over the years that included Walter Chronkite from nearby St. Joseph, Missouri. This area may be interior America but many of its children found their way around the world.

I sat, literally and figuratively, during lunch between the past and the future which was most rewarding. Kent Sellers and I began at UMKC, as I noted yesterday, fifty years ago. He went on to a terrific career with one of Kansas City’s major law firms, following a few years in public service on some higher profile local cases. He and his amazing wife Angie are now significantly closer to retirement so they can enjoy a beautiful addition to the family. I have watched their three kids earn doctorates and law degrees, thriving so completely as bilingual kids from their earliest years in school. Kent and Angie’s insight that enrolling their kids in a bilingual immersion program would set their kids up for amazing successes was fairly unknown thirty years ago but essential today. Reflecting on this family over the past couple of days reminds me of the anger I develop when I hear people dismiss Kansas City and related areas as ‘flyover’ country as if locals aren’t every bit as smart as our bi-coastals.

On the other side of me was the future, Nuria. She is graduating from UMKC this spring, hoping to go into the Foreign Service. Bilingual as well, she was poised and inquisitive. The three of us elders provided some observations about steps to offer better chance of the future she desires but aware that advice is too simplistic a term; this generation makes its own choices (good, bad, and indifferent). Nuria was respectful but definitely not sychophantic. She absorbed our thoughts, considered them, then asked further questions. It was rewarding to hear her insights as a Mexican-American woman on the precipice of so many new adventures. UMKC, this urban university, prepared her well for entering that world. It will, of course, be up to her and kismet to see where she actually goes.

We made this Kansas City visit, the last in a seemingly endless travel schedule recently, to do the lectures for UMKC and the International Relations Council of Kansas City. But, I also always want to check on my mentor whose support has been invaluable over decades. She shone yesterday as she continues lighting the way for so many in the Kansas City area. She was particularly keen to look around the room where we dined because her field was Turkish history which this room highlighted. It included a collection of Persian volumes gathered over decades of the professor of medicine at UMKC, E. Grey Diamond, who pioneered the six year medical program at the school.

Catching up with the city was a bit more disappointing. Kansas City is experiencing terrific improvements from the Biden infrastructure money as every street seems under construction, somewhat infuriatingly at times. But the Country Club Plaza, the jewel of the city, seems quite depressed. I don’t think I have ever seen the combined number of empty stores that I encountered in two and a half days. The streets lack that tempo so long characterising this oldest of shopping centers in the nation. At least the barbeque was satisfactory in our two separate restaurant visits as my husband comes at least 75% of the time for that Kansas City specialty (or so I suspect….). My assumption that the pandemic damage was over was clearly wrong.

I also managed to miss my dear friend who supported me through thick and thin in our time at the General Accounting Office, then remotely as I slogged through graduate school. She provided the old Ford we used to move a not-nearly-secured-enough mattress on the roof from one side of town to the other in 1977. She never departed the area but built both a rich career in IT before it was a big deal and a strong family that now resides here. Turns out all this traveling meant I was too busy to clarify her last inquiry about our travel schedule. Imagine how disappointing to realise my error. Note to self: make sure you have responded to things rather than assuming you did. I am glad she is spending time with her grandson but am sorry I missed seeing them all.

Yet again, assumptions matter in strategy, in decision-making, and in visiting places you have been countless times in life. It behooves us to reexamine things rather than think we know already what we will see.

I also offer that reexamining our assumptions might help us get along far more effectively as a nation, a sorely challenging task these days. As Joyce White Vance concludes her substack column daily, we are in this together. I, for one, am going to try to remember that as I validate or invalidate, as the evidence provides, my assumptions about my fellow ‘mericuns as LBJ called us. How about you?

Rebuttals? Thoughts? Suggestions? Have you ever been to Kansas City or Omaha or Little Rock? Was it what you expected? Why or not?

Thank you for reading ACC today. I especially thank those of you who contribute financially to this column as you have my deepest appreciation. The first photo below looks east along a major street through the Plaza while the second is one of the countless statues in this town.

Be well and be safe. FIN