ADAMS JOINS PRESSLEY LETTER
BLASTING EVICTION MORATORIUM
RULING
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
U.S Rep. Alma Adams (D-NC-12) joined a letter last week written by
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) to Congressional leadership criticizing the U.S. Supreme Court for recently voting to end eviction moratorium imposed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Many renters in North Carolina as Rep. Adams noted in an adjoining statement, and across the nation, are being kicked out of their apartments because they are unable to pay their rents because of the pandemic since 2020, and the CDC imposed a moratorium to stop landlords. The U.S. Supreme Court effectively ended that eviction moratorium on August 27th, and now Congresswoman Pressley, along with Rep. Adams and several other congresspeople, have lobbied both U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to come up with a legislative solution that would extend the eviction moratorium, especially with the new COVID-19 Delta variant sweeping the nation.”
“I am disappointed in the Supreme Court’s decision because it willfully ignores the 6.4 million households across the country that are behind on rent,” said Congresswoman Alma Adams. “In my district, over 20,000 Mecklenburg County households are behind on rent - the highest number of households in the state of North Carolina.”
In North Carolina, counties with their own rental assistance programs not affected by the Supreme Court decision include Guilford, New Hanover, Buncombe and Mecklenburg. Renters behind in their payments are encouraged to contact their local agencies.
Still, there are many North Carolina renters impacted by the U.S. Supreme Court decision.
Adams' colleague, Rep. Pressley, further made the point.
“The impending eviction crisis is a matter of public health and safety that demands an urgent legislative solution to prevent further harm and needless loss of human life,” wrote Pressley. “Allowing an eviction crisis to take hold will only erase the gains we’ve made and put our recovery further out of reach.”
Rep. Pressley continued, “Long before the pandemic, evictions have been a systemic form of violence that disproportionately impacted Black and brown communities, especially Black women. Following decades of stagnant wages, skyrocketing costs of housing, health care and education, these same communities continue to bear the unequal burden of the compounding health and economic crises. Data collected from the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey shows that Black, Latino, Asian, and Indigenous households are more likely to report being behind on their rental payments.”
“Currently, nearly 600,00 seniors and nearly 20 percent of seniors and senior renters who are people of color are behind on rent,” Pressley noted. “What’s more, communities with lower vaccination rates and higher COVID-19 cases tend to be the same as those with renters at heightened risk of eviction without an eviction moratorium.”
Rep. Pressley concluded, “If we do not act, this will undoubtedly lead to the increased spread of COVID-19, more deaths, and community wide trauma. We implore you to act with the urgency this moment demands and include an ambitious legislative solution to extend the eviction moratorium in a must-pass legislative vehicle.”
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BLUE BlASTS ROBINSON’S
TASK FORCE REPORT ON
CRT “INDOCTRINATION’
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
The Democratic leader of the NC Senate has blasted Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s Task Force on Accountability in the Classroom Report as displaying “anger and intolerance in the hearts of the people that submitted comments to the Task Force.”
Senate Democratic Leader Dan Blue offered that assessment shortly before House Bill 324, the measure that would outlaw so-called racial indoctrination by teachers in North Carolina public schools, was passed last week in the state Senate by the Republican majority.
The bill was then sent back to the North Carolina House where Senate changes were reviewed and passed on Wednesday. The NC House had previously passed its own version of the “anti-critical race theory” bill before sending it on to the Senate.
Most observers expect Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, to veto the final version ratified by the NC General Assembly..
Still, prior to the measure’s Senate passage last week, Lt. Gov. Robinson, a black Republican, held a press conference touting public submissions to his task force, alleging racial indoctrination by NC teachers.
Robinson alleged that the task force received “500+” submissions of “fear of retaliation, the sexualization of kids, critical race theory (CRT), white shaming, biased news media/or lesson plans, and shaming of certain political beliefs.”
Robinson posted two pages for his task force report on Facebook highlighting some of the comments submitted complaining about alleged “indoctrination” by teachers.
“These are only some of the submissions we received, but the evidence is clear, the Republican lieutenant governor wrote. There is no doubt that indoctrination is taking place in our children’s education, and this report proves just that,” Robinson wrote at the end of the report.
But some in the press, and now, Sen. Blue, who have seen the full report, counter Robinson’s characterization as mostly false, noting that of the hundreds of submissions, only a handful actually offer any evidence of what he’s been alleging.
“What I also saw in that report were teachers trying their best to reach kids and to do their jobs under tremendous stress and difficult circumstances,” Sen. Blue wrote. “It sounds like those teachers were well intentioned. It sounds like some of the parents were well-intentioned too.”
“It seems that both sides — even the task force itself —need to educate themselves a little. New experiences, and new ideas are meant to challenge our perceptions. That’s learning,” Blue continued.
“While I see anger, and distrust in this task force report; I don’t see indoctrination. And I see Republicans trying to capitalize on that. Senate Leader, Phil Berger said that HB 324 is a response to the thousands of parents showing up at school board meetings.”
“This is a case of selective hearing, as Republicans have turned a deaf ear to the thousands of educators and parents also calling for adequate funding of our schools,” Sen. Blue continued.
“I don’t see indoctrination in our classrooms.”
“I do see dilapidated buildings, overcrowded classrooms, outdated textbooks, teacher shortages, and underpaid staff.”
“And the unfulfilled court order in the Leandro case to fund our public schools so that every child can have a sound basic education, regardless of their zip code.”
Sen. Blue continued, “Republicans haven’t uncovered indoctrination in our schools.What they have done with this bill is distract the public, and ourselves, from the real work that we should be doing to improve our public schools.”
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STATE NEWS BRIEFS FOR SEPT. 2, 2021
NEARLY 30% OF WILMINGTON’S PEOPLE OF COLOR LIVE IN POVERTY, SAYS NEW REPORT
[WILMINGTON] 28.2% of Wilmington’s communities of color, and 26.9% of its children, live in poverty, according to Self, an online credit building company. Overall, 20.3% of Wilmington’s total population live in poverty, or 24, 076. 9,877 people of color live below the poverty level, and 5,791 children overall are considered poor. Self used the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey to determine these figures.
NEW HANOVER HIGH STUDENT SHOT, BUT IS RECOVERING
[WILMINGTON] A New Hanover High School student was shot Monday, but authorities say his injuries were not life threatening and he is expected to make a recovery. Chance Diablo, 15, is charged with bringing a weapon onto school grounds, assault with a deadly weapon, discharging a weapon on school grounds, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or inflict serious injury and attempted 1st degree murder. He initially ran away from the scene, but was later captured.
CONGRESSMAN MADISON CAWTHORNE TALKS “BLOODSHED” FOR FUTURE ELECTIONS
[MACON COUNTY] Conservative Republican Congressman Madison Cawthorne told a gathering last Sunday that future elections could bring “bloodshed” as he maintained that the Nov. 2020 presidential elections were fraudulent. “As much as I am willing to defend our liberty at all costs, there's nothing that I would dread doing more than having to pick up arms against a fellow American. And the way that we can have recourse against that is if we all passionately demand that we have election security in all 50 states,” a since deleted video showed Cawthorne telling the Macon County Republican Party during an event last Sunday. Cawthorne also stated that he was “actively working” to plan another rally at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
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