Cartoon depicts NC’s Black lieutenant governor and other Republicans as KKK members
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is taking umbrage with an editorial cartoon that depicts Republicans as members of the KKK.
Robinson, a Republican, took office in January and is the first Black lieutenant governor in North Carolina history.
“It’s something we cannot stand for, folks,” Robinson said at a press conference Tuesday to criticize the cartoon, published Tuesday on the CBC Opinion page of WRAL.com, which like WRAL-TV is owned by Capitol Broadcasting Co.
Robinson is perhaps most well known for his own inflammatory social media presence. On platforms like YouTube and his popular Facebook page, he engaged in conspiracy theories as well as posted anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim and homophobic messages before being elected to office last year. Asked about that on Tuesday, he said that was when he was a private citizen, not yet elected to office.
And there’s a difference between inflammatory opinions posted by a private citizen, or by a politician or large media company, he said.
“As a public servant I have to put those opinions behind me and do what’s right for everyone in North Carolina,” Robinson said. “And I’m grown enough to do that. .... And if I ran a statewide publication like WRAL, I would not post something like that. It’s all about where you stand at the moment when you speak.”
Seth Effron, the opinion editor for Capitol Broadcasting, said the point of the cartoon is not to literally call Republicans KKK members.
“Editorial cartoons are creative and provocative, using hyperbole and satire,” Effron wrote in an email. “No one believes Republicans on the State Board of Education are members of the Ku Klux Klan. The editorial cartoon by Dennis Draughon is meant to point out that these members of the State Board are trying to wipe out from the social studies curriculum the record of racism which includes the Klan and the segregationist practices that were imposed in our state and nation’s history.”
Debate over teaching racism in schools
The WRAL cartoon was published Tuesday morning and shows an elephant labeled “GOP members state school board,” dressed up in a KKK hood and robes.
The text contains commentary on an ongoing political fight over how public schools should teach American history and civics.
Robinson, in his role as lieutenant governor, has a seat on the state Board of Education where that debate is currently playing out.
Democrats on the board want teachers to acknowledge systemic racism within government and society, and to talk with students about racial and gender discrimination. Republicans on the board disagree.
In a meeting last week, which inspired Tuesday’s cartoon, some of the board’s GOP members said systemic racism does not exist. Others said acknowledging racism would undermine the message that the U.S. is the greatest country in the world.
The News & Observer reported that during the meeting, Robinson said systemic racism doesn’t exist and pointed to the fact that he, a Black man, was just elected lieutenant governor.
“The system of government that we have in this nation is not systematically racist,” Robinson said at the board meeting. “In fact, it is not racist at all.”
He was contradicted by fellow board member James Ford, who is also Black and was named the North Carolina Teacher of the Year in 2014.
“There’s hundreds of years plus legacy of actual laws, policies that are the systems that hold the present reality in place,” Ford said at that meeting. “Racism lives not just from person to person but lives within those systems, and those laws, those customs, norms, practices etc. I just want to know if that’s truly up for debate here.”
On Tuesday, Robinson said he still doesn’t believe systemic racism exists, but said he has had an “intelligent conversation” with NAACP leaders about it and is willing to keep talking with anyone who wants to have a respectful discussion on the matter.
Part of his objection to the cartoon, he said, is also the timing.
“On the second day of Black History Month, the first Black lieutenant governor of North Carolina has been portrayed as (racist),” he said, later adding: “That you would portray a Black man, just because he’s in the GOP, as a Klansman .... the hypocrisy is mind-numbing, folks.”
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This story was originally published February 2, 2021 at 5:05 PM with the headline "Cartoon depicts NC’s Black lieutenant governor and other Republicans as KKK members."
