After North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson formally introduced his candidacy for governor in 2024, many on social media rapidly in contrast him to the “Boondocks” character Uncle Ruckus, a Black animated character recognized for his self-hate.
Critics level to outdated movies and rally statements as proof that the 54-year-old Republican is a boot-strapper who rails towards Blacks who consider they’re owed one thing from the nation.
Twitter consumer Nikki Barnes posted one video with the caption, “Wow! This Black Republican candidate for Governor says it’s Black Individuals that owe REPARATIONS to this nation for our ‘freedom.’ That’s a brand new take.”
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“There have been some individuals speaking about reparations on this nation,” Robinson started his speech on the 2021 North Carolina Republican State Conference. “And I bear in mind I made this explicit liberal so indignant at me as a result of I instructed them — proper to their face — no person owes you something for slavery.”
In keeping with the politician’s logic, if anybody owed anybody reparations, it will be the Twenty first-century Black one that advantages from the struggles of their ancestors.
“It’s you who owes. Why do you owe? As a result of anyone in these fields took strikes for you,” he stated, referencing chattel slavery and the way enslaved individuals had been whipped whereas they labored cultivating cotton, tobacco, rice, and different crops on plantations.
He continued, “After these fields had been ended and slavery was ended, anyone needed to stroll via Jim Crow for you. Anyone fought wars and died for you. Anyone lived lower than as a result of they didn’t have what you might have, and so they did it for you.”
The lieutenant governor referenced the Selma, Alabama, march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge and famous how some members carried flags on the day now referred to as “Bloody Sunday.”
“Take that, Colin Kaepernick,” he stated as he painted a portrait of patriotism by invoking the picture of “Previous Glory.”
Robinson tossed the potshot on the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, implying his kneeling to protest police brutality in 2016 was towards the American flag. Nevertheless, Kaepernick truly kneeled throughout pregame performances of the nationwide anthem, not essentially due to the flag.
“He has by no means recognized residing with a bigotry that none of us can think about,” including, “[They] carried American flags on that bridge, and once they had been hit upside the pinnacle with nightsticks and shot with water hoses, and knocked to the bottom, they bought up and picked these flags up, and saved marching.”
“No person owes you something. It’s you. You owe since you’ve been the benefactor of freedom,” the clip ends.
After listening to Robinson’s speech, one individual requested, “What within the Uncle Ruckus is occurring right here??”
Sha_Elise24 tweeted, “We because the members of the Black Delegation wish to make a commerce to another delegation that’s .”
Alisa Renee referred to as Robinson “embarrassing.”
“My ancestors had been solely crushed and abused as a result of America regarded them as lower than human, not as a result of they had been bearing the burden for me,” she wrote. “They had been simply attempting to outlive in a rustic that hated them. This take from a Black man in NC is so embarrassing.”
Robinson, the primary Black individual to function lieutenant governor for the Tar Heel State, has made different statements about abortion, weapons, the LGBTQIA group, crucial race idea, and disparaging issues about ladies which have alarmed individuals, in line with WRAL.
One among his most controversial statements was about ladies.
“God despatched ladies out … once they needed to do their factor, however when it was time to face down Goliath, [He] despatched David. Not Davida, David,” he stated.
When speaking about crucial race idea, he believes it shouldn’t be launched into colleges as a result of it exposes youngsters to “Marxist thought” and can tear the nation aside.
“If we proceed to push CRT, it’s going to tear us aside,” he says on the My Religion Votes YouTube channel. “It’s going to take us backward and never forwards. So, we’d like to ensure we guard ourselves towards that.”
Whereas he believes CRT shouldn’t be taught, he does consider the trans-Atlantic slave commerce needs to be within the curriculum.
“In the case of instructing our historical past, you can not educate our historical past with out instructing the dangerous parts of our historical past,” the politician stated.
After instructing that, he says, academics need to be trustworthy and present how individuals of various races got here collectively, utilizing the instruments of the Structure and laws to struggle towards bigotry.
