Archives for May 2021

POLITICAL WRAP: 100 Year Anniversary of Tulsa Race Massacre; Controversy Over Race Education in Schools

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – How race and history are taught in schools is the latest flashpoint in the ongoing “culture wars.”

It comes as states, including North Carolina, consider laws limiting the use of “critical race theory” in education.

Our political contributor, Mary C. Curtis, gives us her take in the video above.

Was the Capitol Insurrection just another day in America?

Roll Call Columnist Mary C. Curtis joins John Howell to revisit the January 6th #insurrection and discuss America’s response and why it is being downplayed and forgotten by republican constituents

The racial history of housing in Charlotte. Has much changed?

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In the last several months city leaders have been discussing a big policy document. It’s their 2040 comprehensive plan, which could impact housing density and what neighborhoods look like. It also talks about the racial inequities that have happened in Charlotte’s housing history.

Well-known Writer Mary Curtis hosts her own podcast. She says it looks at policy and politics through the lens of social justice. It is a topic she has covered extensively in her 30-year career. She has held jobs with the Washington Post, New York Times and others.

“In order to understand what is going on today we have to understand our history,” Curtis said.

USDA and Black farmers

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack sits down with Mary C. Curtis to discuss Black farmers and the USDA plan to provide debt relief to socially disadvantaged borrowers through the March COVID-19 relief law.

That means Black farmers who have lost 90 percent of their land in the last century, in large part because of USDA policies, may receive compensation. The administration says equity is overdue and this is just the beginning. But many white farmers and banks have objections.

When an insurrection is seen as just another day in America

Is America getting a thirst for blood?

It’s a question I ask after hearing too many Republicans dismiss the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a violent pro-Trump mob trying to halt the counting of American citizens’ votes as a “normal tourist visit,” in the words of Georgia Rep. Andrew S. Clyde, the same Clyde seen — mouth open and terrified — helping to barricade the besieged doors that day.

When I was a Baltimore schoolgirl, we often visited Washington, D.C., to tour the monuments. It was an easy and informative field trip, barely an hour away by bus. Now kids can occasionally be unruly, and the nuns had to raise their voices once or twice. But I don’t recall ever erecting gallows on the Capitol lawn, breaking windows or pummeling police officers with batons and their own shields. In fact, I’m sure it would have made the front pages if a bunch of Black grade schoolers from St. Pius V Elementary ventured a foot beyond the velvet ropes, let alone desecrated the beautiful marble floors of a government building by using them as a toilet.

Have things changed that much for Clyde and all the others asking Americans and the world not to believe their lying eyes?

‘I have to be an optimist’

This week marked the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, a time defined by a subsequent international reckoning on racial justice, a debate about overhauling police departments and an election that brought social and cultural issues violently into the foreground.

Mary C. Curtis, host of the Equal Time podcast and a CQ Roll Call columnist joins us on Political Theater to discuss where we are, where we’ve been and where we might be headed.

Mary C. Curtis: School Funding Fight

CHARLOTTE, NC — It is a dispute that does not fall along party, neighborhood or racial lines.

In the latest county budget proposal, Mecklenburg County Manager Dena Diorio has proposed a recommendation that calls for putting $56 million of the money for CMS in the next fiscal year aside, intended to close those gaps and strengthen college readiness for Black and brown students.

WCCB Political Contributor Mary C. Curtis discusses the ongoing battle.

You can catch Mary C. Curtis on Sunday nights at 6:30 PM on WCCB Charlotte’s CW discussing the biggest issues in local and national politics and also giving us a look at what’s ahead for the week.

You can also check out Mary’s podcast ‘Equal Time.’

No true economic growth without true equality, Cecilia Rouse says

President Joe Biden tapped Cecilia Rouse to chair his Council of Economic Advisers and tasked her, the first Black woman to hold the job, with seeking to advance racial equity in his economic policies.

Rouse, previously the dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and a member of President Barack Obama’s economic council, recently joined CQ Roll Call’s Equal Time podcast to discuss her plans.

POLITICAL WRAP: Senate Unlikely to Support Commission on Capitol Attack

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Legislation to establish an independent commission investigating the attack on the Capitol on January 6th will likely die in the Senate.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is sending strong signals that House Democrats will go it alone if the commission vote fails in the Senate.

“We can’t give in to Jan. 6”

In a fiery and no-holds-barred conversation, Mary C. Curtis speaks with former RNC chair Michael Steele on the future of the GOP, why he cannot defend the current Republican party to Black voters and why he believes the country can and should do better.