What teenager can resist the allure of the JUUL experience? The most popular vaping device in the United States has been designed to resemble a USB drive that fits in the palm of a 14-year-old’s hand and emits little vapor. A few puffs behind the teacher’s back and a sweet little buzz from nicotine follows (other brands marvelously offer cannabis products). When done, the child removes a pod on the device that contains nicotine and flavorings, and replaces it with a new one. Ahh. But other things are happening. That pod the child tossed out (JUUL’s flavors include mint and mango. Other companies sell unicorn and bubblegum.) contained as much nicotine as a pack of cigarettes. JUUL’s product allows users to inhale high levels of nicotine more easily and with less irritation. With this vaporized delivery system, fine particles of cancer-causing chemicals go deep into the lungs. E-cigarette batteries have caught fire and exploded, causing serious injuries. Adults and children have been poisoned by swallowing, breathing or absorbing e-cigarette liquid. And then there’s the fact that the nicotine is being delivered is highly addictive and damages the still-developing adolescent brain. What can follow that vaping experience is a trip to the emergency room and even death. As of Sept. 27, 2019, the CDC had reported 805 cases of confirmed or probable lung injury from vaping, including 12 deaths. More than two-thirds of the cases were male and 62% aged 18-34 years. Forty cases emerged in North Carolina, including one death in Greensboro Sept. 25. JUUL’s founders proclaim on their website that JUUL was all part of their quest to develop a product that would “invite its own ritual” for adult smokers. But the consumers who really latched onto the product in the U.S. were teenagers: JUUL has created a new ritual for them. Some brands emit giant clouds of vapor. Websites show how to perform tricks with the mist: Ghost Inhale. Dragon. Waterfall. Companies market colorful “skins” for the JUUL device. While smoking cigarettes among teens is down, use of e-cigarettes is up. Nearly 28% of high school students say they vaped in the last 30 days. Tobacco smoking among adolescents has fallen to 6%, as compared to 16% in 2011 and the peak of 36.4% in 1997. E-cigarettes first hit the U.S. in 2007. By 2014, they had found their niche whe n they became the most commonly used tobacco product among youth. This is about the time JUUL entered the market in 2015. By 2017-2018 one-fifth of all high school students were vaping. Only 3.2% of U.S. adults were using them during this time. JUUL markets itself as a product for adults who want to transition off cigarettes. But the FDA has never approved the device as an aid to help quit smoking. Also, vaping is cheaper than buying cigarettes, which, in addition to the flavors, is another advantage for kids. While cigarettes cost less in North Carolina than most any other state at $4. 87 a pack, the calculator on JUUL’s website says someone in North Carolina smoking one pack a day would save $365 a year by switching to JUUL. Buying the products is no problem for adolescents, either. While North Carolina banned sales of e-cigarettes to minors in 2014, a 2015 study by a researcher at the University of North Carolina found minors could easily buy e-cigarettes online. The response to the vaping crisis from the federal government has been painfully slow, even though the CDC warned of the dangers of e-cigarettes in 2013. Speaking before Congress, the FDA chief recently admitted a lack of inaction and vowed to do better. Now, even though the American Lung Association and others sued—including North Carolina’s attorney general—the FDA didn’t act until people started getting sick and dying. Now the FDA plans to banish all e-cigarette flavors except for tobacco and is drafting other rules aimed at curbing adolescent use. But this may be too late, since the nicotine products are highly addictive and the devices wildly popular. A generation of users is already vaping, getting sick, and dying. Companies still could reintroduce the flavors later, as long as they submit to the FDA’s premarket approval process. The CDC still doesn’t know what is causing the widespread lung injury from vaping. More study into which chemical exposure or brand may be involved is needed. Once this is targeted, it’s up to the FDA to act swiftly.

On Thursday, June 27, 2019, the nation’s highest court declared that it was too delicate a flower to deal with partisan gerrymandering. The issue, the court said, was beyond the scope of their authority. As this court routinely decides on issues that affect the lives of Americans – health care access, pollution regulations, women’s health issues, who can be armed how heavily and where, not to mention the death penalty – the decision smelled like a stretch. When you consider the court makes decisions that can in effect overturn the laws passed by those gerrymandered legislatures – and does routinely – the decision and its reasoning are even worse. So what does this have to do with North Carolina, and why is it bad? A lot, and a lot. North Carolina’s legislative districts have been gerrymandered for years, but gerrymandering on steroids is a relatively recent development. In the run-up to the 2010 election, the Republican State Leadership Committee created Project REDMAP. The plan was to seize control of state legislatures in 2010 races and implement gerrymanders in those states following the 2010 census. North Carolina was one of the top targets, and the GOP took control of both bodies of the state General Assembly for the first time since 1970. In the next step, gerrymandering guru Tom Hofeller was brought in to draw maps using sophisticated software to create new lines to drain every possible drop of partisan advantage out of North Carolina via new legislative lines. The new legislature approved the new lines, and it worked like a charm. Slim majorities in ensuing elections yielded supermajorities in the state House and Senate; newly drawn congressional lines turned a politically balanced state into a 10-3 GOP majority in the state’s congressional representation. GOP Rep. David Lewis, who famously said the 10-3 map was fine only because mapmakers couldn’t find a way to make it an 11-2 Republican edge, defended the redistricting thusly: “I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats.” As of June 22 voter registration numbers in North Carolina showed 2.47 million Democrats; 2.13 million Unaffiliated; 2.003 million Republicans, and a smattering of Libertarian, Green and Constitution Party members. If the GOP is in third place in North Carolina, why is it such a dominating first place in the legislature? Gerrymandering is the obvious answer. In response to the obvious unfairness of the situation, the Supreme Court basically said, “Well, what ya gonna do?’’ You can bet this will be seen as a green light for even more radical gerrymandering and political hardball from the GOP. This decision, in fact, can be put down to political hardball. The dots between Merrick Garland and the 5-4 decision aren’t very hard to connect. Will Democrats respond with hardball on their own, say by packing the Supreme Court? It’s doubtful. On Twitter, New York Magazine contributor David Freedlander wrote, “If history is any guide, Republicans in red states will respond to this SCOTUS ruling by gerrymandering Democrats to a fare-thee-well, and Democrats in blue states will respond by setting up a nonpartisan redistricting commission.” Responding to Thursday’s decision, Lewis said, “Today’s ruling establishes precedent that it is not the judicial branch’s responsibility to determine the winners and the losers.” Unsaid: The winners and losers will continue to be determined by an already-gerrymandered legislature. The next round of battle will be whether state courts have a say in the matter, a round that will likely come quickly in North Carolina. In the meantime, it’s worth reading Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent. “In North Carolina, however the political winds blow, there are 10 dissenting Republicans and 3 Democrats. Is it conceivable that someday voters will be able to break out of that prefabricated box? Sure. But everything possible has been done to make that hard. To create a world in which power does not flow from the people because they do not choose their governors. Of all times to abandon the Court’s duty to declare the law, this was not the one. The practices challenged in these cases imperil our system of government. Part of the Court’s role in that system is to defend its foundations. None is more important than free and fair elections… “If there is a single idea that made our Nation (and that our Nation commended to the world), it is this one: The people are sovereign. The ‘power,’ James Madison wrote, ‘is in the people over the Government, and not in the Government over the people.’ Free and fair and periodic elections are the key to that vision,” Kagan wrote. “The people get to choose their representatives. And then they get to decide, at regular intervals, whether to keep them.” In North Carolina, it’s the legislators who decide whether to keep … well, themselves. The Supreme Court said it’s up to Congress and the state to decide gerrymandering issues.

As we celebrate our first birthday, Carolina Commentary has developed faster than the startup platform we first envisioned. The venture, put together by a team of veteran newspaper people, was designed to provide insight, analysis and commentary on issues of import to North Carolina. One thing we found is that insight, analysis and commentary are in sore need these days. Another thing we found is what we’ll call the canary in the coal mine. Let’s start by talking about coal mines. More specifically, coal miners. Remember the fuss Donald Trump made over bringing back mining jobs during the 2016 election campaign? A casual observer would easily think hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of jobs were in play. In fact, there are only about 50,000 mining jobs in the country, according to official Bureau of Labor Statistics figures. Granted, those figures don’t lump in affiliated jobs such as driving a coal truck. Still, the lure of the return of lost jobs certainly motivated some voters to cast their ballot for the New York businessman. And its true jobs were lost, about half of all coal mining jobs in the U.S. over five years. Most of those jobs were claimed by technological changes in mining and the boom in natural gas. A century ago, there were nearly a million miners. Those jobs were lost as people moved from being transported in coal-powered trains to gas-powered cars on their way to places heated by electricity, not coal. But the campaign line was that there a “war on coal,’’ sinister forces such as overzealous regulators and scheming environmentalists. How did that line stand and the importance of mining jobs get so overinflated? There we turn to another jobs crisis, happening about the same time. Employment among newspaper publishers dropped from 412,000 to 174,000 from 2001 to September 2016. Half of the surviving reporters and correspondents are clustered in the five metro areas of Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City and Washington, D.C. Perhaps that’s why the true dimensions of what was happening in the coal industry, and claims regarding the coal industry, didn’t break through to the general public. There were a lot fewer people to tell the tale. The canary in democracy’s coal mine, a vibrant free press, well … she’s about done up an’ died. But we’ve still got a few kicks left in us. And back to us: We suspect the news desert that’s developing in the country, particularly in spots outside major metropolitan areas, has sparked a real hunger for reliable news and commentary. We’d hoped to fill a little spot in the void with our new venture. We underestimated the thirst out there. With no budget for marketing or advertising – zip, zero, nada – we posted our first column on July 7, 2017. As of June 19, 2018, we had grown to 5,859 subscribers. We hear you, Carolina Commentary readers. And we’re out to up our game. We’ll increase the frequency of our commentaries and guest columnists. We’ll put a focus on every article based on three core topics: Democracy, justice, and economy. Under the umbrella of these core topics we’ll continue to examine Carolina Commentary pillars such as education, the environment and how to best prepare for a more diverse (and grayer) North Carolina. If you’re reading this, you’re likely already well informed on issues of justice and democracy, and the current assaults on the two. And good for you. Today, though, we’d like to focus on the economy aspect. The impact to your wallet on decisions made at the local, state and national level are often covered on a very superficial, campaign bumper-sticker level. A tax cut, for example, may mean more money out of your pocket down the road in financing the national debt or seeing your local government have to pick up the tab for an unfunded mandate. A trim in, say, pre-school spending may mean 20 years from now you’ll be paying to house someone in a prison or rehab center as opposed to benefitting from the fruits of a solid, taxpaying citizen. Specific to this column, consider this: Notre Dame associate professor of finance Paul Gao crunched the numbers and discovered what we don’t know truly can hurt us. A working paper examined communities following a newspaper closure and discovered the costs for revenue bonds and municipal bonds in those places rose uniformly. That’s likely because no one was guarding the henhouse with basic local government reporting. As Gao said, “You can actually see the financial consequences that have to be borne by local citizens as a result of newspaper closures.” We’re hoping to help continue to slake the thirst for meaningful information, to fill the gaps of a collapsing industry. But we need your help. We’d like your feedback on our first year; what we did well, what we can do better, and what issues may have fallen through the cracks. Go to survey here and help shape the face of Carolina Commentary in the coming year. So, happy birthday to Carolina Commentary. We’ve grown a lot. We intend to grow a lot more.

