THE CASH STUFF FOR JULY 22ND, 2021

                                            NC SENATE PRES. PRO TEM PHIL BERGER

NC SEN SENATE DEMOCRATIC LEADER DAN BLUE

NC GOP DECLARE WAR ON 

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND 

RELEVANT RACE HISTORY

By Cash Michaels

An analysis

The gloves are now off!

Top NC Republicans have now publicly vowed to fight the practices of affirmative action and teaching relevant race history (what they call “critical race theory”) in public schools legislatively to ensure that people of color and women are not afforded what the GOP perceives to be any advantage over white citizens.

“Children must learn about our state’s racial past and all of its ugliness, from the 1898 Wilmington massacre to Jim Crow,” the conservative Carolina Journal online magazine quoted Senate Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, at a news conference July 14th prior to a committee meeting. “But students must not be forced to adopt an ideology that is separate and distinct from history; an ideology that attacks ‘the very foundations of the liberal order,’ and that exalts ‘present discrimination’ — so long as it’s against the right people — as ‘antiracist.’”

The Carolina Journal story continued, “ Berger said he opposes Critical Race Theory and “will combat it with everything that I have, because I believe the doctrine undoes the framework that produced the most successful ongoing experiment in self-government in the history of mankind … whether you acknowledge it or not, this doctrine seeks to recast the foundational principles of American society. We must not let that happen.”

North Carolina has now officially jumped onboard the anti-Critical Race Theory train, even though not one public school teaches, or is slated to teach what, in reality, is a 40-year-old legal term for determining institutional and systematic racism in American society.

That didn’t stop Republican NC Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson from telling the Senate Education Committee, “I want to make one thing clear: The issue of indoctrination in our classrooms is real. It’s not some figment of somebody’s imagination. It’s happening all across the state, unfortunately.”

That committee is working to toughen HB 324, which, if passed, would effectively make it illegal to teach that “one race or sex is inherently superior to the other,” or even have discussions about America’s racial history, because that could be interpreted as “indoctrination.”

In effect, Republicans believe that what they call “CRT” would teach white children that they are inherently bad because of how badly their ancestors have historically treated Black people. Apparently white parents across the nation have that impression, and are rising up in arms at local school board meetings, apparently taking the GOP political bait that Democratic liberals are trying to miseducate their children.

Last week, a New Hanover County Public School Board meeting had to be halted because “concerned” white parents demanded that CRT not be taught.

        Sen. Berger has cited both Durham and Charlotte - where public school leadership have respectively welcomed a more accurate teaching of America’s racial history - as examples of exactly what he vows to fight “…with everything I have.”

NC Democrats, as best as they can, aren’t having it.

“If we want to learn from history, then we need to teach history - all of it, the good and the bad,” NC Senate Democratic Leader Dan Blue (D-Wake) wrote in a July 14th tweet.

“When we exclude the hard parts, we are doing a disservice to our students an our country,” he continued.

Sen. Blue’s Democratic colleagues agree.

“HB 324 “would limit teachers’ and students’ ability to have crucial conversations that address the systematic inequities in the United States that persist today,” say NC Senate Democrats.

“I fear that what it really does away with is critical thinking in the classroom,” said Sen. Jay Chaudhuri (D-Wake)

but Democrats in the state Senate, and House, are in the minority, so unless Gov. Cooper can veto the HB 324, it will become law.

Not willing to pass up a golden political opportunity when they see it in the leadup to the crucial 2022 midterm elections, NC Senate Republicans are moving to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot to ban affirmative action in the state, and that’s something Gov. Cooper cannot veto.

If passed, that would prohibit North Carolina colleges and universities from using race as key factors in admissions, and employers from using it in hiring.

Thus, Senate bill 729 “…would prohibit discrimination against or preferential treatment toward “any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.”

Currently, race is allowed to be a factor in North Carolina university admissions.

-30-

                                             ANDREW BROWN, JR.

AS LAWSUIT IN ANDREW

BROWN CASE FILED,

REPUBLICANS WANT TO 

TOUGHEN BODYCAM LAW

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

It was three months ago this week, on April 21st, when Pasquotank Sheriff’s deputies fatally shot and unarmed Andrew Brown, Jr., 42, in front of his Elizabeth City home as they were serving a warrant for his arrest.

