WHY TRUMP’S CONVICTION
IS IMPORTANT TO BLACKS
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
Last week, after being found guilty of all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to provide hush money payments to help win the 2016 presidential election, former President Donald J. Trump left the New York City courthouse a convicted felon, the first time in American history such a thing has ever happened to a former U.S. president, or a presumptive nominee for the office.
Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11th.
Amid all of the plethora of analysis thus far about the historic conviction, no one has asked, why this event is specifically important to African-Americans?
According to Law Professor Irving Joyner of the North Carolina Central University School of Law in Durham, African-Americans need to close pay attention to the irony of what happened.
“In the first place, the evidence presented against Donald Trump in New York fully supports the jury’s verdict,” Prof. Joyner said in a statement. “Ordinarily, this conviction would not impact African Americans, but this is not the ordinary situation. Donald Trump does not hide his animosity, bias and disdain for African Americans and people of color. His present and past efforts to destroy established democratic institutions and principles are designed to enforce his personal and political prejudices against African Americans and those individuals of color who now enjoy the protections of present American laws and social convictions.”
One example of this is Pres. Trump appointing three conservatives to the U.S. Supreme Court for the express purpose of rolling back civil rights laws like affirmative action, Roe v. Wade and other settled law that have contributed to the full citizenship of Black people.
“Instead,…” Prof Joyner continues, “… Trump advocates for an America that should only benefit and protect people of European ancestry. His public utterances and those of his supporters regularly mobilizes those people who shares those racist views.”
Several Black Democratic leaders, like North Carolina’s U.S. Rep. Alma Adams, Rev. Al Sharpton, and NAACP Pres./CEO Derrick Johnson agree with Prof. Joyner, saying that the historic conviction also proved that even a former president of the United States is not above the law.
“The jurors have spoken,” Rep. Adams said in a statement.” Justice prevailed over politics and showed us that no one is above the law. I pray for our country and those charged with leading it.”
Rev. Al Sharpton reminded all how a younger Donald Trump publicly demanded an innocent group of five black and Hispanic teens known as “the Central Park Five” face the death penalty, after a white woman was beaten and raped in New York’s Central Park. The teens went to prison, but were later exonerated and released. But even after he was elected president in 2016, Trump maintained his view that all of the boys were somehow guilty.
Sharpton reminded all that now the shoe is on the other foot.
“Donald Trump is the criminal, and those five men are exonerated,” Sharpton said after the conviction last week. “I’m reminded of Dr. King’s proverb that the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Derrick Johnson, president/CEO of the NAACP also hailed the NY jury verdict as a “monumental step toward justice for the American people.”
“Whether it’s an attempt to steal an election or overthrow our government, one thing has long been apparent — Donald Trump is unfit to represent American democracy,” Johnson continued.. “The NAACP strongly believes that anyone who has been found guilty of criminal offenses of this magnitude is unfit to occupy the Oval Office. As Black Americans have been denied basic human rights due to less offensive crimes, any attempt to advance Donald Trump’s nomination for Presidency would be a gross advancement of white supremacist policy.”
But not all Black leadership hailed the unanimous jury conviction of the Republican former president as justice.
N.C. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor endorsed by Trump in this fall’s general election, said on X (formerly known as Twitter), “The Democrats know they can’t beat President Trump at the polls so they weaponize our government against him.”
Then there’s the two Black Republicans who hope to be Trump’s choice for vice president.
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FLA) said, "Donald Trump is innocent. To hell with what the jury said. America, this is what a political prosecution looks like. Remember in November!"
And South Carolina U.S. Sen. Tim Scott simply responded with a video posted on social media, where he called the Trump conviction “a sham,” adding that it was “Un-freaking-believable.”
Regardless of the reaction, NCCU Law Prof Irv Joyner warns that African-Americans should pay close attention to what happens to Trump next as he continues to run for reelection to the White House.