The protests taking place across our country give us an opportunity to change and live up to the values we espouse in our Constitution and Bill of Rights, the documents that have made us the world leader for democracy. To fulfill the principles of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, the nation’s citizens have sacrificed, protested and challenged leaders throughout our history. The Abolitionist Movement, the Women’s Suffrage Parade in 1913, the Triangle Shirt Fire Protest in 1911, the March on Washington in 1963 and Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, and the March on Washington in 1993 for LGBTQ rights are just some examples of this citizen activism. As a result, slavery ended, women gained the right to vote, labor laws were enacted, the Civil Rights Act passed and same-sex marriage became legal. The point is, we Americans have faced many, many challenges and have found a way to deal with the challenge and continue to lead the world as its strongest democracy. Where do we go from here? During a town hall meeting, President Obama told the nation that all major change has come with some unrest. Obama went on to say, “I want you to know that you matter, that your lives matter and that your dreams matter.” These are the upbeat and encouraging words we need to hear from our leaders. He sees, as we all do, the engagement of our nation’s diverse young people, who are outraged as are many Americans by what they saw, and are taking to the streets and are demanding police reform. Obama paints a picture of hope despite the despair we are living through during these turbulent times. The protests that are taking place across the nation and the world are the culmination of years of frustration with the systemic racism that has paralyzed the nation’s African-Americans who, as did their ancestors, have lived as second-class citizens. It is abhorrent that the world witnessed George Floyd killed in the videos shown on television and the Internet. This has triggered the emotional and justified response that we are witnessing. The anger and protests are clearly no excuse for the looters and criminals who are trying to hijack the legal and peaceful protests. We have to look past these individuals that are simply capitalizing on the nation’s grief. Despite the unrest that is captivating our consciousness and moral principles, we cannot forget what the current administration has done to Latinx children by separating them from their families. Many have not been reunited with their parents. This is also a shameful act of racism that is being done in front of our eyes. We cannot become complacent or treat this behavior by our government as an acceptable way to treat immigrants. All parents, regardless of their ethnicity, want the best for their children and their families. African-Americans and other minorities want the same thing as the White majority in America, an equal opportunity for justice, employment, educational opportunities and a safe life in America. African-Americans want to be able to tell their children to look for a police officer, as opposed to telling their children to not make any sudden moves and to show their hands at a traffic stop. It was warming to the heart to see police and protestors connecting with each other with hugs, taking a knee and in some cases marching together in places like Flint, Mich., Boston, New York, Atlanta and Santa Cruz. That is the heart of America and what makes our diversity the strength of the nation, despite the difficult traumatized history of race relations that have placed African Americans, Asian Americans, American Indians and Latinx in secondary status compared to White Americans in this country. We can and will get by the pandemic that has killed more Americans than all of its wars, with the exception of the Civil War and World Wars I & II. Despite the challenges facing the United States, America is a strong nation and is driven by the will of its people, who will demand police reform and political accountability, and will vote out leaders who do not place the country first. We have to believe in our values and live up to the Constitution and Bill of Rights, which have guided us during the most difficult times over the past 244 years of our existence as a nation. Virgil L. Smith formerly served as president and publisher of the Asheville Citizen-Times and Vice President for Human Resources for the Gannett Company. He is the principal for the Smith Edwards Group and writes for Carolina Commentary.

Edgecombe and Nash counties, located in Eastern North Carolina have a long history that has been defined by a rail line that separates the two counties predominantly in Rock Mount, North Carolina. In 1871, state legislators voted to relocate the boundary line between Nash and Edgecombe counties and separated the counties with a rail line that was controversial then and continues to have racial, economic and educational implications today for residents of Rocky Mount. After years of struggle, African Americans are positioned to elect candidates of their choice in Edgecombe County, which is 57.8% African American. Elected representation includes a diverse board of County Commissioners, a diverse Rocky Mount City Council, and African-American representatives in the NC House and Senate. According to retired N.C. Sen. Angela Bryant, “These electoral gains have been challenging as a result of some intra-group black power dynamics along with continuing impact of racially polarized voting by whites, racial gerrymandering and voter suppression, which is amplified by increasing housing segregation and the roll-back of voting rights. As (blacks) slog our success by channeling resources into our long underserved and neglected communities, whites counter with in essence, reverse discrimination or charges of incompetence or overreaching because development is going to much in the black, inner city or Edgecombe direction. A community that is governed by a majority of African-Americans is very likely to be subject to backlash by whites regarding distribution of the resources and how to manage the power that comes with being a black majority.” The Carolinas Gateway Partnerships reports there is significant economic growth coming to the region. Corning is investing $87 million, which is slated to generate approximately 149 jobs. Triangle Tire Co. a Chinese based company that manufactures tires for passenger and construction equipment, will create 800 new jobs at its two $580 million plants in Edgecombe County and will generate $2.1 billion in economic impact. CSX (intermodal facility) has broken ground in Edgecombe County. And the city of Rocky Mount has been selected for the new NC Division of Motor Vehicles headquarters in 2020. To provide youth with career opportunities, The NC Simulation Station will be utilizing electronic software games to assist in and out of school youth explore career occupations through online simulations. Additionally, there has been new investment to redevelop the 200-year-old Rocky Mount Mills and there is growing entrepreneurial investment in the city of Rocky Mount. The Nash and Edgecombe educational systems face high complexity grounded in historical integration and segregation of its schools. The state legislature’s merger of Rocky Mount City Schools and Nash County Schools in 1991 did not resolve segregation issues, but created a complex set of issues around funding, educating and addressing the issue of segregation and poverty. In a report written by Kris Nordstrom of the North Carolina Justice Center’s Education and Law Project for NC Policy Watch, integration can transform North Carolina schools and the lives of its students. North Carolina has made progress, however there is plenty of room for progress in Edgecombe and Nash counties. The research on school segregation and integration has reached general consensus on three points according to Nordstrom: School segregation has negative impacts on low-income students and students of color. School integration has positive impacts on low-income students and students of color. School integration does not have negative impacts on high-income white students. The report goes on to state that “leaders at all levels of society can do more to create an inclusive, integrated system of public schools. The state’s public schools are becoming increasingly segregated by income, and while the trends in racial school segregation in North Carolina are mixed, the overall level of racial segregation remains far too high. The good news is that integrating our schools is an incredibly low-cost proposition…” Despite its history of slavery, reconstruction, political disruption, segregated schools, and economic downturns, the City of Rocky Mount is positioned to leverage the growing economic headwinds and change the lives of its residents, thanks to public and private leadership and cooperation. Now is the time to move away from the historical issues and give many of its residents an opportunity to elevate from poverty and live and thrive in a vibrant and integrated community.

