Lt. Gov. responds to editorial cartoon about social studies guidelines debate

I'm Michel widely and I'm proud to be the chairman

of the North Carolina Republican Party and want to talk

a little bit about what we've seen from the Democrats

and their calls for unity A to all levels of

the government and why we're seeing nationwide that while they're

talking about unity they're doing anything but acting in a

unified in manner

When we see that President Biden has unleashed a torrent

of executive actions I think we're at 42 counting now

over the first couple of weeks which dwarfs the numbers

of administrative actions that we've seen from any other president

who has said that we're going to work on bipartisan

legislative majorities and has absolutely not had any leadership whatsoever

In fact they're working with Congress and with the Senate

to push a very divisive and partisan impeachment process to

try and remove a president that has already left office

That is that is not the unity that we need

We have seen it where a vast majority of the

American voters strongly opposed taxpayer funded abortions especially overseas

And yet he has overturned the Mexico policy through executive

action on gun again not the unity that we need

a tow where we are here down in North Carolina

on we're talking about education

We're talking about policies and instead of Governor Cooper in

the Democrats working to get kids back into school instead

of them working for school choice we're talking about social

studies standards that are nothing if not divisive in fact

that they're so divisive that when Republicans on the Board

of Election decided to question them on to stand up

and talk about what is in those specific standards we

get cartoons that they're calling them racist

Despite the fact that we have a Native American and

a black members of that board who are now being

called racist by WRL I think it's absolutely beyond appalling

Onda

We need to be able to hold Democrats accountable

If they're going to talk about unity and they're not

going to act in a unified way then we need

to call them out for it

We need to see Unity Way need to see leadership

I think Republicans across the board are very willing to

act and engage in a bipartisan manner whether it's up

in Washington D

C

Or here in Raleigh but they are refusing to do

it in every single instance

And the torrent that we've seen from three actions from

the president and from Governor Cooper and the Democrats here

on the board of Elections show that they're not interested

in unity they're interested in power on that is really

unfortunate

So with that I'm going to turn it over Thio

Lieutenant Governor and let him speak

Thank you

Thank you Michael

We appreciate that

Thank you so much

Thank you all for being here

Uh let me start out by saying this uh I'm

gonna preference these comments with this

This is not about anybody's or point of view

It's not about your freedom of speech

I'm wholeheartedly in favor of hearing everyone's opinion no matter

how vile someone may think it

ISS I'm wholeheartedly in favor of you being able to

voice your opinion

But what I want to talk about here today is

not about opinions

It is about what people who people say they are

and who they proved themselves to be and the hypocrisy

their own

Now here we are

Second day of Black History Month one day removed from

television stations newspapers and other mediums celebrating February down to

my hometown of Greensboro where people took a stand against

racism and bigotry

And on the second day of Black History Month the

second the first black lieutenant governor off North Carolina has

been portrayed as such by one of the largest news

outlets in this state

Now this is not a private individual

This is not somebody's Facebook page

This is a newspaper that goes out to millions of

readers a newspaper that if asked would tell you they

stand up for equality and freedom and justice that would

stand up and celebrate Black History Month a newspaper that

did not even know that a black man was the

date that I was uh put in the office on

the steps

They weren't even aware of it right here in this

town again

It's not about their right to say it

It's about them proven exactly who they are

That cartoon doesn't really bother me

What bothers me is the hypocrisy behind that's what bothers

me that you would portray a black man just because

he's in the GOP is a client that you would

portrayed American Indian woman a Native American woman Olivia Oxidant

who is a Lumbee Indian and who has had to

face the client face to face

And they're egregious actions and had has had to fight

against them you would portray her

That's something that Bob the hypocrisy is mind numbing folks

And I'm here to tell you right now this office

is not going to stand by and let it go

by on when I'm not gonna go along to get

along

I'm gonna call them out on every every time because

here it is

What I wanna know from WRL Is that who you

are Is that who you want to represent yourself to

be in this state And again it's not a private

individuals not a private Facebook page that is a newspaper

sells itself the millions of people across the state that

would put something that violence

So he's standards we're talking about

They're not divisive

They're not giving us calls

So look at the way there

Rick put out things on social media about People are

talking about this all across the state people are waking

up and see it

What's in these standards There's some serious discussions to be

had about and if they're not divisive how in the

world that we end up here What I understand the

person who drew this is an eighth grade social studies

teacher

That's true

And he's teaching these falsehoods because by the way wasn't

anybody in the GOP that promoted the cuts client and

the ideals Darryl I could tell you who did that

He's promoting this

W R l What is he doing in this classroom

So the standards aren't in boxing and this should give

us Poles to pump the brakes slow down and revisit

this issue not past the standards

On tomorrow on Thursday we're busy investigating people for simply

going to Washington D

C

And yes the vast majority of people who went to

Washington D

C

Just went toe have their voice heard

There was a small minority who did very bad things

and should be punished

But the vast majority of people who went to Washington

D

C

Simply went toe have their grievances addressed

