- Just ahead on Black Issues Forum, we're breaking down the most pressing political issues affecting the black community, both nationally and here in North Carolina.

From DEI changes to economic shifts to policy changes that could have long-term effects on black communities across the state.

Our guests break down the potential impact, coming up next, stay with us.

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[upbeat music] ♪ - Welcome to Black Issues Forum.

I'm Kenia Thompson.

The political climate in 2025 thus far has been a whirlwind.

Major legislative battles, ongoing challenges to DEI policies, and economic shifts under the current presidential administration that could have long-term effects on black communities.

I wanna bring on our guest so that we can go ahead and tackle the conversation.

I wanna welcome to the show Senator Natalie Murdock, representing North Carolina District 20, and joining her is Emmanuel Jarvis, president of the Frederick Douglas Foundation of North Carolina, welcome.

- Hi.

Thanks for having us.

- It's always great to have you two-- - Good to be back.

- Absolutely.

- I wanna jump right in it.

We're at the end of February in filming this episode.

March is coming.

The first thing that's coming up in March is the Civil Rights Division being challenged to look into their DEI programs and making sure that there are no illegal programs that will exist.

Define what illegal DEI looks like and what does this mean for civil rights?

- Yes.

I think we should jump right in.

I honestly think black history month is the perfect time to reaffirm these values here in America.

These are policies we need to ask ourselves how we got here.

When you look at our very own constitution, the amendments that were provided were to provide full access to the American Dream, allowing black men to vote, allowing women to vote, ensuring through other policies that veterans and those who were disabled were not excluded from opportunities.

So when we talk about illegal policies, we will have to fight these things out in court.

It will be litigated.

A lot of it is opened up to interpretation, but it is very concerning that now all of a sudden it's a bad thing to champion diversity, equity, and inclusion.

But I do wanna be clear, there are a number of actors involved in this, Project 2025 is being enacted in real time.

So from private entities, think tanks, attorneys, a number of folks are working to dismantle these policies.

And my question for them is, is it the diversity, the equity, or the inclusion that they are against?

And I'm still waiting to find that out.

- Right, Immanuel, how does this impact the work that these groups are doing and is there a clear definition of what they want removed?

- Yeah.

So in my, in my assertion, I believe that, you know, 1964, the Civil Rights Act purposely went after, made sure that discriminatory policies were not created against not just women, but blacks, Asians, and all minorities.

- [Kenia] Right.

- And so today with diversity, equity, inclusion, and then now accessibility, DEI and then we have A, DEIA, the problem is, is that there are individuals who weaponized that particular policy and took it so far as to actually have reverse discrimination.

Think about it.

If DEI works anywhere, it has to work everywhere.

DEI doesn't work in NBA, DEI doesn't work in the National Hockey League.

It doesn't work in sports and the reason why is that you're looking for the best, tallest, strongest, most athletic, and most talented players on your team to win championships.

That's all you care about.

You don't care if they're Black, they're white, if you're tall, if you're strong, if you can get the ball in the basket, if you can get the puck in the net, we want you.

If you can't, we don't want you.

- Right.

- Now here's the thing, businesses are in a similar situation.

I'm a business owner and I'm looking for the best.

I don't really care if you're this short or if you're 6' 4".

I don't care if your freckles are close together like mine or if they're not.

- [Speaker] Right.

- I don't really care if you're a woman or a man.

I just want, and CEOs just want the best employee to propel their business forward.

And sadly, I think the inception of DEI was great, but there are influences that have turned DEI into what we fought for before 1964 in terms of Civil Rights Act, and so.

- Well, and a lot of people think that they're, the assumption is that it's not merit based as well, right?

That people aren't actually working for the jobs that they have or the opportunities that they have.

- When when you have quotas, it's hard to be able to do that.

So for instance, let's go like this.

If you were an NBA owner and you had a quota that you needed to have at least 40% of your basketball, your starting five needs to be white or needs to be Asian, would that affect your ability to be able to get the best players on your team to win championships?

- Right.

- And if we're being intellectually honest with saying yes, and so as a business owner, and even in government, I believe that the Civil Rights Act was incredibly important because Blacks, because Asians, because Hispanics were being discriminated upon in terms of promotions, in terms of how they're being evaluated and even getting jobs.

- Yeah.

- Today, what we have in terms of DEI is now we have something that's gone beyond that and we start getting into quotas.

And it didn't start with quotas, by the way.

DEI did not start with quotas, but this is where we are.

- Yeah.

- And so it's gone so far that there needs to be a reeling back and say, hey, hey, wait a minute.

We're not gonna be picking people based upon if their gender, their sexual orientation, or how many freckles or how close they are.

- I'm gonna pause you right there.

- Yes ma'am.

- And ask the question.