America’s democracy, its position as a world leader and its values are under attack by our own governmental leaders and our adversaries — namely Russia, North Korea, Iran and China. When you consider the events and challenges that have taken place since January 2016, the world wonders what Americans stand for. Actions taken by President Donald Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republican Congressional members have been emulated by Republican lawmakers in North Carolina, as evidenced by the N.C. House vote taken to override the budget veto of Gov. Roy Cooper. On Sept. 11, a day for honoring those who fell that fateful day in 2001, N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore (R-Cleveland) and Rep. David Lewis (R-Harnett) misled House Democrats and the press by telling them the House would not hold a vote at the morning session. Unfortunately, they did hold the vote while most of the Democrats were away honoring the fallen of 9/11. The Washington Post accurately said, “Democracy dies in darkness.” Kudos to Rep. Deb Butler (D-Brunswick, New Hanover), who would not yield her voice in speaking out against this attack on fairness and democracy. This is not democracy as “we the people” have believed as stated in our U.S. Constitution. The N.C. Republicans have learned well from their party leader, Trump, who has made lying and misdirection a common practice. We expect more from the our president. The Washington Post reports that President Trump has over 12,000 recorded lies and falsehoods. Not only has the president misspoken thousands of times, his actions have challenged the decency and democracy he has sworn to protect by acting in the interest of himself, his political voting base and his family. Here is a sampling of some of the president’s actions: Claiming the media is “the enemy of the people.” Trump and McConnell refuse legislation to protect our citizens from gun assaults by not tackling the issue of background checks, which 83% of gun owners support. Trump advocating for Russia against the will of the democratic nations of the G7 and blaming an American president for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and occupation of Crimea. Trump ignores the missile tests of Kim Jong Un of North Korea. Trump ignores the deficit and we find out the Republicans are not truly financial conservatives. Trump enriched himself with the almost 300 days at his clubs at the expense of the American public. The President appears to not recognize Puerto Rico as an American territory. Trump is fighting through the courts to keep his federal taxes from the view of the American public, despite the audit claim which does not prevent disclosure. Trump’s continued waffling and obedience to the NRA on background checks to stop the gun violence and carnage in the nation. Trumps embrace of white nationalism. Taking away citizenship of children born out of country for military personnel. Potential witness tampering in the Manafort trial. Separating children from their parents, some whom may never reunite. Placing limits on immigration based on who will likely use public benefits. Ethical violations with Attorney General William Barr paying the Trump hotel in DC over $30,000 for his Christmas party. Demeaning and hijacking Colin Kaepernick’s legal protest of police killings of unarmed black men, with a bogus claim of disrespecting the military. Trump’s support of Vladimir Putin over U.S. government intelligence experts. The question for us as Americans is: Are we the beacon of hope? Or are we the bullies of the world? Are we the people who turn our backs to children; to immigrants who seek political asylum from tyranny in their home countries, which the Supreme Court has voted to support. We can impact this president over the remainder of his term by going to the polls and electing legislators who will provide the oversight that the Constitution requires. The upcoming state legislature and gubernatorial elections in some states this year and in North Carolina next year will affect redistricting after the 2020 Census. This will have a tremendous impact on the near-term future of the nation in shaping the political balance of Congress. The Economist Intelligence Unit ranks the United States 25th on the Democracy Index and is listed as a “flawed” democracy. North Korea comes in with a score of “0”, yet our president continues to support its brutal dictator. The Democracy Index reports that U.S. deterioration in the functioning government category is primarily due to political polarization and weakening of public confidence in institutions. The report states that Trump has tapped into partisan tensions in an effort to rally his conservative political and voter base around the sensitive issues of immigration and security. Basically, stoking fears with the American electorate. What are we as Americans going to do to protect our state, the republic and the future of our children?