The three deputies responsible have not been criminally charged, but last week the Brown estate filed a $30 million federal lawsuit against Dare County Sheriff Doug Doughtie, Pasquotank County Tommy Wooten, and the seven Pasquotank deputies involved.

Reportedly, Dare County law enforcement worked with Pasquotank authorities in identifying Brown per the outstanding warrant.

Meanwhile, there months after the fatal shooting, none of the sheriff’s deputies’ bodycam footage of the killing has been officially released to the family or the media by a judge, as has been demanded by the family and protestors.

Now there’s word that Republican lawmakers want to actually make it tougher for the families of police shooting victims, or the media, to obtain law enforcement bodycam footage in a timely manner after an incident. 

Currently, only a judge can release the footage. 

In May, a bipartisan group of senators sought to rewrite the law so the families could have access within five days, unless law enforcement can show why that should not be the case.

But now, thanks to lobbying by the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association, the families would not have automatic access to the bodycam. A judge would be the sole arbiter of who sees the footage, and when.

The new proposed version, Senate Bill 300 also would not prohibit those who see the bodycam footage from describing what they saw, but it would criminally punish anyone who made an unauthorized copy, and then publicly released it.

SB 300 was passed by the Senate, and is currently in the state House Rules Committee.

In the $30 million lawsuit filed by Andrew Brown Jr.’s estate against  the Dare and Pasquotank County sheriff’s departments, it contends that Brown’s constitutional rights were violated when deputies used unlawful deadly force as he drove away in an attempt to flee upon their arrival. The suit continues that there was no evidence of Brown posing a threat as he was unarmed, and thus, his was a “wrongful death” and “battery and assault.”

The lawsuit also seeks the full public release of all bodycam footage of the Brown fatal shooting.

Some of that footage was displayed by Pasquotank District Attorney Andrew Womble during a May press conference where he announce that he would not criminally charge three of the seven county deputies for firing into Brown’s vehicle.

Andrew Brown Jr. was killed when one of the bullets fired by deputies at his moving vehicle struck him in the back of his head.

-30-

STATE NEWS BRIEFS FOR 07-22-21

COMMUNITY EXPRESSES CONCERN ABOUT POLICY 5120

[WILMINGTON] Concerned citizens met with members of Black Lives Matter and New Hanover County Educational Justice Tuesday afternoon at the 1898 Memorial to discuss how NHC Public Schools Policy 5120 is written regarding whether parents have to be called if they are questioned by law enforcement or searched by law enforcement. That policy was passed on first reading Tuesday night. The main concern was that without clarification, students of color, special needs students and others will be abused by law enforcement. Even though the new version of Policy 5120 reportedly suggests that parents will be called, there was still concern by community activists that the language is still not clear enough before it is adopted.

“This policy has to be changed and the parents should be present with law-enforcement talk to their children even if it’s a witness or interrogation any form or fashion they should be there and I want people to understand that we have to sign up for children and be the voice for our children,” said Sonya Patrick, local leader of Black Lives Matter.

NHC SCHOOL BOARD MEETING HELD REMOTELY AFTER PREVIOUS OUTBURST

[WILMINGTON] After last week’s New Hanover County Public School Board meeting was disrupted by people speaking out of turn, and angry parents yelling about the possibility of Critical Race Theory being taught, the board decided to complete the meeting by Zoom this week to forestall any other disruptions. The board even had speakers who were properly signed up last week but not heard tape what they had to say.

School Board Chair Stephanie Adams chided those who disrupted last week’s live meeting, one that she did not attend. Adams maintained that disruptions cannot be tolerated.

STUDENTS WILL STILL HAVE TO WEAR MASKS; NEW SOCIAL STUDIES CURRICULUM ADOPTED

[WILMINGTON] Many parents believe that with the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic waning, their children should not have to wear protective masks to school, Tuesday evening, the NHCPublic School Board maintained that because the state still requires children’s faces to be covered while they’re class.

Meanwhile NHC Public Schools will adopt the new NC Social Studies Standards for this fall, which are designed to dive deeper into “underrepresented voices” throughout history, and challenge all students to learn more about the impact of slavery and the civil rights movement, but challenge them to better understand these events through critical thinking and discussion.