You know, so we see a lot of these programs, initiatives being pulled back, but are there still ways, Natalie, to achieve the same goals that the original DEI programs were set out to achieve?

- There are, and I'm glad you used the word goals.

You actually don't see quotas in government any longer.

You see a lot of goals.

And the goals are, because diversity is what makes America great.

It's good to have different perspectives, different viewpoints, and even diversity when it comes to socioeconomic status.

We are seeing a lot of programs that they're saying are DEI or programs that actually were helpful to even rural communities.

And so there is this assertion, a false assertion, that DEI policies, diversity, equity, inclusion, allow people who don't have merit, that aren't qualified are jumping ahead in line of folks that are qualified.

And that's not at all what these policies are doing.

- Yeah.

- And so that's why we need to be clear in what these programs seek to do.

And let's stick to the merit.

It can have the opposite effect where folks feel emboldened to say they can discriminate against someone and choose not to hire them because of their race, because of their class, because they're disabled, because they're a veteran, because they may be LGBTIQ+.

So I think now we're in a space where that is what we're gonna see play out in courts and in workplaces across the nation.

- And are we gonna see more court actioned situations where, because someone can make that decision, right, how do we intentionally fulfill the goals of DEI or just have creating opportunity and equality.

- Without those guidelines that are, like, what do I have to go back to, if I don't have a mandate in place that says that I can fight this, right?

- Right, I think, I mean under, let's put it like this.

We had our first Black president from 2008 to 2000 what, '15, 2016.

- [Interviewer] Right.

- We weren't talking about DEI.

We knew that we had something on the books called the Civil Rights Act.

And if we felt, as an individual, if I felt as though that I was being discriminated against in terms of employment or any other aspect, I was able to have leverage to be able to combat that.

That hasn't changed, it hasn't changed at all.

I think sometimes, the human condition always wants to do more, and sometimes we go overboard and we do things that actually are more detrimental.

A lot of, if you look at DEI and some of the policies and how it's been enacted in business, not necessarily government, but in businesses, it's actually neutralized the Civil Rights Act, and that's not what we want to do.

The purpose was to give us an opportunity and not to put any blinders or any blockers in our way to be able to have opportunities to be able to gain employment and support our families.

And that's still there.

It hasn't gone anywhere, and it's not going anywhere.

- And to go back to the memo for DOJ of what's gonna go into effect March 1st, I'm glad you mentioned the Civil Rights Act.

A lot of these policies seek to redefine what the Civil Rights Act was, and that is what you are gonna see litigated in court.

And in reference to examples for the NBA, the issue is that's optional.

Our concern are right here in North Carolina, with the legislation we've seen out of the NC House that may be moving forward as soon as next week, when you have federal employees, state employees, people that just wanna show up and do their job, those hiring managers do not need to be micromanaged.

They need to have the latitude to say that they know that they can pick the folks that are best and duly qualified to do their jobs.

What we also have to unpack here is a lot of this is a dog whistle.

A lot of this is a dog whistle to scare people to say, we are watching you, we are micromanaging you, and it's gonna result in folks not wanting to work in governmental entities.

It's gonna result in folks bein' fearful of doin' their jobs, and it's gonna do the opposite of makin' our workplaces less diverse.

And that is not what we should be seeking to accomplish.

- Well, here in North Carolina, we saw, even before all of this came down in 2025, the UNC system had rolled back their DEI efforts.

And a lotta people question, but now it kind of seems, well, was there a preemptive, let's strike before this becomes a problem so that we can avoid, and this is speculation, I don't know, but I'd love for you to clarify that for me.

- Yes, it definitely was preemptive.

It was preemptive because it also, we have to go back to the Affirmative Action Supreme Court case, and so UNC was specifically named in that litigation.

And so, I think that's why you saw UNC work to change their policies immediately, but I do wanna highlight the brilliance of the former chancellor, in saying that they were gonna have programs for those that didn't have economic means to attend school.

And so, I think that folks are going to get creative.

They're gonna get innovative, because again, the purpose of all of this is to say there are historically groups, oftentimes, are minority, are low income, that were denied opportunities, they were marginalized, there were systemic barriers that made it difficult for them to play on an equal playing field.

That is how we got here, so we still have to be intentional in removin' those barriers, whether it be getting your education, getting an employment, there are still gonna be ways to do that within the confines of these laws.

And that will be the new territory that we're gonna have to charter.

- I agree with the senator.

I applaud the UNC system, and I don't know if they were the first, but there's many other schools that have adopted this as well, that educate that financial means should not be a barrier for education, period.

I don't care who you are.

If you have the intellect to be able to do the work and to be able to study and to be able to perform, you should have an opportunity to have to be in that school, regardless it's Harvard or UNC Greensboro.

It doesn't make a difference where you are.

I think the difference is, and what I would like to kind of push back a little bit on is that we understand that the opportunity needs to be there and barriers need to be lowered.

