Source: theGrio
The national media is continuing to take a deep dive into Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s history and what they’re finding has shocked many people in North Carolina and across the country who hadn’t heard of him before or didn’t know what he stood for.
One of the topics that Robinson is now drawing backlash for is his views on the Black community and Black American history. Although the lieutenant governor is Black, that hasn’t stopped him from attacking Civil Rights heroes, the Civil Rights Movement, Black women, Black celebrities and musicians, and even the descendants of slaves.
Robinson also downplayed racism against Black Americans and went so far as to say that descendants of those who were enslaved should pay reparations to the government.
“Nobody owes you anything for slavery. If you want to tell the truth about it, it is YOU who owes. You who owes,” Mark Robinson said to a room full of mostly white Republicans at the 2021 NCGOP State Convention.
The Black news site theGrio recently looked into Robinson’s past comments on the Black community and spoke with political experts and advocates about the impact of his words and the effect it could have on the success of Republicans on the ballot in North Carolina.
Donald Trump has called Robinson “Martin Luther King on steroids” and “Martin Luther King times two” – but Robinson himself has said the Civil Rights Movement was “crap,” called the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., an “ersatz pastor” and a “communist,” and disavowed being any part of the Black community, once writing “Why would I want to be part of a ‘community’ that sucks from the putrid tit of the government and then complains about getting sour milk?”
“The MAGA movement has made it a practice to platform their most dangerous views and harmful stereotypes through figures like Robinson, [Herschel] Walker, Diamond and Silk and other borderline minstrels,” Markus Batchelor, national political director with People For the American Way, told theGrio. “It’s given room for conspiracy theorists and attention-seekers to be masqueraded as legitimate representatives of Black America.”
One Democratic strategist theGrio spoke with, Joel Payne, said having Robinson’s name on the ballot could hurt Republicans.
“Mark Robinson should make North Carolina a winnable battleground state for Democrats,” he said. “You’re talking about a candidate that is so alienating and ostracizing to such a large swath of people that I actually think it could impact the top of the ticket. That’s how grotesque and how over the line his opinions are.
A Quinnipiac Poll of registered North Carolina voters conducted earlier in April showed that Robinson is trailing Democrat Josh Stein, by 8% – 52% to 44%, which is significantly outside the margin of error of +/- 2.6 percentage points.
Da’Quan Love, executive director of the NAACP North Carolina State Conference, told theGrio that Robinson is “bringing out the deeply rooted racism that may have been swept under the rug by a lot of others in the past. He is making folks feel comfortable enough to [say] their racist thoughts out loud. He’s saying the quiet part out loud, same as President Trump.”
“The hate that he spews is an inherent threat to the ability of Black North Carolinians to be able to survive and thrive over the next four years,” Love added.
The lieutenant governor calls himself a “threat” to Democrats because he believes he appeals to minority voters, he said while appearing on a podcast in March.
“In my case, what [Black voters] really see is they see a candidate that is able to reach out to those folks, bring common sense solutions to the problems they face, and then they see someone who looks like them.”
Unfortunately for Robinson, the majority of Black voters in North Carolina don’t see it that way.
According to a February Meredith Poll, only 3% of likely Black voters said they’d vote for Robinson over Democrat Josh Stein this fall. That’s a drop from last November’s Meredith Poll which showed 15% support among Black voters.
Robinson must explain why he believes that someone who makes the following comments should be viewed favorably by the people they are targeting:
- “Deadbeat men, the whorish women they breed with, and the undisciplined children they produce are the top three issues (in that order) that cause African American culture to be a dismal failure.” – Mark Robinson, Facebook, 11/2/17
- “African Americans love to kill each other and have no problem embracing deviant, hyper sexual behavior. So it’s no surprise they would vote for a guy who supports abortion and gay marriage.” – Mark Robinson, Facebook, 12/14/17 (the post has since been deleted)
- “One of my main goals in life is to purge any remaining vestiges of loyalty to my skin tone that remain within me.” – Mark Robinson, Facebook, 11/12/14
- “So many things were lost during the Civil Rights Movement. So many freedoms were lost during the Civil Rights Movement that shouldn’t have been lost.” – Mark Robinson, “Politics and Prophecy” podcast, March 2018.
- Referred to the civil rights era as the “so-called Civil Rights Movement” and criticized the Greensboro Woolworth sit-ins as a “ridiculous premise” meant to pull “the rug out from underneath capitalism and free choice and the free market.”
- Claimed that Planned Parenthood and Black gang members did more to “eradicate the Black race” than the Ku Klux Klan.
Black voters in North Carolina, Da’Quan Love said, want “access to mobility and a thriving economy,” affordable housing, broadband internet access and “fully funded” public schools. He said political figures like Robinson are “dividing our state and our country.”
“While they think that they’re just sowing division and spewing hatred,” he added, “they’re actually really revving us up to get folks out to the polls.”