NHC Public Schools Supt. Dr. Charles Foust assured the public that what has been labeled as “Critical Race Theory”- a 40-year-old law school lesson -  is not part of the curriculum. “Is there reference of slavery in history? Yes. Is there reference of injustices in the history books? Yes. Are we teaching critical race theory as it’s written at the collegiate level and at the — when you’re getting your JD? No.”

-30-

 

THE CASH STUFF FOR JULY 15TH

                                                                   DONTAE SHARPE

WHY HASN’T DONTAE SHARPE

BEEN GRANTED A PARDON OF 

INNOCENCE BY NOW?

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

Next month, will mark two years since Dontae Sharpe was finally released from prison after 26 years of being falsely convicted for a 1994 Greenville murder he did not commit.

It has been documented in court how Sharpe, then 18, was framed by Greenville police who cajoled so-called witnesses to lie under oath, and also misled the judge overseeing the case.

So there has been little question about Sharpe’s innocence, and yet, activists say Gov. Roy Cooper has inexplicably not granted Sharpe a pardon of innocence - an official acknowledgment by the state of North Carolina that Sharpe was unjustly convicted and imprisoned for 26 years.

Gov. Roy Cooper was petitioned to grant a pardon of innocence in November of 2019.

Without that official designation, Sharpe is not eligible to collect the legislated $50,000 per year, or $750,000 maximum in compensation from the state.

Sharpe, now 46, along with several supporters including Rev. Dr. William Barber, president of Repairers of the Breach, and co-chair of the national Poor People’s Campaign, went to the State Capitol last Friday to ask what is the holdup? 

What else does Gov. Cooper need to know or hear to grant Sharpe what he is rightfully entitled to?

“[Sharpe] represents the great tradition of Black men who have had to walk with their backs straight even when the system was trying to break them and bend them,” Rev. Barber told those gathered.

Sharpe and his supporters delivered letters and petitions containing 17,000 signatures demanding a pardon of innocence for him to representatives of the governor.

“This pardon — I’m not begging for it, I’m not pleading for it. I’m just here to put Mr. Cooper and this whole system on notice that I’m going to keep right on talking. I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing, because there are more guys that I left in there behind me who are innocent,” Sharpe said. “There are still so many [other innocent] people left in [prison].”

Sharpe says he wants repay his mother for all of the money she has spent over the 26 years he had pent in prison helping him, as well as also rebuilding his life.

-30-

                                               NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES

BLACK UNC STUDENTS

DEMAND CHANGE AFTER

HANNAH-JONES INCIDENT

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

In the eyes of many observers, the image of UNC - Chapel Hill in the aftermath of the Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure debacle is in tatters. The question now is “How does UNC go forward being responsive to the needs of it’s Black students, and Black faculty?”

The question is important because as the oldest public university in the nation, UNC - Chapel Hill is supposed to be a beacon of free, informed thinking and research where African-Americans from across the nation from across the nation can come to learn to be become scholars - like Nicole Hanna-Jones - as well as teach to produce the next generation of world changers.

Last week, after Hannah-Jones announced that she was rejecting the UNC Trustee Board’s half-hearted offer of tenure after months of literally ignoring the fact that she had obviously been denied what other scholars of her caliber had been previously and automatically been given when recruited to teach at the journalism and media school, Black UNC students made clear that they would be heard.

The “horrible way,” Hannah-Jones says, Black student demonstrators were treated by campus police at the June 30th emergency trustee board meeting, being pushed  and grabbed with none of the administrators coming to their defense, cinched her decision to accept Howard University’s generous offer to teach there.

If the university wants to redeem itself, Hannah-Jones told the Raleigh News and Observer afterwards, it needs to apologize to its Black students for that harsh treatment during the tenure vote; come clean on why the trustee had ignored codifying Hannah-Jones’ tenure in the offer she was made since last year; and change the process of how the mostly white male UNC System Board of Governors an the UNC - Chapel Hill Trustee Board are chosen so that both reflect the true demographics, racial an gender makeup of North Carolina and the school.

Both NC House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate President pro Tem Phil Berger, Republicans, have already backhandedly dismissed changing the boards’ selection process., saying change was not needed, even though  both boards are majority comprised of conservatives.