Now we're trying to hunt down those people demonize those

people simply for wanting to have their voices heard while

a teacher in a North Carolina middle school withdraw drawing

like that depicting the first black lieutenant government as a

clue

Class class

It's something we cannot stand for folks

It's something that I'm not going to stand for

Free speech

Yes I'm all for it

But when your free speech proves you to be a

hypocrite and I will say this public proves you to

be a hypocrite and a liar we won't stand solid

for we're going to stand up against it

It's happening now not continue

Toe

Make sure it's gonna happen in the future

As lieutenant governor You guys have any questions I'll open

it up

Thio

Yes

You talk about a possible yes but some people who

are gonna watch you tonight I'm gonna think that you

article created e realized that your post anti Semitic homophobic

and sensitive post private but they became public

So how do you respond to those concerns from people

that say you are a hypocrite That's a great question

And I'm glad you asked that

And here's the answer

Because when I made those comments as a private citizen

and I explained this to you before till when I

made those posts as a as a private citizen I

was speaking directly to issues that I'm passionate about but

as a public servant and I said this to you

as a public servant I have toe put those opinions

behind me and do what you want for everyone in

North Carolina on

I'm grown enough to do that

If I was a teacher I would not have posted

those things

A teacher should not have posted that

And if I ran a state wide publication like W

W R A

I would not post something like that

It's all about where you stand at the moment when

you speak

It's not about what you say because we all have

the right to say these things

But it's about where you stand when you say that

and who you're saying them to

That's the issue that I take here

I don't mind the fact that people have the right

to say these things but I do mind when they

tell me that they're not racist that they stand up

for justice that they stand up for equality and their

their institution or their publication does that and then they

print something like that

That's the hypocrisy that I have a problem

Anyone else Would you be willing to sit down with

the opposition to discuss still moving forward ways to overhaul

Social That's exactly what we're trying to do and see

That's that's my entire point with this

My entire point in this is this

I am willing to talk to anyone who wants to

work on these social studies standards

In fact that's what we're doing

The CPI has made it known that they don't agree

with my stance on this but the end up s

to this point

The CPI and I have had a intelligent conversation about

this

This is not an intelligent conversation and it's again it

goes back to what I just discussed with him

It's coming from a person who should be having an

intelligent logical conversation about this issue who stands in a

position where his conversation should be intelligent and logical and

decent

It's not a just a commentator

Disguise not just a political commentator and W

L R L has a larger responsibility than somebody who

just has a private Facebook post

Can you bring us into What do you want Yeah

it's go about recording on the table

Why my major my major opposition to it is that

I think that the way to social studies standards aircraft

right now that they 0.2 calling our our nation systemically

racist and I'm diametrically opposed to that

I do not believe we live in a systemically racist

nation

Nor have we ever lived in a systemically racist nation

Are there Racists now Yes

Have there been racist in our history Yes

Have they done vile and evil and disgusting things Yes

Where they dealt with Yes

Then we all have

We overcome them to a large extent way have

And we are still working in every segment of our

community to root out racist and root out racism and

running out of every institution in that it may be

in

But we are using the American system off government to

do that

We are using our court systems and our laws and

the words of our founding documents to do that

And that's the argument that I had that the founding

of this nation our founding documents our constitution our system

of government is not racist is the exact thing that

is helping us overcome racism today and will continue to

help us overcome racism racism in the future

That's what I have

That's my major argument against the standard

Some people on the other side will say that the

Constitution was written

Black people were not considered even human beings

100% human beings

That would be an example of systemic discrimination

You have Jim Crow laws

You have red line

You have a disproportionate impact of Kobe 19 with vaccination

program

You have people that say that it has systemically big

discrimination against African Americans

Your response

Okay let's take the first

I suppose you're talking about 3/5 Compromise

See this is another example of why we need to

teach real history

The 3/5 compromises was put into our Constitution toe limit

the power off slaveholding states in this nation

The slaveholders want to count their slaves as whole individuals

for the purposes off having a population count that would

give them control of our federal government

The 3/5 compromise prevented that

And why did it prevent that And why was it

place in Because slavery was never a settled issue in

this nation

There always been people the highest levels of the fall

against the second thing Jim Crow

Yes there were racist people who use the Constitution and

our Supreme Court to set the standard of separate but

equal

But again the American system off government through hard work

and perseverance would would prevail again

When in the 19 sixties we overcame or the 19

fifties Excuse me Way Over came and crushed the system

of Jim Crow with Brown versus Board of Education System

which was done through our Supreme Court

Our system of government worked

It stood up against racism

And I will submit this to you

The states that are having these problems with rolling out

these vaccines

North Carolina being one of them they are run by

Democrats the same people who promote these kind of ideas

and lives

Right So who is it Who is it This promoted

systemic racism

Anyone else Thank you all very much for coming here

Thank you very much

Thank you for everybody who's watching

Appreciate you