VICE PRES. KAMALA HARRIS
IS NC LISTENING TO
V.P. HARRIS’ WARNING
ABOUT FLORIDA’S FALSE
BLACK HISTORY SCHEME?
By Cash Michaels
An analysis
No, she hasn’t excoriated North Carolina yet, but last week, when Vice President Kamala Harris blasted the Florida Board of Education for corrupting its statewide Black History studies standards to portray slavery as something which “benefited” enslaved Africans, she struck a nerve well beyond the Sunshine State.
Harris’ powerful takedown of the revisionist Florida Black History curriculum was a dire warning to the rest of the country, including North Carolina, that the conservative culture war campaign to literally change the documented racial history of the United States into something more politically palatable for the expressed purpose of gaining more power, is proceeding at an alarming clip.
In March, North Carolina’s Republican-controlled House passed a previously vetoed measure restricting what teachers can discuss about America’s racial history. In June, the legislature passed a law banning discussions about race in the state government workplaces.
Against that backdrop, here is an abbreviated version of the vice president’s remarks in Jacksonville, Fla. from July 21, 2023:
“…[W]hen I think about what is happening here in Florida, I am deeply concerned. Because let’s be clear: I do believe this is not only about the state of Florida; there is a national agenda afoot. And what is happening here in Florida? Extremist so-called leaders for months have dared to ban books. Book bans in this year of our Lord 2023.
And now, on top of all of that, they want to replace history with lies. Middle school students in Florida to be told that enslaved people benefited from slavery. High schoolers may be taught that victims of violence, of massacres were also perpetrators.
They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us — and we will not have it. We teach our children not only to tell the truth, but to seek knowledge and truth.
Well, I think we should model what we say. These extremist so-called leaders should model what we know to be the correct and right approach, if we really are invested in the well-being of our children.
Come on — adults know what slavery really involved. It involved rape. It involved torture. It involved taking a baby from their mother. It involved some of the worst examples of depriving people of humanity in our world. It involved subjecting to people the requirement that they would think of themselves and be thought of as less than human.
So, in the context of that, how is it that anyone could suggest that in the midst of these atrocities, that there was any benefit to being subjected to this level of dehumanization? In the midst of these atrocities, that there was some benefit?
So, it is not only misleading; it is false. And it is pushing propaganda. People who walk around and want to be praised as leaders, who want to be talked about as American leaders, pushing propaganda on our children. Pushing propaganda on our children.
And that’s what’s so outrageous about what is happening right now: an abject and purposeful and intentional policy to mislead our children. And so, let us be clear: Teachers want to teach the truth. Teachers want to teach facts. And teachers dedicate themselves to some of the most noble work any human being could take on: to teach other people’s children — for the sake of the future of our nation.
And so, they should not then be told by politicians that they should be teaching revisionist history in order to keep their jobs. Our teachers who fear that if they teach the truth, they may lose their job. As it is, we don’t pay them enough.
And these are the people — these extremist, so-called leaders — who all the while are also the ones suggesting that teachers strap on a gun in the classroom instead of what real leaders should be doing and be engaged in reasonable gun safety laws.
“…[T]here is a national agenda afoot, understanding that there are many aspects of our history that some would like to overlook, erase, or at least deny — let us think about then what this creates as a moment for us to also then rededicate ourselves to the coalition. Our responsibility at moments like this to understand nobody should be made to fight alone. We are all in this together.
We fought a war to end the sin of slavery. A civil war. People died by the untold numbers in that war, many of whom fought and died because of their belief that slavery was a sin against man — that it was inhumane, that it was not reflective of who we believe ourselves to be as a country, and certainly not reflective of who we aspire to be.
Let us not be distracted by what they’re trying to do, which is to create unnecessary debates to divide our country. Let’s not fall in that trap.
And so, let us stand always for what we know is right. Let us fight for what is right. And when we fight, we win.
Here in North Carolina, conservative Republicans continue to change laws governing public education, intent on changing the historical narrative as they see it. -30-
U.S. REP. DON DAVIS (D-NC-1)
BLACK CENTRIST DEMOCRAT
NC CONGRESSMAN VOTES
WITH REPUBLICANS
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
North Carolina First District Democrat Congressman Don Davis of Pitt County, an African American, is making no bones about where he stands politically.
