The Fed

Gotta Love Kansas

Another Take on the School Board Evolution Debate

Jacqueline Hidalgo

As a Kansan, I feel it my duty and my right to discuss the topic that comes up any time anyone mentions the state of Kansas these days. I used to lament the Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz Jokes, but Kansas has finally done something to make people stand up and take more notice of my home state. For those of you who have been out of the country or otherwise lost to our brilliant national media, then you should know that the Kansas Board of Education passed a resolution that individual school boards across the state can decided whether or not to test students on the theory of evolution.
    As a Midwestern who has spent three years on the East Coast, I have noticed a disturbing trend from certain Easterners who like to think they are better than the rest of the world. Some of you also like to believe that you can easily write off all the evil maniacal fanatics as coming from "the place" in the middle of the country that you have no understanding of. Of course there are no crazies or crazy conservatives in New York City.
    Last year, a friend of mine wrote an article for this paper about the gross stereotypes and misconceptions Columbia students have about the middle section of this country. I guess you want to believe that somewhere stupid people are bred. It would be easier than admitting muses and members of the religious right can come from the same place that you are from and have the same advantages you enjoy. You need to realize that our whole society has problems that will not be solved merely by leveling accusations at a part of the country you have no familiarity with.
    I admit to you that I came to school in New York to get away from the Midwest. I had my own issues, and I wanted to see a different way o life. I am from the Kansas City area, and while it is not the thriving metropolis of dirt and overpopulation that New York City is, I do not know most of the people whose path I cross walking down a typical street in the day (in plainer terms, it is an actual city). I believed that the real contrast was not East Coast v. Midwest but more urban v. rural. I think that the diversity of city life provides more of an opportunity for education, but some of the people I met in New York are ignorant and narrow-minded people.
    I am not familiar with an of the members of the Kansas Board of Education, and I do not know what brand of crack they were smoking when they made their crazy decision. When I first heard it, I officially disowned my home state as a lost cause I was tired of defending. From now on, I would claim the state I lived in until I was 12, Colorado, as home.
    However, I then watched as the national media (namely the New York Times and its set of mindless followers) blew the already stupid decision so out of proportion that it could now be seen from outer space. I decided that finally I had some concrete proof that 1) the New York Times is not the quality news source it claims and 2) the kind of bigotry prevalent in the East Coast against the Midwest had reached a point of utter ridiculosity. The decision does not require the teaching of Creationism in the place of evolution. The Kansas Board of Education made a decision to allow individual school boards to decide whether students should be tested on evolution; however, they did say that an understanding of evolution should be conveyed in Kansas's public schools.
    While it is a small victory for the Religious Right of my home state, it is not a rampaging decision that bans evolution from the curriculum. I am very concerned about the children in the small school districts run by evangelical factions, but I am not concerned about whether evolution will continue to be taught in the school districts of my hometown or even at the private high school I attended. Not all Kansans are crazy. While the Midwest has produced some fin examples of the conservatism of this country that I generally fear, I have also been quite impressed by many more liberal groups there as well. For those of you who doubt that such intelligent liberal groups exist, I challenge you to read up on your history. Or even, at the very least, go to the GLAAD website, www.glaad.org. GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation began in New York 1985, and along with other national centers, merged with the already politically center that is the Kansas City office in 1997. I challenge you that the Midwest is not an intellectual or cultural wasteland, as even I believed many years ago.
    In addition, I challenge you to look better at yourselves. There are plenty of conservatives thriving on the East Coast, like Pat Buchanan. Moreover this is one country; do you really think Conservative groups could make it in this country without the support Easterners? At the very least, do you do anything to fight these groups or do you simply believe that you can just sit around blaming it on one part of the country? Your biggest enemy is not some ranting anti-evolution evangelical in my home state but your own apathy and inability to fight.

September ish, 1999