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State of ExclusionThe UNC Center for Civil Rights has released a new report as part of a series of in-depth examinations of exclusion and the legacy of racial segregation in individual counties. The subject is Lenoir County in southeastern North Carolina. Both the Lenoir study and last year’s overarching report, “State of Exclusion,” are available by clicking here. This is from the release that accompanied the new Lenoir County study:

“In the middle of the Black Belt of Eastern North Carolina, Lenoir County is divided between its mostly white rural population and the concentrated African American populations in Kinston and La Grange. This new report focuses on the impact of the racial segregation on public education, political representation, and utility service.  Profiles of other counties will follow in the coming weeks, each highlighting particular aspects of that county’s history, ongoing impacts of exclusion, and progress toward full inclusion of all residents.

The county-wide school district in Lenoir County is the result of the 1992 merger of the majority white county school system with the majority African American Kinston city school district. Despite the merger, educational segregation persists because of an inequitable assignment model. Read More

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Burr2It’s hard to know what’s worse when it comes to Senator Richard Burr’s ongoing, one-man filibuster of the woman who would be the first African-American federal judge in the history of North Carolina’s Eastern District: the very fact of the blockade itself or the remarkably dishonest way in which the Senator is going about it.

It’s now been almost five years since Burr specifically endorsed Jennifer May-Parker (a federal prosecutor based in Raleigh) for the job to President Obama. Yet, since Obama actually made the nomination last June, Burr has steadfastly refused to submit his “blue slip” — something the quaint rules of the U.S. Senate require from home state senators in order for the nominations process to move forward.

While inexcusable enough on its own, Burr’s tight-lipped blockade is rendered downright outrageous by his duplicitous explanations for his actions. Recently, a friend of NC Policy Watch who wrote Burr on the subject, received a letter in response in which Burr, amazingly enough, said  the following: Read More

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2013 saw a much needed discussion about race in many spheres of American. Particularly popular in the latter half of the year was the discussion of race in feminism a la #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen, which also led to other discussions such as who counts as a woman of color and Asian American feminism (#NotYourAsianSidekick). And it’s a discussion that continues and reaches all parts of the country, including our own Tar Heel state.

None of this discourse might seem particularly new, but in a way, this discussion, among others regarding issues of race in America, is more needed than ever. Especially when we realize that America in general overestimates how diverse our country really is.
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The Associated Press reported yesterday that there is more more evidence of discrimination against Latinos by the long-troubled Alamance County sheriff’s office:

“Two university professors hired by the U.S. Department of Justice to analyze traffic stops by the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office say statistical data conclusively shows deputies there are racially profiling Latino drivers….

John Lamberth, retired chair of the Department of Psychology at Temple University, concluded that Johnson’s deputies cited Latinos for violations at a rate more than six times higher than for whites. He said the statistical odds were far less than one in a million that such a sizable racial disparity could occur by chance.

‘The observed disparities in … traffic enforcement are larger than any I have previously observed at a law enforcement agency in the United States,’ wrote Lamberth, who has testified as an expert in numerous court cases.”

Let’s hope that a settlement can be reached in the case in the near future and that Alamance can start enforcing laws fairly like the vast majority of law enforcement agencies.

You can read the entire story by clicking here.

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While it was obviously the right thing for state GOP leaders to sack party official Don Yelton in the wake of his off-the-rails performance on The Daily Show the other day,  a quick Internet search reveals that there was plenty of reason to expect his comically deranged and hate-tinged flameout for some time — enough, indeed, to make a body wonder why Claude Pope didn’t officially repudiate the man years ago.

As you can see in the video immediately below, Yelton actually testified before the General Assembly on the voter suppression bill earlier this year and displayed a coherence about on par with his Daily Show rant.

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But before that, Yelton had made numerous recorded speeches and even hosted a public access TV show in Asheville called “Citizens Speak.” Click here to peruse a veritable cavalcade of craziness.

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