LT. GOV. ROBINSON’S HYPOCRISY
ON COVID-19 VACCINE
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
It is rare, but on this issue, North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Republican, is on the opposite side of several of his party’s top leadership.
Saying that “individual liberty” is how North Carolinians should navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, Robinson, during his August 2nd weekly videoed “Monday Monologue” on Facebook, and in earlier public appearances, maintained that “it should be left up to individuals if they want to wear masks,” or receive the COVID-19 vaccines.
“It is not my job, as an elected official, to convince anyone to take the vaccine, coerce anyone to take the vaccine, or dissuade anyone from taking the vaccine,” he said.
Robinson’s controversial remarks are in direct contradiction to the efforts of Gov. Roy Cooper and state health officials to convince as many of the unvaccinated as possible to “get the shot” in an effort to stem further spread of the new Delta variant amongst those who have chosen not to be vaccinated.
The black Republican lt. governor then virtually capped his remarks by saying that his only role is to provide the necessary information about the vaccine to North Carolinians ‘…to make that informed decision, along with your health care provider, and then make sure that if you want the vaccine, you can get the vaccine…”
Robinson won plenty of plaudits and kudos from Facebook followers of his video post. But what they didn’t hear there is what he told the conservative Wake County Taxpayers Association during their July 29th monthly meeting at NC State’s McKimmon Center in Raleigh, where Robinson indeed tried to dissuade the audience from considering taking the vaccine, telling them he’s spoken with medical personnel who are against it.
“I know cardiologists, neurologists, …I know podiatrists, I know urologists…none of them want the vaccine” a video of Robinson’s remarks show him saying.
“The highest ranking Republican in North Carolina state government is irresponsibly endangering human lives and needs to stop,” wrote columnist Rob Schofield in the August 6th edition of NC Policywatch about Robinson’s hypocritical remarks..
What really riled the black conservative’s critics was his declaration that any elected official who pushes people “…to take the vaccine, should be voted out of office! “It is not your job to convince anybody to take that vaccine. That’s not your job!,” he added.
Lt. Gov. Robinson’s admonishment to fellow elected officials that “It’s not your job to convince anybody to take that [COVD-19] vaccine” flies in the face of documented , and disturbing numbers showing that North Carolina’s coronavirus virus cases are dramatically going back up, primarily in counties across the state that are the least vaccinated.
His remarks also fly in the face of top Republicans in the state, and the nation, who have recently been urging their constituencies to get the shot to be better protected against serious coronavirus infection, and possibly death.
“As you know, the Delta variant of COVID-19 is more contagious than earlier strains, and it’s important to make sure we all take care of ourselves and others,” U.S Sen.Thom Tillis (R-NC) said in an August 2nd statement.
“If you have any questions or concerns, please talk with your doctor about the vaccine….It is safe and effective, and our best tool at beating this virus.”
Indeed, Sen. Tillis, himself, contracted the coronavirus last last year.
Unlike his former state House colleague, Republican NC House Speaker Tim Moore straddled the fence in his recommendation.
“I have personally been vaccinated against COVID-19, and I have done my best to help educate the public and urge others to get vaccinated if they choose to do so,” Moore said in a July 27th Facebook post. “But at the end of the day, the decision whether or not to vaccinate is a personal one and should be made between a doctor and patient.”
Powerful Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is reportedly battling a coronavirus infection right now, and has said he is lucky to have taken the vaccine before he did, and urges former President Donald Trump to push more of his followers to get the shot, like he did in January before leaving office.
Trump infamously contracted the virus late last year, and received special treatment from government doctors to overcome the illness.
On the flip side, there are still Republican leaders who side with Lt. Robinson in sowing doubt about the vital need for the COVID-19 vaccines and protection, to stem the growing spread.
State Senate President Pro tem Phil Berger, also a Republican, in a recent campaign letter, told supporters that guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the continued wearing of protwctivw masks was “guidance to ignore,” because all it boiled down to was a way for White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, the media and liberals “to control the American people.”
A spokesman for Sen. Berger later tried to clean up his inflammatory language.
And then there is Congressman Madison Cawthorn (R-NC-11), who spoke at a recent Buncombe County School Board meeting, telling officials there that “forcing our children to wear a mask is nothing short of psychological child abuse… period.”
Cawthorne made his remarks after the board voted to require students and school staffs to wear protective masks during the upcoming school year.
Fact is, a recent national poll by Monmouth University shows that 31% of self-identified Republicans say they “will likely never get vaccinated against COVID-19,” despite growing evidence that the new Delta variant is more dangerous.
In recent weeks local schools boards, depending on the level of vaccinations in their respective county, either have mandated masks for students and personnel for the upcoming school year, or not. Many local governments have mandated protective masks for anyone entering their government buildings.
Many large businesses have also required not only masks again for customers to enter, but some are leaning towards people showing proof of vaccination as well, something civil libertarians cringe at.
And amid a recent protest in Raleigh by over 100 health care workers last week, over fifty Republican state House lawmakers, in a letter to the CEOs of major health care systems across North Carolina like Novant Health and Atrium Health, asked that they reconsider their respective decisions to require all employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 infection “in order to keep their jobs.”
In his recent remarks, Lt. Gov. Robinson made it clear that he was against vaccination mandates, regardless of the stated goals of Gov. Roy Cooper and other state officials to lower North Carolina’s growing rate of infection. The fact that he is actively working against the best efforts of the state government to save lives that he was elected to serve, is alarming many.
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STUDENTS, TEACHERS, LAWMAKERS
QUESTION GOAL OF ANTI-HISTORY BILL
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
Is House Bill 324, the “Ensuring Dignity and Nondiscrimination [in] Schools” Act, better known as the “anti-Critical Race Theory” bill, really about protecting students from “radical” racial distortions of American history, and preventing “an individual solely by virtue of his or her race or sex, [from feeling] discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” from what they learn or discuss?