Reportedly, Black females comprise just 1.9% of all tenured faculty at UNC-Chapel, with tenured Black faculty just 5%, and Black students just 8% - a far cry from North Carolina’s 22% Black population.

Hannah-Jones also wants the trustee board to agree to a list of demands from the Carolina Black Caucus in an effort to retain and recruit Black faculty, many of whom have expressed  a desire either to steer clear of, or leave UNC - Chapel Hill.

Per the Black student 54 point list of demands they want to see the trustee board agree to, it includes a permanent, fully funded monument to James Cates, a previous student stabbed to death on campus in 1970; removing campus police from Residence Hall move-in; establishment of an “anti-racist” alert of white supremacists on campus for Black student safety; no white supremacists, like members of the former Trump administration, being invited to speak or appear on campus, in an effort to “…to create a safer space” for Black students.

The list, supplied by the UNC Black Student Movement (BSM), makes clear that the demands should be approved and go into effect by this August, when the student body returns for the fall semester.

Black UNC students were particularly upset right -wing activists were seen carrying Confederate battle flags on campus last Saturday, and planted smaller flags around the Unsung Founders Memorial, which was erected in 2005 to honor Blacks who helped to build the university.

The students accused UNC police of “looting” known white supremacists to roam the campus freely, while black students were pushed an shoved at the June 30th trustees’ meeting.

-30-

STATE NEWS BRIEFS FOR JULY 15TH, 2021

US NEWS & WORLD REPORTS HIGHLY RANKS RALEIGH-DURHAM AREA

[RALEIGH] A national news magazine ranks the Raleigh-Durham area as the second best of the country in which to live. The latest edition of U.S. News and World Reports ranks Raleigh-Durham second behind Boulder, Colorado in terms of quality of living, per the top 150 cities listed. Next in the Top 5 are Huntsville, Ala., Fayetteville, Ark. and Austin, Texas. Raleigh-Durham moved up from 11th last year. Other North Carolina cities on the Top 150 list are Charlotte at #20; Winston-Salem at #46; Asheville at #48 and Greensboro at #94.

PUBLIC SAFETY SECRETARY HOOKS WILL RETIRE AUGUST 1ST

[RALEIGH] After four and a half years, NC Public Safety Secretary Erik Hooks has announced that he is retiring on August 1st. Before he took over the department, Sec. Hooks served 27 years with the State Bureau of investigation, becoming assistant director in 2005. “Thanks to the leadership of Erik Hooks, North Carolina is a safer, more prepared state,” Gov. Roy Cooper said in a statement. “Under Secretary Hooks, the Department of Public Safety has put the safety of North Carolinians first, working to combat crime, respond to emergencies, including a once-in-a-generation pandemic, attract and retain quality staff and address inequities in the justice system. I’ve been fortunate to know Secretary Hooks for more than two decades, and while his leadership and counsel will be missed, I congratulate him on a well-deserved retirement."

APEX GETS FIRST BLACK FEMALE TOWN MANAGER

[APEX] The Western Wake County town of Apex got it’s first Black female town manger this week, amid a report that it’s police department is “deeply entrenched” with racism. Katy Crosby comes to the job from Toledo, Ohio, where she spent three years serving as chief of staff. Right now, Apex, like other similarly sized towns across the seat, is experiencing rapid growth, and Crosby says she feels that her skillset makes her more than qualified to help continue down that path.

-30-

THE CASH STUFF FOR JULY 8, 2021

JOURNALIST NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES TELLS CBS' GAYLE KING WHY SHE DECLINED UNC-CHAPEL HILL TENURED POSITION OFFER 
 

WHY HANNAH-JONES DECLINED 

UNC-CHAPEL HILL TENURE OFFER

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

Why did Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones decline UNC - Chapel’s belated offer of tenure?

“Look what it took to get tenure,” Hannah-Jones told CBS This Morning Tuesday morning. She noted that every other professional journalist before her since 1980 at UNC - Chapel Hill that had been offered the prestigious position of Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism, had also been given lifetime job security (tenure).

“This is my alma mater. I love the university. The university has given me a lot. I wanted to give back. It was embarrassing to be the first person to be denied tenure,” Hannah-Jones said, insisting that she “…didn’t want this to become a public scandal” when she originally accepted a five-year offer without tenure earlier in the year after the UNC Trustee Board declined to take up her tenure offer last November, and again in January.