DEI wasn't removing barriers.

It was actually creating say, "Hey, you need to do this."

If I look at that plate and there are three different balls that are in that plate, that is a diverse plate because there's a white one, there's a straw one, there's different ones there, right?

But if all of a sudden I say, you know, we need diversity and we're gonna take all of 'em out, and now we're gonna have two and one that's not really diverse.

If you have a bucket of black balls, you can't call it diverse.

Let me ask you a question real quick.

Do we say that Durham Public Schools is diverse because it has 90 some percent of Black and Hispanics that go there?

That's not diverse because you only have 6% white that are actually participating in the school system.

- Yeah, well, and yeah, and not everyone was misusing DEI, but we could go on and on about DEI, but I wanna move on because we do have a few other topics to talk about.

- Absolutely.

- You mentioned, you know, financial access, you know, having money, having opportunity.

So that brings me to, you know, this kind of rumor, some are saying hoax, but there's supposed to be a $5,000 stimulus check potentially that could be distributed.

I'm gonna pause there, what have you heard about this stimulus check?

And then we'll talk about stimulus checks.

- It is very much a hoax.

It was something said by Elon Musk, who is the shadow president, apparently, and tells that Donald Trump wants to do.

So he got ahead of the president, as he often does, went around saying that there was gonna be a 5,000 stimulus check.

Donald Trump himself, Donald Trump himself, has not affirmed that or said that that is going to occur.

They are trying to create smoke and mirrors to distract people from the fact that a unelected billionaire, Elon Musk, is running this country with DOGE and they're claiming they're gonna make government more efficient.

Now we're seeing it and states across the US and it's horrifying in South Carolina through joint resolution.

They're moving forward with a state version of DOGE.

Here in North Carolina, there's a committee in the house.

- Describe DOGE to those that don't know what DOGE is.

- So, DOGE is a project headed up by Elon Musk through support of Donald Trump and some other members of the cabinet to go through and look at waste and fraud and how we can make government more efficient.

But honestly, what is horrifying, and I really hope to see some hearings on this, it has resulted in firings of folks, even with federal aviation.

I don't know about you, but I'm very concerned about the lack of safety we've seen with our ability to just travel safely.

So we've seen a lot of slashes and cuts to government saying that they're gonna save money, but what we've seen is chaos.

We've seen confusion.

That's where these freezes have come from, and these pauses, the inability to open up Medicaid dashboards and provide services to people, to claim that you are gonna save money.

So it's connection to this hoax of a $5,000 stimulus check.

They're saying, "Oh, we're gonna have all these savings.

We're gonna give this money back to the American people."

That is not what is happening.

It's a distraction, because this unelected individual has been allowed to bulldoze federal governmental agencies when it is congress that has the power of the purse.

These are funds that have been appropriated by Republicans and Democrats, a former budget.

Now you're having the executive branch to come in and deny the ability for those funds to go forward and make it to the people, including Medicaid and things of that nature.

So it is a distraction.

The stimulus checks during COVID were needed.

People were unemployed for the first time.

I was a new senator.

I saw it right here in North Carolina.

Folks who had never been unemployed before were sick in unemployment assistance.

The stimulus checks were provided to stimulate the economy because it really had a cooling effect on the economy as a result of COVID.

- Did it really stimulate the economy?

Or were those funds that we ended up paying back?

Because there was a lot of discussion around that.

Jarvis, your thoughts on stimulus checks?

- Well, let's go back, first of all.

I can't just walk away from this whole DOGE thing.

DOGE is not new, by the way.

It has a new name, but it's not new.

It was Bill Clinton and Al Gore who talked about having their own department.

The reason why that Donald Trump is able to do what he's able to do is because it's not new.

This is something that's been going on for a while.

There's been departments that say, "Hey, we are going to focus on inefficiencies."

The difference is is first of all, it's a Republican.

I'm talking about this, number one.

Number two, they're actually doing it, they're not just talking about it.

I remember watching just recently, an old article and Al Gore and Bill Clinton are standing right there.

He's talking about, he used literally the same words that Donald Trump is using today.

- But the concept has always been around.

it's just that now the formulation of it is- - No, they're actually doing it.

The difference is is that we don't have a politician in the White House.

We actually have a businessman that says, "Hey, look, I'm getting stuff done.

If I told you I'm gonna do something, I'm actually going to do it."

Now, when we look at in terms of, I don't think that any American can look at our government and says, "Oh, our government is running very efficiently and there's not a lot of waste."

You're starting to see the reports that are coming out on the things.

Now, there's some things that are nefarious, there's some things that are not right, there's some things that are even fake, for that matter.

But there's still a lot of waste that we have.

In terms of the $5,000 stimulus check, I do not know if that will actually materialize.

The thought is that out of the savings, that 20% would go back to the American people, another 20% would actually go to pay down our deficit that we have.

