Columns
Why Councilmember Brandon Johnson Matters
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My headline is pretentious, of course; Brandon Johnson—the councilmember representing Wichita’s heavily African American and traditionally Democratic District 1, a longtime community activist and an alum of Friends University where I teach, as well as someone I have a friendly (if not close) relationship with—matters to a lot of different people for a lot of different reasons, most of them far beyond the specifics of current Wichita City Council debates. But as a someone who has spent decades observing and thinking and writing and teaching about politics, Brandon Johnson’s comments, toward the end of another marathon session dealing with the proposed non-discrimination ordinance before the council, were a deeply profound perception about the nature of political life. Watching the whole thing is a revealing as well as often depressing slog, but if you zip to the four hour and six minute mark, you’ll hear this (edited slightly for clarity):
“A ‘community divided’ [over]…a non-discrimination ordinance? I don’t know if I would go that far. There are upset people.
