ROBINSON: “I’M NOT NO
AFRICAN AMERICAN!”
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
Despite Republican efforts to portray Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson as a statesman and reasonable policy leader, the Black Republican’s campaign for governor has released a fiery fundraising video showing him boasting to a cheering, predominately white crowd that “I’m not no African American.”
The timing of this explosive campaign video - just days after the conservative-led U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial ruling striking down race-based college affirmative action policies at UNC - Chapel Hill and other elite universities across the nation, in addition to former Pres. Donald Trump’s endorsement of Robinson’s gubernatorial candidacy, sets the stage for more racial cultural warrior rhetoric from the black Republican as the campaign continues.
The controversial :39 second campaign video opens with a black title page and the white outline of an open eye with a left-to-right downward slash going across the middle.
Under that symbol is written in all caps white, “TRIGGER WARNING.“ Then under that in smaller all-white lettering is the sentence “Content may enrage woke Democrats & members of the liberal media.”
The campaign video begins with the lieutenant governor onstage in front of a “Mark Robinson’ backdrop, in an open suit jacket and open shirt, in front on a cheering, predominately white conservative audience. He is pacing back and forth with a microphone in his hand, bellowing to the cheering crowd with a strong, determined voice, “I’m not no African American.”
Robinson’s monologue is transcribed below his video image, so there is no mistaking what he is saying.
The video then shows many in the cheering crowd clapping and standing to their feet.
“Yeah, I said I ain’t no African American,” Robinson, a recent graduate of UNC at Greensboro, repeats defiantly to heightened cheers, his finger directed up to make the point. “When we were fighting for our freedom in the Civil War, we weren’t flying no African banners. We were flying the Star Spangled Banner.”
“I have never pledged allegiance to any nation in Africa, nor do I ever intend to, ” an agitated Robinson continued, as the cheering audience stands to its feet again clapping, and a video is shown behind him onstage. “I am American. My story is American. I am an American.”
“My blood is American. My mind is American. My heart is American. Because I am an American,” Robinson insists. The video then fades to a red end title campaign frame with “Mark Robinson - Governor” on it.
Underneath the video, which was running on Facebook last week, is printed, “winred.friendsofmarkrobinson.com.”.
An accompanying print ad shows Robinson leaning on a post wearing a blue suit, white shirt and red tie, with the words “I’m not African American. I am only American.”
Several social media posters who proudly refer to themselves as “African American” responded to Robinson’s controversial campaign message, with one calling it “madness,” and another posting, “Self hatred is [a] terrible disease.”
This is by no means Lt. Gov. Robinson’s first, or only known attack on his own community since he took office in 2020.
Already infamous for rhetorically attacking women, LGBTQ and abortion rights advocates, a 2021 video of Robinson speaking at the NC Republican Party Convention shows the Greensboro native saying today’s Blacks aren’t owed anything for their ancestors’ suffering during slavery and the civil rights movement, but rather it is they who owe America reparations for the rights that have been earned for them.
“Nobody owes you anything. It’s you. You owe because you’ve been the benefactor of freedom,” Robinson continued, adding the standard Republican rhetoric that African Americans are not hard workers..
Several weeks ago, CNN reported that Robinson “repeatedly lambasted” the ’60s Civil Rights Movement “…during interviews with a conspiracy theorist podcaster, saying “so many freedoms were lost,” and “baselessly” claiming the movement was used “to subvert free choice and where you go to school and things like that.”
Robinson also called the historic Greensboro lunch counter sit-in by black college students to challenge racial segregation, “a ridiculous premise”
So what did several North Carolina Democratic African American elected officials say about the racial rhetoric of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, and his views about the Civil Rights Movement reported by CNN?
“Mark Robinson is an embarrassment to North Carolina and he should be ashamed of himself,” Democratic Senate Leader Dan Blue said.
“Mark Robinson’s claims and conspiracies are the ‘ridiculous premise’,” said Greensboro Senator Gladys Robinson. “He has a lot to learn from the courage displayed by the four North Carolina A&T students at Woolworth’s lunch counter on that February day in 1960.”