North Carolina State Superintendent Mark Johnson was elected in 2016, defeating incumbent June Atkinson by 53,860 votes, or 1.2 percent. Johnson attended public schools, specifically the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts. He went on to earn two degrees in political science and environmental studies. He earned a law degree from the UNC School of Law in Chapel Hill and graduated with honors. Johnson has taught in the classroom in West Charlotte High School. “I realized that opportunity is not available to every student in this country, and it needs to be,” he has said. His background also includes serving as a school board member in Forsyth County. Mr. Johnson appears to have prepared himself for the top job for public education and educating more than 1.5 million K-12 students in North Carolina. While campaigning, he talked with reporter Jeffrey C. Billman of Indy Week about a number of important issues facing K-12 education. He discussed the ACT, where half of graduates were failing to meet a single benchmark on the ACT. He also discussed Workforce Preparedness, preparing diplomas for work rather than targeting the graduation rate, and improving African American student performance in obtaining a minimum ACT score required for college admission. Teacher Pay has been an issue for many years with North Carolina teacher pay being in the lower spectrum for national teacher pay. Johnson identified the importance of tackling the issue of over-testing for teachers and students. The goal was to focus students on how they are performing daily rather than at the year-end of grade or end of course test. Johnson spoke of the importance of using digital technology in the educational process and had great concerns on the impact of poverty on education. As we come to the end of his third year as the state’s educational leader, it is important to ask a question: Are North Carolina public schools better off today than when Mr. Johnson assumed his role as the state’s top educator? Johnsons’ outlines a focus on school safety, career pathways, early childhood education, computer science and coding, and reducing over testing. The digital initiative for third-grade reading, was met with strong opposition from the Department of Information Technology. The competing bidder argued that Johnson awarded the $8.3 million contract improperly. Johnson also was successful in achieving two major legislative goals that tie to his strategic focuses, House Bill 75 (School Safety) and Senate Bill 621 (Reduced Testing). He alienated the N.C. Association of Educators, who did not invite him to the annual convention in March of 2018, breaking an historical precedent of inviting the N.C. Superintendent to their annual convention. The reason cited in the Raleigh News and Observer was “his disruptive actions such as support of private school vouchers and controversial comments about teacher pay.” A recent Charlotte Observer editorial, “A state superintendent who wants to be a czar, speaks to the challenges and leadership style of Johnson, who came into the role with credentials as an educator, but has led like a czar as opposed to a leader that children and educators need. Unfortunately, as one looks back on the tenure of Johnson, it’s worth noting his tenure got off to an inauspicious beginning when Republicans passed House Bill 17, which gave the inexperienced superintendent more authority and control over public education issues than the State Board of Education itself. In retrospect, this move crystallizes the ups and downs of Johnson’s educational agenda, as no man is an island and the trendy superintendent would be wise to listen to the wisdom of members of the State Board of Education. His forward-thinking goals can be reached if he works as a team player and not a czar as the Observer charges.

In 1997, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in the Leandro v. State case that the state educational apparatus systematically violated the constitutional rights of North Carolina children by failing to ensure the universal opportunity to a sound basic education. Despite this ruling, for over twenty years the state has not provided a basic education for all its children, especially children of lower social economic status and minority children, specifically African Americans. In reviewing a report written by Ethan Roy and James E. Ford for the Center for Racial Equality in Education entitled “Deep Rooted” A Brief History of Race and Education in North Carolina, it is clear that education in North Carolina has been controversial and racially polarizing and continues to be to this day. The state is very proud of its educational system, and there is a belief that the state is a special place in the nation where education is championed, especially the UNC system. However, history tells us that as one of the original 13 colonies in 1663, North Carolina, like other southern states, built its economy on the backs of uneducated slaves. African-Americans were denied any opportunity for the most basic education. During this time slavery was the primary labor system supporting the economic power engine that created stability across the state and great wealth today for many families. A major concern of NC slave owners during this time and for many years later was to not expose slaves to literacy. The slave owners believed that not exposing slaves to literacy reduced the potential for uprisings and independent thinking. Despite these restrictions on learning, many slaves and free blacks sought stealth methods to educate each other, especially those slaves who gained their freedom. This was the situation for over 100 years and was highlighted by legislation passed by the North Carolina General Assembly in 1830 that said, “Any free person, who shall hereafter teach any slave within this state to read or write, the use of figures excepted, or shall give or sell to such slave or slaves any book or pamphlets, shall be liable to indictment in any court of record in this State.” Poor whites were also lacking in education. However, i n 1825, the North Carolina legislature created a state literacy fund and later offered matching grants to support primary schools. North Carolina became the first state to offer publicly funded universal white education. Blacks were left out of this legislation. Many blacks gained their education as soldiers in the Union Army during the Civil War and after the Emancipation Proclamation. For many years there was violence and intimidation to keep blacks in their place with regards to education. In 1868, North Carolina officially adopted black education and created a universal public-school system for blacks that was challenged by whites who feared integrated schools. In 1896, the Plessy v. Ferguson decision created a legal precedent of separate but equal education. But it was not equal. As an example, the per pupil funding in 1920 was $3,442 for white schools and $500 for black schools. The Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that public schools separated by race where inherently unequal and violated black children’s Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection under the law. Despite this ruling, whites continued to seek separate schools for their children. In 1964, President Johnson, signed the Civil Rights Act. This law enabled the US Attorney General to bring forward lawsuits on behalf of black plaintiffs in local school districts practicing segregation. This legislation and the resistance to integration resulted in black community schools being closed and thousands of black teachers and administrators losing their jobs. As more time passed, busing was implemented. The 1971 Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg ruling gave school districts the authority to mandate busing of students which resulted in most black students being bused to white schools with white teachers. A result of busing was white flight to the suburbs in the 1970’s and 1980’s so that urban schools became increasingly occupied by black students. As we fast forward to today, we have a similar circumstance where families are moving to NC Charter schools, private schools (through vouchers) and home schools appear to be a new mechanism for white flight and re-segregating NC schools. It’s important to note that non-growth in traditional public school enrollment due to families leaving for other options critically undermines public schools’ ability to have basic funding to provide a sound basic education to all children. Enrollment shifts to other options means a lack of clarity about whether the children who leave traditional public schools are receiving a sound basic education-as the schools are not held accountable to the same standards that traditional public schools are. The Leandro decision addresses the issue of public schools not receiving the basic education they deserve in North Carolina. Challenges and ongoing litigation have kept the Leandro ruling from being implemented. In 2019, WestEd, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research, development and service agency that works with education communities to promote excellence and achieve equity, published a court-ordered plan that provides recommendations for actions to advance the state’s efforts to achieve compliance with the Leandro decision. The report was made public in December. According to the report prepared by WestEd, “the future prosperity and well-being of the state’s citizens requires successfully educating all of its children. North Carolina’s current education system fails to meet the education needs of many of its children and thereby fails to provide for the future success of these individuals, their communities, and the state.” We would hope that despite the history of racial segregation, separate but unequal education, white flight, the advent of charter schools, that this report will change 300 hundred years of unequal education. The future of North Carolina in a world that is becoming smaller everyday depends on implementing the findings for the betterment of students, parents and everyone involved in educating the children of North Carolina.

