We don’t know if, as late black economist Professor Walter Williams would occasionally quip, he’s “black by popular demand,” but Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson (R-N.C.) sure is getting attention.
This will happen when you do things such as calling for reparations — from blacks.
Robinson, who’s running for North Carolina’s governorship and appears a lock to win the GOP primary, is certainly an iconoclastic candidate. No, he doesn’t actually believe that blacks should pay reparations to whites; he was making a point about the foolishness of the slavery reparations argument. But it is absolutely true that Robinson is no fan of grievance politics or even the civil-rights movement, calling the latter a “communist plot to subvert capitalism.”
The lieutenant governor’s reparations comments were made a few years ago. But black-grievance website The Root reported on them just yesterday, writing:
“If you want to tell the truth about it, it is you who owes,” said Robinson during the 2021 North Carolina Republican Party Convention, seemingly referring to Black Americans. “Why do you owe? Because somebody in those fields took strikes for you. After those fields were ended and slavery was ended, somebody had to walk through Jim Crow for you. Somebody fought wars and died for you. Somebody lived less than because they didn’t have what you have, and they did it for you. There are people in their graves right now, and they are there because they were willing to stand up and fight for you.”
In reality, if you accept the supposition that people are answerable for the deeds of those from the past who looked like them (not even necessarily their ancestors), then there’s much to sort out. As I’ve often argued, for example, if there can be collective-descendant blame, there also can be collective-descendant credit. Implications: Yes, whites may owe slavery reparations.
But then whites also must receive royalties for all the innovations, inventions, and other wonders they birthed that made modern civilization — with its recognized human rights, wealth, luxuries, and lifespans — possible. Then I can pay my reparations with a portion of my royalty check. Deal?
As for slavery, Robinson has also raised race-hustler ire by discussing its actual history. As he wrote in a 2017 Facebook post explaining why he wouldn’t call himself “African-American”:
It was AFRICANS who fought wars against AFRICANS and then enslaved the losers. It was victorious AFRICAN warriors who sold defeated AFRICAN warriors to European slave traders in exchange for cloth, guns, and money. It was AFRICANS that facilitated the kidnaping [sic] of other AFRICANS to be marched off to the slave forts on the AFRICAN coast. It was AFRICANS who watched as AFRICANS were sailed away in the belly of slave ships toward the brutal system of chattel slavery. It was AFRICANS who increased their power through the enslavement of AFRICANS. And today it is AFRICANS who are still doing this to AFRICANS.
Now I ask you. Why would I want to put the name of the culture that fought to sell black people into slavery, in front of the name of the culture that fought to FREE black people from slavery? As far as I’m concerned, the moment the long lost ancestor that created my bloodline here in AMERICA was sold in AFRICA my ties to that continent were CUT.
They want me to call my self “African-American.”
It’s not going to happen.
Critics should know that Robinson isn’t alone in this. In 2022, legendary black singer Smokey Robinson (no relation) passionately stated, “I resent being called an African-American — I really do…. I enjoy being called black.”
Note here the real point: “African-American” is not just a racial descriptor (as “black” is). Rather, it partially shifts the focus away from the land in which we live and toward a different part of the world. This is destructive and divisive because many black Americans already feel alienated from their nation. The AA label can only exacerbate this problem.
The Root also complained that Robinson has “compared slavery to abortion” and “said that white laborers had it just as bad ‘if not worse than Black slaves.’”
In reality, the slavery-abortion comparison is most valid, as author and philosopher Michael Pakaluk illustrated brilliantly many years ago already. As for laborers, the 2007 book White Cargo states that during the 17th and 18th centuries, 300,000 white unfortunates (e.g., urchins) were shipped from Britain to the American Colonies and used as forced labor — at which point their life expectancy was only two years.
Robinson has also stated “that he has freed himself from the Left’s ‘welfare plantation,’” The Root further writes. Moreover, he once asserted that “the Civil Rights Movement was a ‘communist plot to subvert capitalism,’” The Root related in a 2023 article, and that many freedoms were lost during that time.
All this said, we nonetheless must make reparation — to God. We owe God. We owe Him our loyalty, our worship, and our obedience to His laws, to the Truth. Part of this means understanding and accepting that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”; it means listening when Jesus says to “first take the plank out of your own eye.” For then, He added, “you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
As for Robinson, his commentary appears not a call for race-centeredness, but an explanation for why it should be rejected in favor of America-centeredness. It’s a refreshing break from today’s identity politics and, more importantly, smacks of that unique and divine quality: Truth.
For those interested, below is a video of the speech Robinson just made at CPAC 2024.
