STATE NEWS BRIEFS FOR 09-17-20
NC HOUSE REPUBLICANS FALSELY ALLEGE HOUSE DEMS SUPPORT “DEFUND THE POLICE”
[RALEIGH] NC House Speaker Tim Moore, a Republican, falsely charge Monday that House Democrats - who are poised to takeover the State House if they can in the Nov. 3rd election- have taken more than $100,000 from a group known as Future Now Fund “in exchange for promising to support legislation that would defund the police.” House Democratic Leader Darren Jackson has called the allegation “a lie.” Jackson added that Democrats signed a pledge with the group two years ago, long before the slogan came about. He maintains Republicans are trying to distract from their positions on education and healthcare.
NC SENATE REPUBLICANS FALSELY ACCUSE NCAE OF BACKING COP KILLERS
[RALEIGH] NC Senate President pro Tem Phil Berger has accused the North Carolina Association of Educators of supporting cop killers, just because NCAE encouraged teachers statewide to participate a Black Lives Matter at School program to help uplift Black students. Sen. Berger pointed to a tweet from NCAE Pres. Tamika Walker Kelly supporting the BLM program, charging that NCAE “openly embraces cop-killing terrorist Assata Shakur. Shakur was convicted in 1973 of killing a N.J. state trooper. Because the BLM program uses a quote from Shakur that says, “it is our duty to fight for our freedom, it is our duty to win,” Berger says NCAE supports her. Pres. Kelly forcefully responded Monday on twitter, saying, “@BLMAtSchool is a national coalition organizing for racial justice in education that has nothing to do with the garbage you’re spouting,” NCAE tweeted. “Get your facts straight, Phil.”
NC APPELLATE COURT REVERSES 2019 RULING, AND WILL ALLOW VOTER ID
[RALEIGH] By 2-1 ruling Tuesday, the NC Court of Appeals reversed a Wake Superior Court judge’s Feb. 2019 ruling that essentially disallowed two constitutional amendments - one of them dealing with voter I.D. - because the judge found that the Republican-led legislature was unconstitutionally constituted because of racial gerrymandering. But on Tuesday, two state appellate judges said that judge erred in judgement, an threw out his decision. With the 2020 election already in progress in North Carolina, does this mean that voter ID will be required once early voting begins Oct. 15th? No. Legal observers say this ruling does not affect the upcoming Nov. 3rd election, nor early voting.
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THE STATE OF THE ELECTION:
WHERE’S JOE AND KAMALA?
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
On Monday, Ivanka Trump, daughter and special adviser to Pres. Donald Trump, held a so-called campaign “ fireside chat” in Wilmington, talking about what she saw as her father’s accomplishments during the course of his almost four years in office.
It was her second North Carolina event in recent weeks.
This coming Saturday, the president is scheduled to hold a campaign rally in a hangar at Fayetteville Regional Airport. Trump held a rally in Winston-Salem just last week, as well as in Wilmington, and Charlotte for part of the Republican National Convention.
Clearly, the Trump campaign is in the hunt for North Carolina’s all important 15 Electoral College votes, which would come in handy in what is seen as what could ultimately be a close presidential election with Democratic challenger former Vice President Joe Biden.
Thus far, according to RealClearPolitics and other national polls, the race between Trump and Biden in North Carolina is a virtual deadheat at 47.6 for Biden, and 47.3 for Trump once at least seven major polls are averaged.
Assuming that the Biden campaign sees the same polls that the Trump campaign is obviously using to determine this key battleground state as essential enough to repeatedly send the Republican incumbent to, observers are asking the question, Why hasn’t Joe Biden or Sen. Kamala Harris, his vice presidential partner, been to North Carolina yet, and what is keeping them?
True, Democrats, in what is considered by many to be a “purple” swing state, are seen as having the momentum to keep the governor’s office, and possibly take back the NC General Assembly, but, as proven just four years ago in 2016, when Democrats won the governor’s seat but still came up short regaining the legislature or helping to elect Hillary Clinton, North Carolina voters can be fickle, especially with less than 50 days to go to the Nov. 3rd Election Day.
But, there are several factors now in 2020 that may give Dems hope, even as Republicans pullout all stops to kill their momentum.
North Carolina, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, was the first state in the nation to begin absentee balloting by mail on Sept. 4th, meaning that North Carolinians were the first in the nation to begin voting, even weeks before the official One Stop-Early Voting period of Oct. 15 to Oct. 31st.
As of last week, more than 10 percent of North Carolina’s 7,119,097
registered voters, or 758, 057, have requested absentee ballots for the Nov. 3rd elections. That is up 1,400 percent from 2016, when only 50,425 were requested.
