racism

To those who ever harbored any doubts about how truly blatant and virulent the racism and white supremacy were that dominated North Carolina’s culture, law and politics well into the 20th Century, Pulitzer Prize winning author David Zucchino’s most recent book, Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy is a “must read.” Here’s a way to get an inkling of just how grim the reality was that Zucchino describes in his painstaking account of the brutal insurrection that was perpetrated against the multi-racial government of what was, at the time, North Carolina’s largest city:

Tatyana Ali, who starred as Ashley Banks on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” from 1990 to 1996, entered Harvard the next year where she double majored in government and African-American studies. In 2016, Ali and her husband, an English professor at Stanford, welcomed their first child, but only after mother and baby were roughly treated by a hospital’s obstetrics team, she testified Thursday to the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee.

WASHINGTON — When U.S. Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri was pregnant with her first child, Zion, she saw a sign in her doctor’s office encouraging her to speak up about anything unusual she was feeling. She did so, telling her physician that she was having severe pains, but her concerns were swiftly dismissed. The doctor told Bush, who is African American, that she was fine and sent her home — and one week later, Bush went into early labor.

There’s no doubt that serving as a law enforcement officer in most parts of modern America is an extremely difficult and often thankless job, or that most of those who serve are good people doing fine work. Unfortunately, this doesn’t change the fact that our nation is mired in a terrible vicious cycle right now in which people of color – usually, but not always, young men – are being repeatedly and wrongfully killed or terrorized by white cops.

No one should have been on the edge of their seat about the verdict in Derek Chauvin’s trial. He was caught on video kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes as Floyd begged for his life. But this is America, where police are almost never held accountable, so we held our breath and prepared for Chauvin to be acquitted. 

Nearly 40 years ago, Yolanda Strickland felt the sting of racism for the first time. She was 10, a fourth-grader at Haw Elementary School in Alamance County. Her “best friend” rescinded an invitation to a sleepover after the friend’s parents learned that Strickland was Black.

Decades after the enactment of civil rights laws, people of color remain largely excluded from the county's political power structure To go to Alamance County is to step back in time, to the days of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.   More than a half-century later, law enforcement officers pepper-sprayed and arrested anti-racist protesters.

These are especially difficult times in the United States when it comes to matters of race and ethnicity. Thanks in part to former President Trump’s disgraceful and cynical tolerance and encouragement of white supremacists, race-based hate crimes have spiked in recent years. Attacks on Asian Americans and Pacific islanders in particular – like the horrific murders that rocked Atlanta last week – are up dramatically.

Part one: A troubled history of racism, violence and repression On a cold and drizzly February night in 1870 a mob of Klansmen came for Wyatt Outlaw, the first Black town commissioner of Graham. Wearing robes and hoods, and armed with torches, swords and pistols, some 20 men broke down the door of his home on Main Street.

When the State places its noose around a white woman’s neck, the world cries foul. On January 13, Lisa Montgomery, a white woman, was led to the death chamber. The federal government used its weapon of choice, lethal injection, to kill her. She was the first woman executed by the federal government in 68 years. Widely condemned, her execution was seen as a tragic killing of a victim of horrific sexual and physical abuse.

This month, I watched the federal government execute two Black men in two days, Brandon Bernard and Alfred Bourgeois. In an unprecedented and spiteful move, Trump’s lame-duck administration has undertaken a spree of executions after a 17-year hiatus. If all goes as planned, thirteen people will be killed before Joe Biden, who has pledged to end the federal death penalty, takes office. Six of the last seven will be Black men.