The looting of consumer goods at mass protests symbolically shouts the desperate message of people fed up with police killings and a political system that excludes them from health, wealth, and equal treatment. The long, hideous, racist history of police killings of Black people is execution-style violence that harks back to the days of slave patrols and lynchings. The latest demonstrations ignited, but also united, people of all stripes who want the killing to stop. They want justice: in courts, on streets, and in the economy. But looting isn’t only practiced by angry protesters. The Trump administration, abetted by an obsequious Senate, loots our economy by selling our national lands to oil and gas interests, serving up tax cuts for the rich, at our expense, which jeopardizes our future wealth. Even the pandemic rescue package buried more than $135 billion in tax breaks for the wealthy; the act itself was ineptly administered, and of scant help to minority businesses. Gutted environmental regulations loot our health and safety, today and tomorrow. Other policies, for instance, human rights actions—widespread maltreatment of immigrant detainees, including abuse of children—rob us in less obvious ways, by eroding U.S. influence and reputation abroad. Among other effects, this makes it difficult to attract talent and business investment. Two recently-announced North Carolina state task forces, one to rout racism in criminal justice, another to tackle racial differences in health care, are laudable, but for real results in the quality of life for poor people, economic justice should be served. It’s called progress. It requires active intervention. Otherwise, those who can’t now fully participate in labor, housing, credit, and other markets—Black, Latinx, Indigenous people—will continue to suffer, and so, too, will the economy, which is a national shame. The hugely profitable, Charlotte-based, Bank of America ($53 billion in earnings, the past two years) has pledged $1 billion over four years toward affordable housing, health, job training, and small business programs. “Things aren’t going to quiet down, they shouldn’t quiet down on making the economic progress and core social progress we need to make here,” CEO Brian Moynihan said on CNBC. There’s no reason why the phrase economic justice should be an oxymoron. People should earn wages on which they can live, wages that allow full participation in the economy. Economic justice means closing wage gaps. Providing sick leave. H elping people find jobs that reflect their skills and potential, and, when necessary, retraining. This is what a civil society does. Especially a rich civil society. Covid-19 deaths and record job losses hit minorities hard, exposing the deep, wide chasm in wages and wealth, especially between Black people and white people. When low wages and persistent racism keep people from labor, credit and health care markets, the legacy of discrimination is transferred from one generation to the next. With little or no household wealth, a legacy of slavery, to sustain them, Black families can’t weather recessions. Median Black household wealth is 10 percent that of median white households, according to the Samuel Dubois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke. Though Black people represent 13 percent of U.S. population, they hold less than three percent of its wealth, according to William “Sandy” Darity, an economist at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy. He cites centuries of harm, dating back to slavery, for today’s systemic inequality that drives disparities between racial health and wealth. He and co-author A. Kirsten Mullen, who writes about race, politics, and history, recently published, From Here to Equality. The book details a case for reparations. Along with slavery, he cites apartheid (Jim Crow and “white terror”), along with wage penalties, psychological and physical wounds, ongoing educational disparities, labor and housing market discrimination, confinement to certain neighborhoods, often sub-standard, and, disproportionate levels of incarceration . Disparities are the result of cumulative historical effects, not behavior. Reparations can help “alter this terrain,” Darity says. Innovative social policies, in which reparations could play a role, could help right this history of social wrongs, and end police killings of unarmed Black people. Betty Joyce Nash reported for the Hendersonville Times-News and the Greensboro News & Record before moving to Virginia where she worked as an economics writer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. She co-edited Lock & Load: Armed Fiction, published in 2017 by the University of New Mexico Press; the anthology probes Americans’ complicated relationship to firearms. Betty Joyce Nash writes for Carolina Commentary. For more information, see www.bettyjoycenash.com

With the 2020 election looming, some of “we the people” ponder the public-interest protections once found in the now-defunct 1949 Fairness Doctrine. Rooted in the 1927 Radio Act, passed to manage the public’s airwaves, the Federal Communications Commission revoked it in 1987, part of the Reagan administration’s commitment to deregulation. Resuscitation efforts have failed. As competing communication channels opened, the scarcity of broadcast spectrum became moot. The concept of airwaves as a public trust fell by the wayside. Cable television and satellite signals gained ground, and the internet, with its promise of diversity, lay on the horizon. In 2011, during the Obama administration, the FCC scrapped the doctrine’s last provisions. Today, the Restore the Fairness Doctrine Act of 2019, introduced in September (U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-HI), languishes in committee. That’s a shame. “Although the Fairness Doctrine’s effectiveness and enforceability are debatable, it encouraged sensitivity toward programming biases and provided local communities an important tool with which to hold broadcasters accountable,” writes Victor Pickard in a 2018 article in the International Journal of Communications. Pickard is professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communications. The doctrine’s larger purpose, often overlooked, was to make sure broadcast licensees covered issues of public importance in a fair manner. A lamentable loss, given continued consolidation and the polarizing, partisan news that sprang up after the doctrine’s death. Public interest issues back in the day included workers’ rights, nuclear plant construction, even diet and health. If stations failed to seek and air opposing views, they