As of Sept. 12th, 23,443 absentee ballots have been returned, and of that number, 22,709 have been accepted. 458 were designated “witness information incomplete (meaning that they were mailed or brought back with the one witness signature required), 256 were “spoiled,” 4 were designated as “returned undeliverable,” an a few others were also not counted for a variety of other reasons.
All of note, as of Sept. 12th, 388, 711 absentee ballots were requested by Democrats, 239,325 by unaffiliated, and 127,226 by Republicans.
The final day allowed to request an absentee ballot is Oct. 27th, and voters are reminded to ignore Pres. Trump’s recent direction to vote once by mail and once in person. That is illegal.
If you want to check to see if your completed ballot was received by the state Board of Elections, go to https://northcarolina.ballottrax.net/voter/ and follow the instructions to track your ballot online to ensure that it has been received and counted.
OREGON ARMED PROTESTOR
BLACKS NEED TO PAY ATTENTION TO
ARMED WHITE RIGHT-WING GROUPS,
SAYS N.C. CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
A top North Carolina civil rights attorney warns that the recent displays of high-powered weapons by angry whites during demonstrations - even here in North Carolina - are a harbinger of deadly things to come, and African-Americans should be paying very close attention.
Atty. Irving Joyner, law professor at North Carolina Central University School of Law, and chair of the NCNAACP’s Legal Redress Committee, says the signs of white domestic extremists arming themselves amid times of Black advancement “…are very similar to racist activities which preceded the November 1898 Wilmington [race] massacre.”
Joyner should know. He was the vice chair of North Carolina’s 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission twenty years ago, which studied the tragic events when angry white supremacists attacked Black citizens in the Port City, killing many, and driving others out of town, all the while violently taking over the city’s government.
With a close, but informed eye towards history, Prof. Joyner says, “Since the election of President Barack Obama, governmental reports show a significant increase in Whites purchasing guns, many of them are assault caliber weapons, in this country. Those purchases have increased with the election of Donald Trump and much of this purchasing increase has involved members of right-wing, conservative and white racist organizations. There has also been a significant increase in the number of these groups and their efforts to recruit other Whites to join their racist movement and activities.”
Joyner continues, “Examples of the presence and boldness of these groups were present in the several heavily armed demonstrations conducted in North Carolina to demand the re-opening of the economy and the increasing presence of self-proclaimed racist and patriotic groups who mobilized to monitor African American demonstrations to protest police misconduct under the claim that they are protecting property or confederate monuments. White individuals have invaded churches where African Americans have been killed and have acted as private law enforcers to apprehend African Americans who they wrongly suspect or claim are engaged in criminal activities.”
“The common targets of these groups and activities are those activities in which African Americans are engaged to protest against oppressive conditions which they and other African Americans find themselves. The signs of an escalating and emboldened racial antagonisms are present all over the country and these racist groups and individuals are becoming more visible as Donald Trump has regularly complimented and encouraged them to come out to protect his claim to the presidency.”
A quick scan of the recent record proves Joyner’s points.
It is well documented by FBI data that gun sales in the United Sates exploded between 2009 and 2013, with more than 65 million background checks conducted. It is safe to assume that the majority of those gun sales were by Whites.
Since the COVOD-19 pandemic, gun sales have surged across the country and here in North Carolina since March, according to The Charlotte Observer. The Guardian has reported an increase of white nationalist hate groups by 55% in the Trump era.
In August 2017, America got a taste of white nationalist violence in Charlottesville, Va. during the cash between anti-hate demonstrators and right-wing white nationalists. Pres, Trump infamously said there were “fine people on both sides.”
Here is North Carolina, when the ReOpen NC demonstrators went to Raleigh several months ago to demand that Gov. Cooper remove his COVID-19 restrictions so that small businesses could reopen, many of those predominately white demonstrators displayed semi-automatic weapons. Several of them were even photographed in a Raleigh Subway sandwich shop carrying them.
And thanks to rhetoric from Pres. Trump, armed white militias are showing up at several peaceful demonstrations since the death of George Floyd, antagonizing unarmed protestors. A 17-year old boy in Illinois is charged with the shooting deaths of two people during demonstrations after the police shooting of a Black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Finally, given that the presidential elections now less than 50 days away, Trump himself has said that if he loses, his supporters would take to the streets in violent reaction.
Given attorney Joyner’s dire warning and the confirming evidence, the question is, what should African-Americans do now?
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REVIEW PENDER SCHOOLS
“N-WORD’ REPORT
By Cash Michaels
Staff writer
An independent report by a Raleigh law firm released last week determined that a Pender High School teacher did use the n-word twice in front of students, and was issued a letter of reprimand.