The fact that negative political opposition became a major factor against Hannah-Jones taking the job, in addition to her race and gender, is something, she says, she could not tolerate.

“To be [originally] denied [tenure], to have that vote occur on the last possible day, at the last possible moment, after threat of legal action, after 

protests, after it became a national scandal, is not something I want anymore,” Hannah-Jones told CBS.

“Every person who comes up for tenure should be judged by the quality of their work,” Hannah-Jones maintained.

Having passed through UNC-Chapel Hill’s standard tenure process with glowing success, the trustee board was literally the last stage that needed to be cleared.

“These board members were political appointees who decided that I wasn’t [qualified for tenure],”Hannah-Jones said, adding later that it was “illegal discrimination.”

The heralded black journalist confirmed that she will instead take the inaugural Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism at Howard University. considered the nation’s premiere historically black university, in addition to starting the Center for Journalism and Democracy for serious students of the craft, teaching the principles of good professional journalism, but in the tradition of the Black Press.

According to NC Policywatch, which first broke the Hannah-Jones versus UNC story, she is raising at least $25 million for the establishment of the center, which will not have a name for now..

In a statement from Howard University Tuesday, at least $20 million has already been raised for the project.

Another reason why Hannah-Jones turned thumbs down on UNC-Chapel Hill, even with the tenure vote last week, is that no one from the administration nor the trustee board reached out to speak to her, nor explain anything to her.

The UNC Trustee Board voted in a 9-4 decision on June 30th to grant Hannah-Jones the tenure no other scholar at the school has ever had to fight for.

The decision came one day before Hannah-Jones was officially scheduled to begin working at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media. 

The Hannah-Jones victory is seen not only as a win for black females in academia on college campuses, but justice for free speech advocates in this current corrosive political atmosphere against the teaching of true American racial history.

By the time the 13-member UNC Trustee Board met again in an emergency session last week, it was clear that conservative politics had played a role in denying Hannah-Jones tenure because of her leadership on the controversial NY Times’ award-winning 1619 Project, which retold the story of the founding of America, but this time through the prism of institutionalized slavery.

A major donor to the UNC Hussman School, conservative publisher and alumnus Walter Edward Hussman Jr., was revealed to have sent deriding emails to top UNC administrators about Hannah-Jones, questioning her journalistic professionalism. 

It took threatened litigation by Hannah-Jones’ attorneys and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, in addition to a mountain of national criticism that put UNC- Chapel Hill’s academic and institutional reputation at risk, to finally coerce the UNC Trustee Board back to the table after it had refused take up the issue since last November.

Prior to the board vote, angry protestors disrupted the June 30th meeting, refusing to leave, not realizing that the board legally could not either publicly discuss or hold a vote on what was essentially a personnel issue without going into closed session.

That forced UNC police to physically remove students from the meeting place, and some viewing the proceedings online as criticizing law enforcement for being heavy-handed.

After the affirming 9-4 trustee board vote, Hannah-Jones issued a statement which read:

“Today’s outcome and the actions of the past month are about more than just me. This fight is about ensuring the journalistic and academic freedom of Black writers, researchers, teachers and students. We must ensure that our work is protected and able to proceed free from the risk of repercussions, and we are not there yet.”

“She is a journalist’s journalist, a teacher’s teacher and a woman of substance with a voice of consequence,” wrote Hussman School Dean Susan King. 

Hannah-Jones told CBS that King was very supportive of her throughout the controversy, and one of the very few she told she was not accepting the position last weekend when she came down to North Carolina.

Observers say this is not finished, and to still expect legal action from Nikole Hannah-Jones against UNC at Chapel Hill for discrimination.

-30-

                                                                       BILL COSBY

                                                            PROF. IRV JOYNER

LEGAL ANALYSIS OF

VOTING RIGHTS 

COSBY DECISIONS

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

Last week the conservative majority U.S. Supreme Court handed down another major blow to the voting rights of citizens of color when, by a 6-3 margin, it sided with Arizona in effectively saying, according to POLITICO, that “…rules amounting to only a modest imposition on voters would not usually amount to a violation of the [Voting Rights Act].”