could lose licenses or face renewal problems or be required to provide time for competing views if they hadn’t been aired. In its ruling, the FCC cited the “chilling effect” on broadcasters’ free speech. Since most violations centered on failure to air valid opposing views, some broadcasters quit airing public-interest issues, and even paid programming, that might trigger their Fairness Doctrine obligations. President Reagan vetoed the bill Congress passed to reinstate the doctrine; President George H.W. Bush’s veto threat prevented another effort. The doctrine had survived one free speech challenge in 1969 when the Supreme Court upheld its first-amendment constitutionality. In its finding, SCOTUS weighed audiences’ rights more heavily than those of broadcasters, with reasoning since questioned. In 1987, the FCC found the Fairness Doctrine violated the first amendment rights of broadcasters, though no court has addressed the constitutional question. The original doctrine’s public-interest provision has often been conflated with the equal opportunity rule, which still exists, but only for political candidates, not supporters, and with exceptions. Scheduled appearances in interviews, documentaries, and spot news coverage are exempt. This applies to a wide-range of programs, even “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert, entertainment that sometimes features candidates as guests. Without a candidate’s recognizable voice or image, the equal time rule doesn’t apply. Complaints were filed against license renewals of two Wisconsin radio stations because they failed to give equal time to supporters of Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s opponent in a recall election, after the stations aired support for Walker. The FCC in 2014 dismissed those complaints: “A licensee has broad discretion—based on its right to free speech—to choose the programming that it believes serves the needs and interests of the members of its audience.” While it’s tempting to wholly blame the rise in partisan news on the doctrine’s demise, the issue is not so simple. Deregulation fueled consolidation as advances in technology changed the media-scape. Personal listening devices, for instance, made radio’s music formats less appealing and less profitable. Talk helped fill that void. The Fairness Doctrine does survive, in public discussions, though it’s often raised by conservatives as a symbol of regulatory overreach. They link it to net neutrality, the idea that internet providers should treat all data the same, rather than privilege one type of content, user, platform, website, equipment and such, over another. But this principle is irrelevant to the Fairness Doctrine. The only parallel between the two ideas, Pickard notes in an email exchange, is that “both are public interest protections that are trying to address commercial excesses in communication systems.” These days, losses in journalism and concentrated commercial media have undermined public-interest news. Policy interventions could help restore public trust. British broadcasters follow “due impartiality” rules in political coverage, Pickard notes, which sensitizes media firms and audiences to balance. What might a 21st century vision of public interest coverage look like? I posed this question to Pickard. “That news outlets should feel compelled to cover important policy issues from multiple perspectives. What, for example, Fox News is doing would not be acceptable. But it is difficult to imagine how as a society we can mandate this responsibility of highly profitable media conglomerates whose first loyalty will always be the bottom line, democracy be damned. Well-funded public alternatives may be our last, best hope.” Betty Joyce Nash reported for the Hendersonville Times-News and the Greensboro News & Record before moving to Virginia. She writes journalism and fiction from Charlottesville. In 2017, the University of New Mexico Press published Lock & Load: Armed Fiction, a book of short stories she co-edited with a colleague. The stories probe Americans’ complicated relationship to firearms. For more information, see www.bettyjoycenash.com

Protracted effects of the pandemic are laying waste to larders in households reeling from job loss and eviction threats and, possibly, illness. State lawmakers should plow more money into providing food through federal block grants known as Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF.) Here’s another idea: Go on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP) diet. Feed the family on $396 per month, the average 2019 monthly benefit for N.C. households with children. Some 29 million of all adults in the U.S., 14 percent; 18 percent in households with children, reported that households lacked sufficient food in the past seve n days, according to the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey. (Real-time data were collected December 9–21, 2020.) In North Carolina, food insecurity gnawed at 13.9 percent of adults, well above the pre-pandemic rate of 3.4 percent over the 12 months of 2019. Eighty-fo ur percent of respondents blamed money, not worries about safety or lack of transportation. Black, Latino, and Indigenous adults were twice as likely to report food worries, 24 percent and 21 percent, respectively, compared to 10 percent of White adults,. Hunger costs individuals and society. Providing resources in utero and early childhood influences health and economic outcomes later in life. Inadequate nutrition puts people at higher risk of hypertension, heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, kidney disease, and hepatitis. These problems increase the risk of mortality from COVID-19. And, food-insecure adults are 50 percent more likely to show up in the ER; if admit ted they stay in the hospital longer. Our best hunger stabilizing policy, our only universal welfare program, is SNAP. Benefits far exceed costs: https://www.cbpp.org/research/snap-is-effective-and-efficient finds that every spent SNAP dollar feeds $1.70 into the economy. N.C. SNAP participant numbers grew by 20 percent between February (pre-pandemic) and July/August 2020. Thirty-five percent are working families, typically earning low wages in restaurants and stores. This amounts to we-the-taxpayers subsidizing private, often highly profitable, firms that pay lower-than-living wages that include no benefits. Right now, SNAP isn’t enough. Food banks are running out of food. Feeding America estimates a shortage of 6 billion to 8 billion meals over the coming year. Time to re-think TANF’s allocations to basic assistance. North Carolina in 2019 spent $564 million federal and state TANF dollars; six percent went to provide cash assistance. (Most states spent about 20 percent of TANF funds on basic assistance for families with children; funds sometimes went to unrelated budget areas.) Funds als o can support work-related services, including child care, administration, child welfare, and pre-K. When people are forced to skip medications, rent, mortgage, car, or other payments in order to buy food, more people will need Medicaid. More people will lan d in hospitals. Poorly-nourished children suffer later in life. Hunger hit me especially hard one day when a man showed up o n my doorstep and asked for a loaf of bread. “Anything,” he said. My mom grew up on a tobacco farm in South Carolina and ate oatmeal three times a day during the Great Depression, she told me, after I asked why we never ate Quaker Oats. She’d puked oatmeal too many times. That week, I put my family on the ‘poverty diet’ and wrote about the experience, donating my https://m.styleweekly.com/richmond/sharing-the-pain/Content?oid=1373441 honorarium to the food bank. My children called it the starvation diet. For us it was temporary. Hunger terrifies me, not only because of its effects, but because if we can’t fix this, who are we-the-people? Betty Joyce Nash reported for the Hendersonville Times-News and the Greensboro News & Record before moving to Virginia where she worked as an economics writer. She co-edited Lock & Load: Armed Fiction, published in 2017 by the University of New Mexico Press; the anthology probes Americans’ complicated relationship to firearms. She writes for Carolina Commentary. For more information, see www.bettyjoycenash.com

Five months ago, coastal North Carolina residents sat in the crosshairs of a monster storm. Some 43 people died during and immediately after Hurricane Florence, which left $17 billion in damage. Hurricane Michael followed one month later. Three people died and millions more in damage resulted. Wilmington and many other affected communities have not fully recovered. Water damage remediation equipment churns 24-hours a day outside the 100-year-old Alton Lennon Federal Courthouse, closed indefinitely. Blue tarps dot the rooftops of a partment buildings, businesses and churches awaiting roofing crews. Power saws drone in neighborhoods where gutted homes undergo repairs. Hurricane season returns June 1, and with it the threat of new storms. Gov. Roy Cooper testified on Feb. 6before the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources, to the increasingly powerful and erratic storms that have hit North Carolina in recent years. He cited the two, 500-year floods experienced in two years, and three in fewer than 20 years. Cooper described mudslides in the mountains that have damaged apple orchards and ski areas, record heat in the Piedmont that has killed poultry and damaged crops, and wildfire and flooding risks to Fort Bragg and the Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point. The worst of the damage, however, has occurred in Eastern North Carolina, which faces the prospect of more storms and floods, he said. Two years after Hurricane Michael hit, Hurricane Florence “decimated coastal communities and crushed coastal tourism and fisheries.” As Florence pounded the coast for days with punishing winds, it dropped trillions of gallons of rain. Communities went under water under historic flood levels, livestock and crops drowned. Cooper told the committee, conducting month-long climate hearings, about steps taken in North Carolina to respond, with a new North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency to administer federal block grants to fund disaster recovery and plans to develop and implement strategies to protect the state from future storms. He discussed the North Carolina Flood Inundation Mapping and Alert Network that will identify areas facing the most risk during disasters and the safest places to rebuild. “But when storms are becoming more destructive, it’s not enough to pick up the pieces,” he said. “We must take action to prevent this kind of devastation in the future. I urge this Congress and all our federal partners to match the same level of determination brought to disaster recovery in our fight to reduce the effects of climate change.” Cooper got the ball rolling at the state level last year, with an executive order to achieve a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in North Carolina by 2025. This includes increased state building efficiency and 80,000 zero-emission vehicles on the road. But states and researchers rely on federal funds to pay for scientific research and drive innovation “that can help solve our climate crisis,” he said. Federal legislation and regulation will further protect the state, plus government leadership to work on a global level to effect international solutions. TheGreen New Dealresolution proposed Feb. 7 by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (Mass.), is a beginning. It offers a framework for the kind of bold environmental change needed to combat the devastating effects of global warming. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationrecently reported that 247 people died in 14 weather and climate disasters last year, with greater than $1 billion in losses from each event. Since 1980, there have been 241 weather and climate disasters in the United States, each with at least $1 billion in overall damages and costs. Total costs came to $1.6 trillion. In North Carolina so far, the storms exacted a price to be paid: more than $1 billion in state and federal funds for recovery efforts, and counting. How do we move forward? Government legislation and policy can either curtail or fuel climate change on a major scale, from the greenhouse emissions permitted by industry to the decision on whether there is a bus route serving your neighborhood. Call and write local, state and federal representatives to advocate for action. Attend town halls and other public meetings so the urgency of climate change remains top of mind for those who represent you. Consider a run for public office yourself. Perform an inventory of your home and an honest assessment of your life choices. From reducing the amount of red meat you consume to installing solar panels on your house, there are things you can do. Here is ahandy calculatorfrom the Nature Conservancy that can guide you on steps to take to reduce your carbon footprint. While the state continues post-disaster recovery, we must remember that the next big hurricane, fire or flood will cost more lives and destroy property. This is a fight for the future.