The Snow Hill native, minister and former United States Air Force commissioned officer may have taken over former Rep. G. K. Butterfield’s congressional office when he was elected in 2022, but Davis is cutting a different path from the politically progressive Butterfield, and that was made clear earlier this month when Davis, a member of the House Committee on Armed Services, was one of a handful of House Democrats voting with conservative Republicans in support of a new defense budget that was loaded with “culture war” amendments.
Davis’ Democrat colleagues call the $880 billion NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) for Fiscal Year 2024 an “extreme bill” because beyond providing funding for the U.S. military, as it is supposed to do, the ratified measure bans funding of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives; reimbursing travel costs for female service members in need of an abortion; and any display of the LBGTQ Pride flags.
Those amendments were sponsored by conservative Congressman Chip Roy of Texas, who has a well-known record of opposing any issues the right-wing describes as “woke.” But even though Republicans in the U.S. House have a slim majority to pass any measure they please, Rep. Davis, a Democrat, joined three other Democrats in supporting Congressman Roy’s anti-woke amendments, and ultimately the final version of the NDAA.
Why would the first-term Rep. Davis, 51, come anywhere near a right-wing political firebrand like Roy? We asked his congressional office in Washington, D.C. by email last week why Davis was one of only four Democrats to support the anti-DEI, anti-women’s choice, and anti-LBGTQ amendments to the NDAA, but got no response by press time.
Rep. Roy has sponsored some anti-critical race theory bills in the recent past, as well. Davis has opposed anti-CRT measures while in the NC state Senate, but that could change given his recent vote against DEI initiatives in the NDAA budget.
But research into Rep. Davis’ political background shows that while he is one of seven Democratic congresspeople representing North Carolina in the U.S. House, and one of three African American members of that delegation, Davis is perhaps the most moderate politically, meaning it’s hard to be sure where he stands on traditional Democratic issues.
Having served in the North Carolina Senate before running for Butterfield’s First District congressional seat in 2022, Davis had already established a centrist track record, voting against his party to defund Planned Parenthood, supporting several anti-abortion measures, and even obstructing some of Gov. Cooper’s agenda.
In 2015, then state Sen. Davis voted to support then Republican Gov. Pat McCrory’s anti-abortion agenda. In 2017 and 2018, Davis voted for budgets that allotted at least $1 million for religious anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers, later switching gears to support Gov. Cooper’s veto of those budgets.
In 2019, Davis was one of two Democratic state senators to vote for Republican “born alive” legislation, making it a felony “not to treat a baby born in the course of a late term abortion as a person.” Gov. Cooper vetoed the measure because existing law already protected newborns.
Still, Davis was the only Democrat to vote to override Cooper’s veto.
Ironically, given his NC legislative track record, Davis’ congressional campaign insisted that he supports the “fundamental right” of a woman to choose an abortion, and would codify Roe v. Wade while in Congress.
“In Congress, I will fight tooth-and-nail to protect abortion rights and women’s healthcare,” Rep. Davis declared on Twitter after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision had been leaked last year.
Rep. Don Davis may also have another reason for being a Republican-light centrist Democrat - his congressional district.
The First Congressional District, as presently constituted, consists of 19 counties stretching from the northeastern part of North Carolina from the Virginia border, through several counties of the Inner Banks and the Research Triangle.
Many of those counties, like Bertie, Halifax and Northhampton are primarily rural with poor economies and older populations, making the district decidedly more conservative-leaning thanks to the legislature’s latest redistricting. It’s one of the reasons why the previous First District congressman, Butterfield, decided not to run for reelection.
Davis, also a member of the House Committee on Agriculture, is considered one of four vulnerable Democrats Republicans feel they can successfully target in the 2024 elections thanks to a May N.C. Supreme Court decision allowing the GOP to draw partisan gerrymanders, which may explain why Davis is playing it so safe in Congress.
Legislative Republicans plan to redraw congressional districts in a few weeks, meaning that Democrat Congressman Don Davis is likely to remain as politically moderate as possible to keep his seat when he is challenged.
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