“The mere fact there is some disparity in impact does not necessarily mean that a system is not equally open or that it does not give everyone an equal opportunity to vote,” wrote Associate Justice Samuel Alito for the conservative majority.”The size of any disparity matters. What are at bottom very small differences should not be artificially magnified.”

Most legal experts sat the decision will now make it harder to challenge voting laws as discriminatory.

Professor Irving Joyner of North Carolina Central University School of Law, agrees.

“The old saying that bad facts make bad law applies to this challenge,” Joyner, who is also a practicing civil rights attorney and head of the NC NAACP’s Legal Redress Committee, says.

“The voter-rights related issue has to do with out-of-precinct voting. Typically, on Election Day, voters must vote in the precinct in which they are assigned. That is also the law in North Carolina. The evidence showed that this requirement would only impact a very small number of people. This allowed the [U.S. Supreme] Court to rule, for the first time, that a small racial disparity or impact does not violate the Voting Rights Act. What is a small disparity is not defined, but it now imposes a new  legal and factual burden on [VRA] Section 2 claims and you must now establish the existence of more than a small disparity in order to prove this challenge. The racial disparity in the Arizona was 1%. Depending on the political race, a 1% disparity can have a major impact on election success, but this decision now adds a new unknown standard to the burden of proving a sufficient discriminatory impact by an act of the Legislature.”

In other words, if a mandated act of the state legislature causes even a small percentage drop of black voting in any particular election, it will be much harder to challenge that act now under the High Court Arizona ruling.

Rev. Dr. T. Anthony Spearman, president of the NC NAACP, issued a tough statement, saying the 6-3 decision  “…endorsed the ugly extremist strain within that has wormed its way into  the once-proud Republican Party. 

In another headline-making ruling last week, this time by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the 2018 sexual assault conviction of entertainer Bill Cosby was vacated because the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by the prior agreement of a previous prosecutor not to try Cosby in exchange for his admitting in a civil deposition that he, in fact, sexually assaulted one of the 60 women who accused him.

Cosby, 83, was released from prison after saving almost 3 years of his 3to 10 year sentence.

Atty. Irv Joyner agrees with most legal experts that the reversal of Cosby’s conviction had absolutely nothing to do with the so-called #Me Too Movement.

“At the outset of the original charges against Cosby, the then elected prosecutor struck a deal with Cosby, which provided him with a type of immunity from prosecution, if he would participate in a deposition in a civil suit which this accuser had brought against him. Cosby agreed to this deposition based on this agreement. Cosby and any other person can not be forced to give self-incriminating testimony, but as a result of this agreement, he provided testimony which incriminated him.”

“On this point, the law is clear that when the [original]prosecutor offered not to prosecute Cosby in return for the deposition testimony, the State of Pennsylvania was barred from ever reneging on that deal,” Joyner continues.  “The newly elected prosecutor violated the law when he decided to renege on this agreement. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision said that when the State enters an agreement with a person and obtains its end of the bargain, a later elected prosecutor can not breach that agreement.”

“The Supreme Court’s opinion did not analyze the merits of the sexual assault case against Bill Cosby,” Prof. Joyner continued. “It simply stated that the prosecutor knowingly violated Pennsylvania law when he made the decision to prosecute Cosby after he had already been given immunity from that prosecution.”

Cosby cannot be retried in criminal court in this case, and the Pennsylvania statute of limitations ha virtually run out on the other sexual abuse allegations by other women.

-30-

STATE NEWS BRIEFS

RALEIGH CITY COUNCIL CONSIDERING LOCAL CROWN ACT

[RALEIGH] The Raleigh City council is considering instituting it’s own version of the CROWN Act, a national movement to prevent discrimination against anyone because of the appearance of their hair. The Wake County Commissioners passed a CROWN Act in March. Durham was the first city in North Carolina to institute it. Fayetteville is reportedly considering a similar measure.

UNC-CHAPEL POLICE CHIEF RESIGNS AFTER LESS THAN TWO YEARS

[CHAPEL HILL] After less than two years on the job, UNC-Chapel Hill Police Chief David Perry, who has been on leave since last May, has submitted his resignation to the university. Perry did so June 30th in the aftermath of video released showing UNC officers pushing UNC student supporters of Nikole Hannah-Jones out of a Board of Trustees meeting to discuss her tenure. While a national search goes on for a replacement, Asst. Chief Rahsheem Holland is serving as acting chief. Members of the Black Student Movement oppose Holland staying in that position.

