2008 Woodie Awards
New KCMO School Board member speaks at UMKC
Teresa Sheffield
Issue date: 4/14/08 Section: News
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He began by giving his definition of poverty.
"[Poverty] is a persistent state of financial instability. The word I would lift up the most is persistent," West said. "I would strongly encourage you to differentiate between being poor and the experience of being in poverty. I would differentiate between being … There are many people who have missed a meal at one point or another but for whom there was a clear expectation that this wasn't the state of their life."
West said the ways people react to poverty influence their lives in the future.
"Poverty, as I see it, is most debilitating in the lives of those who see nothing else in the foreseeable future," West said. "[For] people who see nothing else in the foreseeable future, the reality they know right now is the only reality they can expect to exist any time to come. It's a state of hopelessness."
West said he believes this aspect of poverty directly impacts education.
"…There are students who sense that something else is coming, that there will be other opportunities a part of their life, that the current situation is simply that, current," he said
West gave two main reasons for running for the school board.
He said he now has a child in the KCMO School District, and being involved in his own schooling, he has found ways to help beyond being a parent.
Another reason he ran is because of the recent decision to annex some Independence schools from the KCMO School District.
West said he wasn't bothered by the annexation, but the reasons behind it. From what he interpreted from political ads mailed to him and others, white people wanted to get their kids away from the black people, and black people wanted to get their kids away from the white people.
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