NEW NC. SUPREME COURT
CHALLENGE: VOTER I.D
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
Right on the heels of a very controversial redistricting case where today is the deadline for the Republican-led NC. General Assembly to submit redrawn legislative and congressional voting maps to a lower court after ruling previous maps unconstitutional, the NC Supreme Court Monday heard arguments in yet another voter ID case brought by the NC NAACP.
This challenge is to the legitimacy of the NC legislature itself, and whether, at the time it passed a 2018 constitutional amendment establishing voter photo identification through voter referendum, which then resulted in a 2018 voter I.D. law, the GOP majority had the legal right to do so since several of the districts that constituted the 2018 NC General Assembly were later deemed to be illegal racial gerrymanders by the federal courts, theoretically making any laws passed by that 2018 legislature null and void.
This challenge also included the establishment of a constitutional cap by public referendum for the state income tax, filed by a different plaintiff.
In addition, The NC NAACP maintains that the 2018 voter ID law was racially biased towards African-Americans.
Republicans dispute that the 2018 voter ID law was racially biased, and that was far as the constitutional amendments were concerned, a majority of NC voters, not state lawmakers, ratified them , so they should stand.
During oral arguments Monday, Republican justices defended the fact that a majority of voters approved the 2018 voter ID and income tax cap amendments at the polls. Chief Justice Paul Newby, a Republican, called it “The ultimate check.”
NC NAACP attorney Kym Hunter countered that still, an illegal legislature put the voter ID amendment up for referendum.
Because of current litigation, voter photo ID is not in effect for elections in North Carolina.
Depending on what the state Supreme Court decides, the law could be in force for the 2022 elections this coming fall.
Meanwhile, a three-judge lower Superior Court panel is to receive the redrawn NC General Assembly maps today, with the panel deciding by Feb. 23rd whether to accept or reject them, or go with another set of maps.
Republican legislative leaders have also introduced the prospect of appealing the redistricting case to the 6-3 conservative leaning U.S. Supreme Court, though it is doubtful that court would turn around a decision in time for this fall’s 2022 NC general elections.
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LESS BLACK HISTORY TAUGHT
IN SCHOOL, MAY RESULT IN
MORE BOMB THREATS TO SCHOOL
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
In the past few weeks, more than twenty bomb threats have been called into historically Black colleges and universities here in North Carolina, and beyond. The FBI says it has identified six “tech-savvy’ minor persons of interest.
Last week in the Washington, D.C. area, two teenage boys were arrested for allegedly calling in bomb threast to seven predominately Black high schools.
At one of them, Douglas Emhoff, husband to Vice President Kamala Harris, had to be hustled off to safety by the Secret Service.
If there is one thing that most Black observers agree on is that bomb threats, and threats of violence against African-American institutions like schools and churches are an important and relevant part of American history that should be taught.
History has shown that such threats came about because Blacks were demanding full citizenship, equal rights, equal access, and voting rights. Physical threats of violence were the most forceful ways to try and deter those efforts.
But new laws recently passed by Republican-led legislatures here in North Carolina and across the country, virtually prohibit the teaching about the realities of slavery, the 1960s civil rights movement, and other well documented events of African-Americans striving for inclusion.
According to GOP lawmakers, teaching about such things as “systemic racism” may “hurt” the self-esteem of young white students, making them feel “guilty” about historical events they had nothing to do with.
“No student or school employee should be made to feel inferior solely because of the color of their skin or their gender,” said Chairman John Torbett (R-Gaston) of the NC House Education Committee upon recent passage of House Bill 324, which now outlaws “…the teaching that one race is inherently superior to another, or other related concepts that reduce individuals to their gender or skin color.”
The language of the law might seem to make sense, but if a NC teacher tries to instruct about white supremacy, and a white parent objects because the subject would make their child “feel bad,” that teacher could run afoul of the law in North Carolina.
Today, the only excuse, if there is any, for the recent bomb threats on Black institutions of learning, is to dissuade young African-Americans from educating themselves as fully as possible so that they can assume their rightful role as full citizens, HBCU leaders say.
“When I thought about young people (making the threats), I’m thinking about people that don’t really understand or appreciate the historicity and the pains to African-Americans in this country, particularly historically Black college and universities,” said Zachary Faison Jr , president of Edwards Waters University in Florida, during a virtual panel discussion sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center last week about the recent bomb threats.
If all American students, regardless of color or background, are not taught about the torrid history of racism and white supremacy in the nation’s public schools, it will be lead to their ignorance of the underbelly of American history, not their awareness of it., educators say
North Carolina is thought to have one of the softest laws on the books regarding not teaching about historic systematic racism per the 1898 Wilmington Race massacre, police brutality against unarmed Black citizens, racial segregation and African-Americans being cheated out of long held properties by greedy white developers.
And yet, it is a fact that many North Carolinians today have no idea about the racial reality of North Carolina’s past.
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FEB. 24TH RALLY ABOUT
#2 CANCER KILLER OF
BLACK MEN IN THE U.S.
by Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
There’s one aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic that literally no one talks about until now.
Once the pandemic struck in 2020, prostate cancer screenings and treatments literally stopped. For Black men ages 45 and above in North Carolina, that fact means nothing but bad news.
According to the NC Central Cancer Registry, for every 100,000 Black men in North Carolina, 216 will develop prostate cancer per year, and 48 will die. Black men get the disease earlier in their lives compared to white men, and it tends to be more aggressive.
The American Cancer Society now says that there has been a dramatic increase in prostate cancer cases in 2021 - a 30% increase, along with an 8% increase for 2022 thus far. Case estimates for this year are 9,560 more which is the seventh highest of all 50 states. Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths for Black in in the United States.
That has created a present prostate cancer crisis.
A PSA test from a doctor would determine whether a man has a normal prostate, but he must request the test.
Thus, the 2022 Prostate Health Education Network's Prostate Cancer Disparity Rally and Virtual Town Hall in North Carolina on Thursday, February 24th starting at 6 p.m..
According to Thomas Farrington, Prostate Health Education Network founder and president, the Virtual Town Hall and Rally is vital for all Black men to watch and be a part of. “Black men in North Carolina and around the country will be hit the hardest by this prostate cancer crisis,” says Farrington. “The rally’s broad radio and social media awareness campaign, culminating with our town hall meeting, aims to mobilize sustained actions towards eliminating the prostate cancer racial disparity in North Carolina.”
You can register for free for this ZOOM event at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_LnU_4y0TQ8mA39Pi0Kdi_w.
If you’re an African-American man ages 45 and up, don’t let this vital opportunity to learn about protecting your health, and your life, pass you by.
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