Or is the measure really a Republican attempt to officially rewrite American and North Carolina history so that the truth about slavery; the ’60’s civil rights movement; the Wilmington 1898 Race Massacre, and even, eventually, the January 6th siege of the U.S. Capitol, be whitewashed and covered up?
Several students, teachers and state lawmakers took part in last Friday’s special statewide webinar, Digging Deeper: A Conversation on the Impact of HB 324 on Students, Educators and Classrooms.
Sponsored by the nonpartisan Public Schools Forum of NC, the 90-minute virtual discussion focused on the controversial bill that is currently being debated in the NC General Assembly, and it’s ramifications if passed.
Participants offered their perspectives, and for the most part, made it clear that restricting what social studies and literature teachers can instruct about fact-based American history, in addition to openly and freely discussing that knowledge, only hurts students, not “protect” them.
KaLa Keaton, is an 18-year-old African-American student who graduated from Wake County’s Middle Creek High School in June, and will be attending Yale University in the fall.
She said that thanks to her African-American Literature class instructor, Mr. Matthew Scialdone, she not only learned about North Carolina’s history of lynching - a word she said she’d never heard in prior classes, despite North Carolina being one of the top 12 states in the country for it - the state’s eugenics program, the Wilmington 1898 Race Massacre and other important episodes of state history, but was intrigued enough to followup on her own, and learn more.
That junior year class was optional, she noted, but she considers it “essential” learning.
“I learned historical points in those classes I never heard in other classrooms,” Ms. Keaton continued. “The point of these classes and culturally responsive curricula is not to sit and wallow in oppression, struggle and negative energy, and then we’re off to second period math.”
“There was never a day when I felt the weight of the world was on my shoulders,” concluded Keaton, who added tat as a result, activism has become a critical part of her life because what she learned was “solution-oriented.”
In other words, having been taught that history usually repeats itself, Ms. Keaton believes knowing the problems and conflicts of history better, helps to make sure that those problems and conflicts are better addressed in the future before they manifest themselves.
Keaton later shared the experience of being the target of racism as sometime the only black student in her predominately white classes, and wondered why no one ever thought to pass a law to protect students like her from the hurtful racism that she faced.
Abby Rogers, another former Middle Creek High School who will be attending UNC at Chapel Hill in the fall, talked about the value of being a white student who took an African-American history class, being in the minority in the class, and “…being allowed to understand perspectives that I otherwise would never have been exposed to."
Matthew Scialdone, KaLa Keaton’s teacher from Middle Creek High, made the point that if students of color are experiencing racism in the classroom, then white students are certainly emotionally strong enough learn about it, and why it happens.
“The concept that discomfort should be removed from the educational process, to me, that is the moment where the most educational growth happens,” Scialdone, a white teacher who has ben in the classroom for twenty years, said, dispelling the stated Republican belief that white students would be emotionally crushed learning the truth about this nation’ racial history.
Rodney Pierce, a Black social studies teacher from Nash County, offered that if HB 324 is passed, then it might become against the law for him to share actual historical documents with his students where white leaders spoke out against the rights of “the negro,” let alone lead movements against them.
Pierce explained that such historical documents and speeches are key to understanding what prompted the Civil War, or the Confederacy.
HB324 did have at least one defender doing the webinar.
State Sen. John Torbett (R-Gaston County), a primary sponsor of the bill on the Senate side, said “…I support almost everything I’m hearing.”
Sen. Torbett, who is actually from Tennessee, added that contrary to the problem teacher Rodney Pierce presented, the bill would not prohibit the use of historical documents or quotes in the classroom that deal with racial statements made by historical figures.
“Don’t read past the language of the law,” Torbett cautioned. “We’re simply [against] promoting things the are bad for the future of the state and the future this country,” Torbett said, later adding that he had no problem teaching about the bad things of the past, as long as the good things were also taught.
Thus, Torbett said, he had no problem with school children learning about the 1961 Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins, remarking that the closer that history was for students to learn about, the better.
Critics note that HB324 is so broadly written, that if white parents wanted to challenge a teacher for focusing on the issues surrounding the Greensboro sit-ins, they could legally do so if they felt their children were negatively affected by that instruction and subsequent discussion.
Editor’s Note - You can view view video of the webinar at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NOZGP5K7dY.
KaLa Keaton, one of the students who took part in the Public Forum NC webinar , is related to the writer of this article.
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STATE NEWS BRIEFS
UNC-W TO WEEKLY TEST UNVACCINATED ON CAMPUS
[WILMINGTON] UNC at Wilmington will begin weekly testing of all unvaccinated students, faculty and staff for COVID-19 starting August 23rd. Chancellor Jose Santatelli made announcement Tuesday via a release from his office. With classes scheduled to begin August 18th, failure to comply will result in loss of on-campus housing.
NEW HANOVER COUNTY EMPLOYEES MUST VERIFY THEIR VACCINATION STATUS
[WILMINGTON] New Hanover County employees have until Sept 1st to verify their COVID-19 vaccination status through the county health clinic by Sept. 1st. All unvaccinated NHC employees will be required to be tested once a week at no cost to them. New county hires will be required to be vaccinated, except for those with federally-approved medical or religious exemptions.
COVD-19 TESTING INTEREST RISES IN NORTH CAROLINA
[RALEIGH] What a difference $100.00 makes, especially to the unvaccinated in North Carolina. According to published reports, ever since Gov. Roy Cooper announced that in an effort to stem the surge of COVID-19 cases among the unvaccinated in the state, the amount of money offered by the state would increase from $25 to $100, there has been a 269% increase in the number of $100 page load incentives per the month of July.
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