NCAA Deadline Looms, Confusion Over HB2 Repeal Efforts

Featured at WCCB Rising

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – Another effort to craft legislation to get rid of North Carolina’s “bathroom’s bill” and halt more economic losses appears gone as Republicans and Democrats point fingers over whether an agreement ever existed. The GOP-controlled legislature and Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper have been trying to find a way to repeal House Bill 2 before the NCAA decides to leave the state out of hosting championship events through 2022. The NCAA had mentioned a deadline this week. House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger said Tuesday evening that they had agreed to a plan from Cooper’s office that would repeal HB2 but include other provisions. Berger said Cooper backed out of that plan. The House Democratic leader said later there had been no formal offer and called the Republican leaders’ news conference a stunt because the GOP lacks the votes to pass a bill.

WCCB Political Contributor, Mary C. Curtis, weighs in.

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Mar292017 TAGS: , , , , , , ,

Jason Collins tells students to continue to push on social and LGBT issues

Featured at The Undefeated

Jason Collins, the former NBA player who made history in 2013 as “the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport,” as he said in a Sports Illustrated cover story, has continued to speak out. “I try to have as many conversations as I can with people to change our society and have a positive impact on someone’s life,” he said.

At Johnson C. Smith University, a historically black university in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Tuesday, Collins’ main message to students was clear: “I remember listening to stories from my grandmother who grew up in the segregated South; she grew up in upstate Louisiana. Her telling me how hard it was for her to first vote … hearing those stories and the sacrifices of the people who have come before me, this is important because the people in power fought so hard for us not to have it, whether you’re a woman or a minority, they didn’t want us to have this. So that tells you right there how important it is to vote.”

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Oct122016 TAGS: , , , , ,

The NBA moves forward as North Carolina drifts back

Featured at The Undefeated

Not even its storied basketball history and inevitable disappointment for legend and Charlotte Hornets chairman Michael Jordan could stand in the way of North Carolina’s rightward drift. The NBA has moved the 2017 NBA All-Star Game from Charlotte, making it hardly the first but simply the latest and surely the highest-profile casualty of House Bill 2, the so-called “bathroom bill,” which regulates the restrooms transgender folks use – and so much more.

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Jul232016 TAGS: , , , ,

Is Jason Collins the Jackie Robinson of 2013?

Featured at The Washington Post

In 1947, when Jackie Robinson integrated Major League Baseball, the world was not integrated. The movie “42” would have to last a lot longer than a couple of hours to tell the whole story: the death threats, the insults from fans, opposing players and his Dodgers teammates, Robinson’s separate and unequal trials, the pressure to perform in the face of it all. He was jeered, then cheered by thousands and faced it alone.

There wasn’t a closet big enough for him to take refuge in.

This week Jason Collins, a National Basketball Association center, became, as he writes in his Sports Illustrated cover story, “the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport.” Is he the Jackie Robinson of 2013? No.

Is he unbelievably brave in his own way? You bet.

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May022013 TAGS: , , , , , , ,