“The citizenship of African Americans and people of color is made possible by the enactment of the 13th , 14th , 15th Amendments and other Civil Rights laws which now make it illegal for the federal and State governments as well as private individuals to discriminate against racial minorities or to infringe upon the legal rights and protections which are enjoyed by other citizens,” Prof. Joyner said. “Under a Donald Trump administration, those protections would be revoked, repealed and ignored and this will have the effect of re-instituting racial slavery or a similar political status within this country.”
Joyner urged Black people to remember the old Teddy Pendergrass song, “Wake up Everybody!”
“Wake up everybody; no more sleeping in bed; no more backward thinking, time for thinking ahead. We have to change it, you and me. The world won’t get any better without you and me.”
“Those few African Americans who are presently flirting with supporting Donald Trump should heed the Teddy Pendergrass’ warning and refrain from becoming complicit with this self-appointed leader of the present day political efforts to destroy the freedom, justice and equality which African Americans and people of color continue to fight to protect,” Prof. Joyner warned.
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WHERE WILL DEI BE
ELIMINATED FROM
NEXT IN NC?
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
As predicted after the U.S. Supreme Court dismantled affirmation action policies in college admissions last year at UNC - Chapel Hill and other universities, DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) - a counterpart to affirmative action - is now the prime target of conservatives in at least 30 states, including here in North Carolina.
Florida and Texas have already eliminated DEI jobs and programs in their state governments.
Memorial Day weekend, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor in the upcoming general election in November, promised attendees at the NC Republican Convention in Greensboro, if elected, to eliminate the DEI policy from all of state government.
“I’m going to go through every document in North Carolina’s government, all of them," he said. "When I find DEI, I’m going scratch them out — with a red pen.”
Of course, that process has already started with the 24-member UNC Board of Governors voting on May 23rd to repeal the 2019 UNC System-wide DEI policy, officially beginning this Sept. 1st.
The only dissenters on the Republican-appointed board were its two Black members - Joel Ford and Sonja Phillips Nichols.
Board Chairman Peter Hans, justified the vote to repeal DEI, saying, “One of the main reasons higher education has forfeited so much public confidence over recent decades is the perception that universities are overtly partisan; demanding campus leaders to take sides on divisive issues, to calls for ceasefires in foreign lands, or to denounce fellow citizens here at home,” said Hans.
“It undermines public trust and the spirit of open inquiry that our universities depend on,” Hans continued. “Higher education does not exist to settle the most difficult debates in our democracy. Our role is to host those debates to inform them to make them richer and more constructive. That’s a vital responsibility, and we can’t fulfill it if our institutions are seen as partisan actors in one direction or another.”
But many proponents of DEI didn’t buy Chairman Hans explanation, saying that DEI in universities, government and the private sector, only functions to ensure that the greatest possible diversity of people, skills and talent are recruited to reflect the society that they live in.
"I just want it to be said that there were some people who felt they weren't heard," Sonja Phillips Nichols of Charlotte said after the UNC-Chapel Board meeting. "And that I wanted to say I could say I represented the people who said, 'We didn't feel heard.'"
House Rep. Amos Quick (D-Guilford) called it “maddening” to see the clock turned back to a time when diversity, equity and inclusion are agin considered bad words.
Rep. Quick added that the principles of DEI are an intrinsic part of the nation’s Declaration of Independence.
“The declaration says, ‘we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men’, that’s diversity, ‘are created equal’ that’s equity and equality, and that ‘they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ that’s inclusion,” Quick said.
And Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper called the UNC Board’s vote to repeal DEI purely “a political move.”
“Our diversity should be shown as a strength and has helped u grow as a state. It shouldn’t be used to show our political division divisions. And unfortunately, I think that’s what the vote is about.”
It is still not known how many DEI jobs will be eliminated from the 17 campuses that make up the UNC System.
According to the conservative online publication Carolina Journal, “The Watchdog group OpentheBooks released an investigation last week that revealed that the UNC-System schools spends approximately $90 million dollars on DEI initiatives, including programs, more than 600 contributors, and 288 DEI-related staff members on the UNC system payroll.”
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