STATE LAWMAKERS DECIDE TO DELETE THEIR EMAILS AFTER THREE YEARS

[RALEIGH] In an effort to cutdown on cloud storage costs, state legislators have decided to delete most of their email correspondence after three years. They can, however, choose to archive certain emails for up to ten years. Still, observers say, the new policy will be problematic for pushing for greater transparency from their state leaders. The new email retention policy will also be a problem for those relying on those emails as evidence when filing lawsuits.

-30-

 

THE CASH STUFF FOR JULY 1, 2021

 

DEREK CHAUVIN

                                                                   GEORGE FLOYD

WHAT DOES CHAVIN SENTENCE

SIGNAL FOR FUTURE POLICE

SHOOTING BLACKS CASES?

Cash Michaels

An Analysis

Because of Minnesota’s sentencing guidelines, the most time that former Minnesota Police Officer Derek Chauvin could have expected to have been punished with for the May 25, 2020 second, third-degree murder and manslaughter of unarmed North Carolinian George Floyd was 40 years in prison.

The Chauvin case, the first of four connected to Floyd’s slaying, was watershed in terms of the aggressive prosecution, but in the opinion of many, including some of Floyd’s family, the 22.5 year sentence rendered by presiding District Court Judge Peter Cahill on June 25th didn’t go far enough to send a message to racist and abusive police officers that unnecessary brutality against unarmed black citizens is no longer to be  tolerated by the criminal justice system, but will be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

"Derek Chauvin will spend a significant portion of his life behind bars ... so that seems to be appropriate," Ayesha Bell Hardaway, assistant professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law told the Insider, an online magazine. "I'm hesitant, as some may be inclined to, to think that it means anything significant about police reform in this country." 

Indeed Chauvin - a relatively young 45 years of age - could be walking the streets of Minnesota again in just 15 years with good behavior, critics say. Given that Chauvin displayed no mercy or consideration for George Floyd’s life when he handcuffed, and then jammed his knee against Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes until the life drained out of the black man, many critics believed deserved the maximum punishment under Minnesota law.

"What kind of message are you sending to our country?" Brandon Williams, Floyd’s nephew, asked at a family press conference after the sentence was handed down. "What kind of message are you sending to the younger kids like Gianna (Floyd’s young daughter), that you can kill a man in cold blood and get a slap on the wrist?"

The message that was sent, many activists agree is that similar police abuse cases will continue to require maximum pressure from family members, their attorneys and the community on the criminal justice system to deliver requisite justice when a sworn officer acts beyond the scope of their oath, ultimately taking a life in the process.

That axiom is certainly clear here in North Carolina, where the Andrew Brown Jr. police killing case in Pasquotank County continues to be an open wound for the family and community.

"If we're being honest with ourselves…,” said former Pres. Barack Obama after Chauvin guilty verdict in April, “… we know that true justice is about much more than a single verdict in a single trial."

Still, in the minds and hearts of others, including members of George Floyd’s family, while Derek Chauvin didn’t get the maximum sentence allowed, he did get enough for them to move forward with.

"It will certainly give him something to think about – the devastation that he caused for our family and what we had to relive during that trial," Roger Floyd, George Floyd’s uncle in Raleigh told WRAL-TV last week, said.

"As a family, we're doing so much better," he added. "We're getting there one day at a time, and I think this [sentence] will somewhat close the chapter on this aspect of it."

Derek Chauvin still faces federal civil rights violation charges.

Passage of H.R. 7120 - the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, is still pending in the U. S. Senate.

-30-

STATE SENATE TO JOIN 

HOUSE IN OUTLAWING

“CRITICAL RACE THEORY”

BY Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

Now that they’ve passed their version of the proposed 2021-22 state budget, Republican legislative leaders are gearing up to join their state House counterparts in outlawing critical race theory (CRT).

Or at least what they “think” is critical race theory.

FACT - according to Vox, “…critical race theory, created four decades ago by legal scholars, is an academic framework for examining how racism is embedded in America’s laws and institutions. It is just now receiving widespread attention because it has morphed into a catchall category, one used by Republicans who want to ban anti-racist teachings and trainings in classrooms and workplaces across the country.”

