News outlets are a-buzz about an NAACP travel advisory warning people of color to be alert when traveling in Missouri, but the NAACP, several reporters and pundits should probably double check the map when relating tales of terror from the Show-Me State.
The NAACP issued its travel advisory after Missouri lawmakers passed legislation making it more difficult for individuals to sue former employers for discrimination. The NAACP warning cautions that black drivers are more likely than white drivers to be pulled over in Missouri. The advisory lists several instances that sparked the warning, including the shooting of black man, Michael Brown, at the hands of a now exonerated police officer, racial disparities in education, health, and criminal justice; and a long history of racial discrimination. It also lists the shooting of two Indian men in an Olathe bar.
“Black students at the University of Missouri have also been repeatedly subjected to racial slurs and the advisory highlighted a February incident near Kansas City in which two Indian men were shot, and one killed, by a man yelling Islamophobic slurs,” a Buzzfeed story reads.
Pundits repeatedly listed the Olathe shooting on cable news discussions about the Missouri travel advisory. While Olathe is “near Kansas City,” it is in Kansas, about 10 miles west of the Missouri border.
While some media outlets, like USA Today, note Olathe is in Kansas, many outlets didn’t double check their maps. And universally left on the cutting floor are the heroic efforts during the Olathe shooting of a local patron, Ian Grillot. The Olathe man charged the shooter and was shot and injured in the process.