Former State Senator Floyd McKissick Jr. said, “Mark Robinson’s sentiments are so deeply disrespectful, out of touch with reality, and fail to understand the tremendous impact and gains born out of the Civil Rights Movement that opened the doors of opportunity for all regardless of race.”
“On behalf of the Legislative Black Caucus in North Carolina, we wholly condemn Mark Robinson’s comments,” said North Carolina Legislative Black Caucus Chair Rep. Kelly Alexander, Jr.. “His ignorance is beyond reproach – we cannot have him represent North Carolina in the Governor’s office.”
North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton issued a statement last week urging the NC Republican Party to disavow Robinson's "racist and antisemitic diatribes."
“If [the NCGOP] refuse to call out these hateful and incendiary comments," Clayton said, " they must own them as their own beliefs.”
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N.C. VOTER CHANGES
NOW A REALITY
GOING FORWARD
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
Beginning with this fall’s local municipal elections, a series of changes to voting in North Carolina will take hold that you should be aware of.
Four hundred and seventy-five candidates for City Council and other local offices across the state will be running for office this September - October - November. Filing began last Friday, and will end on July 21st at noon. These local contests will be the first since the Republican-led state Supreme Court reversed an earlier decision, and mandated that voter photo identification be implemented throughout the state.
The NC State Board of Elections, which is scheduled to finalize a list of acceptable photo IDs from colleges and universities, has asked the NC General Assembly for $6.5 million in additional funding in order to properly educate voters about the new voter ID requirements and other election procedure changes. The legislature has not settled on a final budget yet, so it’s not known whether the board’s request will be honored.
One change that is known, however, is that voter ID will not only be require for in-person voting at the polls, but for those voting by mail-in absentee ballot as well..
Also, over 50,000 former felons will not be allowed to cast ballots in coming elections, thanks to a recent state High Court ruling.
Republicans, now touting veto-proof majorities in both the state House and Senate, are in the process of accelerating when mail-in ballots are to be accepted at local election boards, and even changing the makeup of local election boards, making them evenly split, and removing the governor’s appointment power.
Making the local and State Elections Board, evenly split, could cause problems where key decisions - like how many early voting sites should be opened in a county, or how many should be closed - would be deadlocked if a local board has a two Democrat/two Republican board, critics say.
And if the state Elections Board is also evenly split to the point where it can’t make a decision, then the matter would go to the courts.
The proposed voting changes don’t stop there.
GOP legislative leaders want new computer software employed so that voters’ signatures on mail-in absentee ballots can be cross-checked against signatures on file. A Democratic senator has recommended, and Republicans have agreed, to implement a pilot program during the 2024 primaries next March.
Democrats counter that there are several states, like Florida, where signature verification is a questionable technology at best, and has led to perfectly legitimate signed absentee ballots, especially from voters of color, being thrown out.
Among the other election changes being considered is requiring same day registration voters to cast a provisional ballot, which may or may not be counted.
Republicans in both the state House and Senate have also proposed that North Carolina not join a multi-state system for maintaining accurate voter registration rolls called ERIC (Electronic Registration Information Center). ERIC was devised to track voters who have moved in-state, out of state, have multiple registrations or are deceased.
The GOP says the election changes are all about “restoring voter confidence” in North Carolina’s voting process.
Gov. Roy Cooper countered that the proposed changes are nothing less than an “unconstitutional power grab.”
Meanwhile, NC voter ID is not out of the legal woods yet.
A three-year-old federal case known as NC NAACP versus Cooper, challenging the constitutionality of voter ID, returns to a Greensboro courtroom on July 26th to determine how the case will proceed to trial. It has been dormant since July of 2022.
Finally, progressive groups celebrated the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision against North Carolina Republican lawmakers’ argument that state courts have no jurisdiction over legislative redistricting decisions affecting federal elections.
“This is a historic victory for the people of North Carolina and for American democracy,”said Bob Phillips, Executive Director of Common Cause North Carolina. “Today, the U.S. Supreme Court made clear that state courts and state constitutions should serve as a critical check against abuses of power by legislators. Now, we must ensure our state courts fulfill their duty to protect our freedoms against attacks by extremist politicians.”
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