THE CASH STUFF FOR THURSDAY, MAY 23RD, 2024

IS THE PROPOSED BAN

ON WEARING MASKS

IN PUBLIC DIRECTED 

TOWARDS BLACK PEOPLE?

Contributing writer

Cash Michaels

Is the Republican legislative drive to ban wearing medical masks in public directed towards African-Americans?

Emancipate NC Executive Director, Atty. Dawn Blagrove thinks so.

"What happens is that every time our General Assembly...criminalizes more behavior," Blagrove  said, "ultimately -- when the Palestinian protests die down -- the people who bear the burden of those new crimes are Black people, and that is the problem."

Atty. Blagrove added that “…Black people are disproportionately stopped by law enforcement more than white people, often by 10 times or more.

The NC NAACP issued a statement prior to NC Senate passage last week saying that the measure is “a dangerous bill that threatens the fundamental right to protest in North Carolina.”

“HB 237 seeks to intimidate and silence marginalized communities, particularly Black, Indigenous, and people of color, who rely on protest to make their voices heard and hold those in power accountable,” said NC NAACP Pres Deborah Dicks Maxwell in a statement.

“This legislation seeks to impose severe penalties on protesters, particularly targeting those who block traffic or wear masks,” the statement read. “By criminalizing these protest tactics, the bill aims to silence marginalized communities and stifle legitimate expressions of dissent.”

There is also concern that the amended bill also criminalizes people who must wear medical masks to protect themselves from dangerous infections, but Republicans disagree.

“This bill really is not trying to address healthcare issues that individuals may have – chemotherapy or other immunocompromised-type situations,” said Sen. Buck Newton, R-Wilson. “I understand why that may concern them… this was not a problem pre-COVID.”

Republican lawmakers have claimed that the amended HB 237, the "Unmasking Mobs and Criminals" Act, is directed towards giving law enforcement more teeth when arresting protestors on the street or on college campuses. GOP lawmakers claim that police and district attorneys will be able ro use their discretion in distinguishing medical patients and peaceful demonstrators from masked troublemakers.

The original law was passed in the 1950s to prevent the Ku Klu Klan from wearing their hoods publicly. A medical exemption was added in 2020 after the COVID-19 pandemic hit North Carolina.

Most people who wore medical masks pre-pandemic had no idea that technically what they were doing was illegal. Senate Republicans last week, in an effort to get tough in the aftermath of the recent UNC-Chapel Hill campus Pro-Palestinian protests, passed an amended version of HB 237 removing the medical mask exemption, and sent the measure back over to the House for concurrence.

Republicans claim removing the medical mask exemption is needed to better fight crime.

Sen. Lisa Grafstein (D-Wake), however, disagrees, saying giving law enforcement, or even shop owners that much discretion is dangerous.

“The fact is this would criminalize that process,” Grafstein said. “There’s not really a way to distinguish when someone walks in [a business] whether they are wearing a mask for specific health reasons … One of the things that we see in the disability community is people being quizzed over why they’re behaving in such a way — why you need X, Y or Z. There are requirements under federal law about what you can and cannot ask people about their disability, and to me it opens up a tremendous problem for storekeepers for law enforcement to get into the business of discussions with shoppers or people on the street about why they’re wearing a mask and what their specific health condition is.”

HB 237 was passed by the NC Senate last week, and sent back to the state House for concurrence. On Tuesday, House Speaker Moore's office said House Republicans will not pass the Senate version of the HB 237 as is, so the bill will go to a conference committee.

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NORTH CAROLINA PUBLIC

SCHOOLS ARE MORE 

SEGREGATED THAN EVER,

SAYS NEW REPORT

By Cash Michaels

Contributing reporter

On the 70th anniversary of the historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down racially segregated schools that were “separate but unequal” as unconstitutional, a new report indicates that North Carolina public schools today are virtually more segregated than they were several decades ago.

The primary reason? The continued  racial segregation of residential housing, according to the N.C. State University report, “Can Our Schools Capture the Educational Gains of Diversity? North Carolina School Desegregation, Alternatives, and Possible Gains.”

The study “…found that racial diversity gains in North Carolina schools have backslid significantly over the last three decades. Despite the overall student body diversifying in that time, students of all racial groups were often found to attend schools with disproportionately high shares of same-race peers.”

The report continued that in 2021, “…the typical white student attended a school where 58.9% of the students were white, even though white students only comprised 45% of the total state enrollment.”

“In the past three decades, the share of intensely segregated schools of color – schools that enroll 90-100% students of color – also increased. The study found that in 2021, 13.5% of the state’s public schools were intensely segregated schools of color. These schools also had high rates of free and reduced-price lunch recipients – nearly 83% – which indicated a further segregation based on poverty level.”

According to Jennifer Ayscue, co-author of the report and assistant professor of educational leadership, part of the problem is the federal government dropping the ball.

After the 1954 Brown decision, the peak of school desegregation was 1988, when many segregated schools districts across the nation were compelled  to comply with federal law, and federal consent decree orders to racially desegregate.

But when the political and legal landscape on the federal level changed, “…That reduction in federal support has resulted in many of our districts here in North Carolina backsliding,” Ayscue says.

Ayscue adds that in the last decade, “…it’s gotten even worse.”

The NCSU researcher says that local decisions played an important role as well, particularly “…the expansion of the voucher program for private schools and the growth in charter schools in North Carolina, which are often not subject to the same kinds of requirements as public schools.”

Why is the racial resegregation of North Carolina public schools such a concern? Ayscue said that research shows “Integrated schools have higher levels of academic achievement and higher graduation rates, and are associated with good non-academic outcomes as well, such as better health outcomes,” she said. “Students who have attended diverse schools have better critical thinking and communication skills, are less prejudiced and are also more likely to be civically engaged.”

The NCSU report was made in collaboration with the UCLA Civil Rights Project.

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