In case you didn’t know about this:
Meet Mark Robinson a Republican running for governor in North Carolina who thinks Black people should be paying reparations. It’s bizarre even for the bizarre modern GOP, but here we are. Robinson, 54, is North Carolina’s lieutenant governor, and he seems like a lefty’s caricature of a modern right wing politician. He’s what we would dream up to make fun of the right.
He thinks Covid wasn’t a real threat, systemic racism doesn’t exist and the movie, “Black Panther,” was, buckle up, “created by an agnostic Jew and put to film by satanic Marxists.” The right loves to say the left is filled with Marxists. It’s a weird obsession. Robinson also said President Obama was “a worthless, anti-American atheist who wanted to bring America to its knees and then raise it back to its feet as a European style socialist hell hole.” He also called Michelle Obama “a man.” So, yeah, he’s another Black Republican who’s willing to say racist things. He’s like a grimier version of Candace Owens. And he could be North Carolina’s next governor.
Robinson captured my attention when a speech he gave in 2021 began bubbling up on Black social media. In the speech he said he opposed reparations because no one owes Black people anything. Typical right wing stuff until … he took a turn.
“Nobody owes you anything for slavery. If you want to tell the truth about it, it is you who owes,” he said as if he was speaking to Black people en masse. “Why do you owe? Because somebody in those fields took strikes for you. After those fields were ended and slavery was ended, somebody had to walk through Jim Crow for you. Somebody fought wars and died for you. Somebody lived less than because they didn’t have what you have, and they did it for you. There are people in their graves right now, and they are there because they were willing to stand up and fight for you.” He concluded, “Nobody owes you anything. If anybody owes, it’s you. Because you’ve been the benefactor of freedom, you are the one that owes.” If you want to hear him say this himself you can go here but, you know, it could be triggering to deal with so much internalized racism and tap dancing for white folks all at once.
I have mixed feelings about Charlamagne Tha God but I’ll tip my hat to him on this one:
“…Mark could make history as the first Black governor in North Carolina, a state that is almost 67% White and a little over 21% Black. But he’s a Republican, so he don’t really give a damn about any Black votes. Okay? The Republican party in North Carolina is 89% White. And I was looking at some stats from October 29th, 2022, and North Carolina had about 7.4 million registered voters…So Mark probably feels like ‘I’m Republican. All I need is these White folks,'” Charlamagne added.
He played a clip of a speech Robinson gave in 2021 at the North Carolina Republican Party State Convention, where he addressed the topic of reparations.
“There’s some people that were talking about reparations in this country. They wanted reparations. Nobody owes you anything for slavery. If you want to tell the truth about it, it is you who owes. It’s you who owes because somebody in those fields took stripes for you. Somebody after those fields were ended and slavery was ended, somebody had to walk through Jim Crow for you. Somebody fought wars and died for you…” Robinson said at the time.
“…Nobody owes you anything. If anybody owes — it’s you,” Robinson reiterated at the end of the clip.
The video switched back to show Charlamagne’s reaction.
“It don’t matter if North Carolina is a red or a blue state. If Mark Robinson becomes governor, you can guarantee it won’t be a Black state,” he said. “All right? All those things he spoke on, you know, the people who fought during civil rights, the brothers and sisters civil rights marches, who went through the hell called ‘Bloody Sunday’ for us to get a sliver of freedom. They’re part of the reason we are owed.”
“Yes, we owe them, but not the way this country owes us. And we repaid them for fighting for what so many of them came to want. And that is reparations. Okay? Mark Robinson telling Black people that we owe reparations is like when your parents used to tell you they were beating our ass for our own good,” Charlamagne concluded.
Former president Donald Trump and current North Carolina Lt. Governor Mark Robinson maintain a wide lead in the 2024 Republican primary. This is according to polling by the John Locke Foundation and Civitas.
Of likely GOP primary voters in the state, 55% said they would cast a vote for Trump if the presidential primary were held today.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is Trump’s closest competitor. But there is a wide gap between the two as 22% of likely voters said they favor DeSantis. Coming in at 4th and 5th place are Vice President Mike Pence at 8% and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley at 5%.
Donald Trump’s lead comes from the support of voters who are 18-34 years old and those 65 and older. The poll found support dropping significantly in voters who are 35 to 64 years old.
In the Republican primary race for North Carolina governor, current Lt. Governor Mark Robinson leads with 43% of the vote. Comparatively, 9% of likely voters threw their support behind former Congressman Mark Walker with 8% supporting State Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler. Additionally, 4% said they’d vote for State Treasurer Dale Folwell.
And he’s reminding us why we need to elect him as Governor:
Also:
Only weeks after a North Carolina Democrat suddenly changed parties ― giving the GOP a veto-proof majority against Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper ― Republicans in the statehouse on Wednesday unveiled a 12-week abortion ban. Anti-choice advocates have continually tried to restrict abortion in the Southern state since it became a safe haven for care after federal abortion protections were repealed last year, and the proposed abortion ban now has a very real chance of becoming a law.
The House is expected to vote on the bill Wednesday afternoon, and the Senate will likely vote Thursday. The ban could land on Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) desk as early as tomorrow. Republicans say they have the votes to pass the restriction, but because all of the negotiations are happening behind closed doors, it’s unclear how many or which lawmakers will actually vote to pass the 12-week ban.
Currently, abortion is available through 20 weeks of pregnancy in North Carolina. Since federal abortion protections were repealed last year, around a dozen states in the South and Midwest have enacted near-total bans on abortion, forcing North Carolina to receive an influx in patients traveling out of state for care. The Tar Heel State has seen a 37% increase in abortions since Roe fell ― the biggest percentage increase in any state.
Republicans behind the bill were underhanded yet creative in their pursuit to introduce the abortion ban. Instead of unveiling a whole new bill ― the traditional way to bring any piece of legislation to the floor ― Republicans quietly tucked the 46-page abortion restriction into another unrelated piece of legislation. Lawmakers added it as a conference committee report, allowing Republicans to evade the traditional committee process and head straight to a vote.
“The bill that has been developed is a commonsense, reasonable approach to restricting second and third trimester abortions,” state Republican Senate Leader Phil Berger said at a Tuesday evening press conference.
Democrats were furious, however. “Republican leadership has once again schemed behind closed doors and silenced the voices of both members of the public and members of the state legislature in order to force a harmful abortion ban down our throats,” state Democratic Leaders Sen. Dan Blue and Rep. Robert Reives said in a press release.
Democracy and Health are on the ballot next year and we need to get ready to flip North Carolina Blue. Click below to donate and get involved with Stein’s campaign and the North Carolina Democratic Party: