After North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson formally announced his candidacy for governor in 2024, many on social media quickly compared him to the “Boondocks” character Uncle Ruckus, a Black animated personality known for his self-hate.
Critics point to old videos and rally statements as proof that the 54-year-old Republican is a boot-strapper who rails against Blacks who believe they are owed something from the country.
Twitter user Nikki Barnes posted one video with the caption, “Wow! This Black Republican candidate for Governor says it’s Black Americans that owe REPARATIONS to this country for our ‘freedom.’ That’s a new take.”
Related: ‘They Make It Sound Like America Is a Racist, Broken Country’: Ohio Politician Wants Descendants of White Civil War Soldiers Who Helped Free Enslaved Blacks to Get Reparations
“There were some people talking about reparations in this country,” Robinson began his speech at the 2021 North Carolina Republican State Convention. “And I remember I made this particular liberal so angry at me because I told them — right to their face — nobody owes you anything for slavery.”
According to the politician’s logic, if anyone owed anyone reparations, it would be the 21st-century Black person who benefits from the struggles of their ancestors.
“It’s you who owes. Why do you owe? Because somebody in those fields took strikes for you,” he said, referencing chattel slavery and how enslaved people were whipped while they worked cultivating cotton, tobacco, rice, and other crops on plantations.
He continued, “After those fields were ended and slavery was ended, somebody had to walk through Jim Crow for you. Somebody fought wars and died for you. Somebody lived less than because they didn’t have what you have, and they did it for you.”
The lieutenant governor referenced the Selma, Alabama, march over the Edmund…
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