But the report also noted that the Pender Public Schools Administration violated it’s own policy doing it’s investigation into the matter, because no interviewed the complainant.
Local civil rights leader Rev. Dante Murphy and social activist Clyde Edgarton reviewed the report, and determined that there were “…disturbing questions regarding transparency, administration oversight, a teacher survey, teacher training, the school board’s oversight of the superintendent, and racism at Pender High School.”
According to Rev. Murphy and Mr. Edgarton:
1) An incident occurring two years ago (October 2018) when an administrator wrote the n-word on a legal pad. She was quoting students who had used the word in reporting a school fight. The investigation found that she broke no policy. We concur.
2) An incident occurring one year ago (October 2019) in which Karen McGowen used the n-word with either an “a” or “er” at the end or the word in front of a class and soon thereafter in front of an individual student. Back then, she received a letter of reprimand which she refused to sign. Ms. Mack and Ms. Moore, Pender County administrators rightfully pushed the investigation. Someone, presumably a student who complained about the incident, was never interviewed and the recent Blue law firm report that this broke policy and charges that failure to the administration headed by Stephen Hill, who is under the responsibility of the school board. The superintendent says he does not recall hearing about this incident until June of this year, 2020, in spite of the fact he is briefed each Tuesday, he says, about investigations going on in schools.
3) The new investigation report says Ms. McGowen also violated the prohibition against discrimination, harassment, and bullying—but she was not, nor has been, charged with such a violation. Will she be so charged, and if not, why not?
3) The coach, Ray Hankins, reported both of the above incidents on social media. Yet Mr. Hankins, underwent an investigation by the Blue law firm for reporting the above incidents on social media.
Discussion and questions for the Pender County School Board:
Discussion: On Tuesday night, Don Hall was asked if there will be discipline applied anywhere as a consequence of the investigation by the Blue law firm. He said “the public” will have to decide. First, discipline did happen a year ago with a letter of reprimand (that Ms. McGowen refused to sign). The letter of reprimand later went missing. Also, the new report finds she broke policy relating to discrimination, harassment and bullying. Also the new report finds that the administration under Stephen Hill failed to follow policy in investigating charges against Ms. McGowen. And the head of the school board has conclude publicly that “the public” will decide discipline? How can the school board be held accountable for abdicating their responsibility?
Question 1: Was the n-word incident which happened a year ago with Karen McGowen made public? The Blue law firm says Ms. McGowen is guilty of discrimination, harassment, and bullying. Why was she not found guilty of breaking the harassment and bullying board policy? How will she be held accountable?
Question 2: Why was the person who reported Ms. McGowen’s unprofessional behavior never interviewed as required by board policy, or given information about the outcome of the case as required by board policy. How will the superintendent be held accountable for breaking of that policy?
Question 3: Why was Coach Hankins, who reported apparent racism on social media, investigated by the Blue law firm (at the behest of the Pender County school board) for that reporting apparent racism on social media? What did he do wrong to deserve his being investigated?
Question 2: The Blue law firm report has uncovered a survey in which 50% of Pender High teachers said that students are not treated equitably. What else does that survey say, and has it been released to the public? What is being done about teachers’ opinions of lack of equal treatment for students?
Question 3: How could certain individuals (at least three women and two men) refuse or not be made to interview for this investigation while the board has subpoena power and the power to place individuals under oath?
Question 4: Apparently Ms. McGowen’s letter of reprimand disappeared from her principal’s office. How did that happen? Who is accountable? From the report:
Question 5: Mr. Hill claims he “does not recall” being briefed about the October 2019 incident in Ms. McGowen’s classroom. Was he briefed? If not, why not? If so, how could he possibly forget? From the report:
NOTE: Mr. Hill says he was briefed on Tuesdays about ongoing investigations. Ms. McGowen’s investigation would seem to be central to any administration on watch for safety from discrimination.
Discussion: Ms. McGowen is reported to have said, “I figured if it was ok for ___ [a Black student] to say it, it was okay for me to say it.” If Ms. McGowen does not understand why students would get upset when she, a white woman, repeats the n-word to them, then she should not be teaching In 1995, a quarter century ago the New Hanover County D.A. was removed from office for calling somebody the n-word and the court found that the problem was based in the fact that it was said by a White person to a Black person.
Question 6: One employee in this report said she fear of retaliation was a factor in her consideration of her responsibilities. What has the school board done about fear of retaliation among employees? What does it plan to do?
Question 8: Under what circumstances did the school board decide to release this report? It was in their possession for just under one month. What was the hold-up?
We believe that the Pender County school board has shown a reluctance to energetically hold the superintendent accountable for his failure to protect students from discrimination, harassment, and bullying. We await board decisions concerning their own accountability as well as that of their superintendent.
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