Myron B. Pitts: LGBTQ, ‘filth,’ Black people owe for slavery among NC Lt. Gov. attacks

Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson announced he was running for NC governor at a rally Saturday at a speedway in Alamance County.

It was widely expected. He was joined by more than a dozen state Republican lawmakers, according to ABC11, and received video endorsements from U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop and U.S. Sen. Ted Budd.

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“I’m running for governor, because we the people of North Carolina need someone who understands us,” Robinson said.

Who does he mean by “us”? I wonder. 

We know who is not included in that group, based on Robinson’s history of cruel statements.

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He has been characterized as “bombastic” and “unrestrained” and “controversial.” 

But there are more specific descriptions that can be applied to many of his statements. Such as: Homophobic. Antisemitic. Hateful. Even racist — and I mean against his fellow Black Americans. 

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Let’s look at what he has said.

LGBTQ lives ‘filth’

“There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth,” Robinson said a Baptist church in Seagrove in June of 2021. “And yes, I called it filth. And if you don’t like that I called it filth, come see me, and I’ll explain it to you.” 

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I don’t need to come see him.

“Filth” is a violent slur. Objectively hateful.

Just as important is how widely Robinson spreads the hate.

Many North Carolinians have — at least in public — narrowed their hatred of the LGBTQ community to the transgender community. A subset of others have made it narrower still, even down to the two transgender girls in high school sports in North Carolina. These teenaged athletes have spurred the N.C. General Assembly to speed toward a whole new state law to stop them.

But Robinson includes all people in the LGBTQ community, any who do not fit in the very specific lane of gender and sexuality he has laid out for them. By simple math, he is calling “filth” an estimated 319,000 Tar Heels, based on figures provide by the Williams Institute at UCLA Law, which researches law and public policy.

These include some of your family and friends. Probably some of Robinson’s, too.

One month ago Robinson, who is a devout Christian, spoke at a church in Mooresville and criticized pastors who were accepting of LGBTQ members, according to an account by WSOC-TV. 

“Yes, I said it,” he said. “Makes me sick every time I see it, when I pass a church that flies that rainbow flag, which is a direct spit in the face to God Almighty.”

Jewish conspiracies

As Mooresville illustrates, Robinson helpfully hides his hate in plain view (“come see me”). As noted by Jewish insider, a politics and news website, he has written on Facebook his beliefs that a globalist conspiracy was behind trying to take down Trump. He disparaged African Americans’ appreciation of Marvel’s “Black Panther” movie, which he said was “created by an agnostic Jew and put to film by [a] satanic marxist.” 

The Insider wrote: “He went on to allege, using a Yiddish slur, that the movie ‘was only created to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets.’”

“Schvartze” is a Yiddish pejorative for Black people. “Shekel” is a unit of money associated with Israel and Jews, going back to antiquity.

Here we have some of the main tenets of Jewish stereotypes: Global conspiracy, godless, all about making money.

In 2020, the Raleigh News & Observer reported on a YouTube interview Robinson did with Sean Moon of the Unification Church — which has been called a cult — in which Moon referred to the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” Moon said the horsemen were the Rothschild family of “international bankers that rule every single ... central bank,” the CIA, China and Islam. The video, filmed in 2019, has since been taken down.

Robinson said to Moon’s remarks, according to the newspaper: “That’s exactly right. It’s amazing to me, that we live in this age of information where you can go online and you can find all this information, and it’s not hidden from anybody.”

No, that is not exactly right what Moon said. It is, however, exactly antisemitism. 

Billionaire financier George Soros is the go-to boogeyman these days for people who want to criticize Jews without saying “Jew.” But going after the Rothschilds has a much longer history.

Robinson’s past comments on Jews are particularly notable considering his potential opponent in 2024. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper is term-limited from running again; Josh Stein, the N.C. Attorney General, is the only declared Democratic candidate so far for governor. He is also of Jewish descent.

Black people owe for slavery

In 2021, Robinson tried out another target: Black folks. 

He told the North Carolina Republican Party State Convention that Blacks were not owed reparations or “anything” for hundreds of years of slavery and discrimination. Then he went further.

“If you want to tell the truth about it, it is YOU who owes!” he shouted, telling the audience about what he claimed was a conversation with a liberal. “Why do you owe?”

He said because someone was whipped for us in the slave field or had to walk through Jim Crow for us.

Let’s leave aside that our ancestors and certainly not us — did not create those inhumane situations. Let’s also leave aside that people like my parents walked through Jim Crow. So what’s the justification for not paying them reparations under Robinsons’ own “logic?”

What Robinson said is insulting on so many levels but that is the point.

He knows he can lob racism at Black people — effectively putting “blackface” on the racism — because it appeals to the same people who believe hateful things about Jews and the LGBTQ community.

And yes, African Americans can say racist things about African Americans. The rapper formerly known as Kanye West once said slavery was a choice. That’s racist. No matter who says it.

While no one knows what the former Kanye West is doing, Mark Robinson has a specific audience in mind as he launches his campaign.

If that audience is you — perhaps you should wonder why.

Myron B. Pitts can be reached at mpitts@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3559.