Indeed, beyond the drive in GOP-led legislatures across the nation to quickly pass so-called “election integrity” laws, under the erroneous accusation that the presidential results of the November 2020 elections were somehow corrupted, nothing else has grown more legislative legs than the push to outlaw what Republicans “think” is leftist indoctrination in the nation’s public schools regarding American and state racial history.

Here in North Carolina, House Bill 324 - the Ensuring Dignity and Nondiscrimination /Schools Act, passed by the state House in May and now pending in the State Senate, states that it would “…demonstrate the General Assembly’s intent that students , teachers , administrators, and other school employees recognize the equality and rights of all persons and to prohibit public school units from promoting certain concepts that are contrary to that intent.”

Further on in the measure, it is stated that public schools “shall not promote…one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex,” or that “…an individual, solely by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”

And the bill doesn’t stop there. According to HB 324, now pending in the state Senate, public schools “shall not promote that …an individual , solely by virtue of his or her race or sex, bern responsibility for actions committed in the past by other member of the same race or sex. Any individual , solely by virtue of his or he race or sex, should feel discomfort , guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress. That the belief that the United States is a meritocracy is an inherently racist or sexist belief, or that the United States was created by members of a particular race or sex for the purpose of oppressing members of another race or sex.”

The act, when passed by the state Senate, becomes effective July 1st, 2021.

So even though the term or phrase “critical race theory” is never used in the legislation, conservatives and Republicans have decided to label anything that speaks to the racial history of the United States, or negative conditions and treatment of people of color today as critical race theory.

Thus, teaching how the white supremacy of 1898 Wilmington still has roots in racial bias in the port city today would now be illegal.

Teaching how racial segregation historically hurt Black public school students in North Carolina, and continue to do so today, would now be illegal.

And of course, not hiring Nikole Hannah-Jones to teach at UNC - Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media after she authored the controversial 1619 Project would not be illegal under HB 324, but certainly go against conservative orthodoxy.

Teaching from the 1619 Project about how important American institutions were born in the cradle of slavery and racism…that would be illegal, and is already in several other states like Texas and Idaho.

Indeed, black Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, and Republican Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, have already blasted both the Charlotte and Durham public school systems for promoting critical race theory to their students.

And GOP budget writers have deliberately not funded the establishment of black historical monuments for the proposed state Capitol grounds, saying that now is “not the time.”

The question now is …when Republicans in the NC Senate ratify HB 324, will Gov. Roy Cooper sign it?

                                                     -30-

STATE NEWS BRIEFS FOR JULY 1, 2021

ST. AUG’S FORGIVES COVID-19 DEBT

[RALEIGH] About 800 students at HBCU St. Augustine’s University are happy, not only that the pandemic seems to be over, but that, thanks to over $9 million in federal Coronavirus AID, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act funding, many of their unpaid balances to the school from the most recent semesters, have been paid off. Now students at St. Aug., and other historically black colleges and universities across the state, can also continue their studies without the weight of pressing bills from the pandemic. 

Shaw University used $1 million in CARES Act funding to pay for summer school for hundreds of students.

UNCW PROFESSOR TARGETED FOR CONTROVERSIAL POSTING

[WILMINGTON] Dan Johnson, an associate professor at UNC - Wilmington, recently posted the phrase, “Blow up Republicans” on his Facebook page. As a result, the UNCW chancellor and Board of Trustees have now gotten into the act, apparently forcing Johnson to apologize. Critics say what Johnson posted was constitutionally protected speech, and civil libertarians should be weary of not challenging overbearing investigations into such.

NCNAACP ALLEGES RACISM BY STATE AUDITOR AND SENATOR

[ROCKY MOUNT] State NAACP President. Rev. Dr. T. Anthony Spearman is alleging racism against Democrat State Auditor Beth Wood and Republican state Sen. Lisa Barnes regarding who he insists are false allegations of corruption in the predominately black Rocky Mount City government. Woods was chided for probing an alleged $48,000 in utility bills owed by Councilmember Andre Knight. That debt was reported forgiven by the black city manager. Knight has vigorously denied the allegations, calling them “a lie.” Sen. Barnes is sponsoring SB 473, basically targeting Knight’s alleged corruption.

-30-