- But to Natalie's point, if this is just kind of a smoke screen and there really is no savings- - But we don't know.

I mean.

- We don't know.

- Again, we don't know.

I don't even know why we're talking about this this morning because.

- Because Elon Musk, the shadow president, has gone to the public and said that they're gonna get $5,000, but let's be clear with this stimulus check.

There were a number of African Americans who did say that that's why they voted for Donald Trump because of the stimulus check and he put- - The stimulus check was never brought up- - And he put his name on it.

- Prior to November.

- So that's why they're bringing it up again.

- It was never, it was never talked about.

It was never talked about.

That idea came up within the last 30 days.

It was never talked about in- - Well, here's, the platform is to provide clarification for viewers.

- Yes.

- Right.

- So despite what you two know, nobody else knows that, right?

- [Natalie] Exactly.

- So we're here to provide clarification.

We read it in the papers.

- So what I wanna say is that there is no, they've mentioned and talked about that this is what they would like to be able to do.

- Right.

- I appreciate you bringing this up, [indistinct].

on the Black issues forum.

But again, it is so new.

There's so many things that need to be done.

We don't know if this is actually gonna materialize.

If even if no one gets a stimulus check, but our debt is actually starting to get chipped away at little by little, the $36 trillion that we have in debt?

That would actually be good even if we never received a dime.

- But we do have to highlight under the Clinton presidency, when they did balance the budget, yes, they did say we can use some tools from private industry to streamline government, They did it legally.

They didn't have a billionaire that is telling Bill Clinton what to do.

He and Al Gore did it, as the duly elected individuals, they worked with Congress, with a Republican congress no less, a Republican speaker to get it done.

And they didn't bulldoze government in a matter of a month and create confusion and create an unsafe environment that makes it difficult for people to do their jobs, and didn't massively lay off people illegally.

And that is why a lot of that will be held up in court and litigated.

- I wanna move on.

We only have five minutes left.

[all chuckling] - [Immanuel] Wow, we might get through all these questions already.

- Right, I know.

- We got a lot to talk about.

- I wanna address tariffs because I think since January, a little bit before, it's been very heavy, right, in social media posts and platforms, and people will have a confusion around how tariffs impact us.

And so, Natalie, I'd love for you to talk about where we are with tariffs right now.

And then Immanuel, I'm gonna pivot to you to how does that impact us day to day?

- Yeah, tariffs really are taxes.

And I believe even Google showed, one of the hottest searches right now is, "What is a tariff?"

because folks are very confused.

But particularly with exports, Donald Trump was clear in saying that he's concerned around China and a number of other non-American entities, honestly, getting too much from the American people when it comes to trade.

But tariffs really should be reserved to be strategic.

My concern with the tariffs that Donald Trump is pushing, particularly against Mexico and Canada, is that they are our allies.

And so the trade wars- - What is the definition of a tariff now?

- It really is a tax.

It's basically saying that we will have an additional tax when you export fees or when you're importing a fee.

So if there are goods that we are getting from Canada and Mexico, it will make them more expensive.

The goal is to say we're gonna have more American made things, which sounds good, but again, when you do them quickly, when you do it to target allies that we have worked with for centuries, and when you look at Canada and Mexico and do it too quickly, that's what's concerning.

Especially the President that said he cared about the price of eggs and milk going down, it's gonna make goods go up, and it's gonna drive up inflation because then it's more expensive for us to import those goods that we actually are dependent on.

It's not giving America manufacturers enough time to create all of those goods here domestically.

- Yeah, so Emanuel, you would agree with that?

And then how does that impact us today?

- Well, I'm a farmer.

- Yeah.

- So when I see that Canada has a 240 or 238% tariff on eggs in milk, why?

Why are you doing that?

Obviously, we haven't been able to drink Canadian milk or Canadian eggs.

Why would we if it was 238% more.

Aluminum, 48%, 45% tariff.

So I think a lot of Americans don't realize the tariffs that other nations are actually putting on us.

And Donald Trump has said publicly, he says, "Look, I'm just gonna be the reciprocal.

If you tariff us, we're gonna tariff you."

That's the bottom line.

You're right, Senator, that tariffs are attacks.

But up until this point right now, today, the 28th of February, everything's been talked about, but none of them has been enacted.

Matter of fact, Donald Trump said, "Hey, I'm putting a tariff on New Mexico.

I'm putting a tariff on you Canada, and I need for you to do X, Y, and Z."

- But they feel like threats, though.

- And guess what?

The threats are working.

Because now, what's happened, we have a 93% reduction in people crossing the border.

We actually have Canada creating something called a fentanyl czar, which is the craziest thing I've ever seen.

But the bottom line is now they are actually working, helping us to protect our people here in this country.

- Do you agree with that, Natalie?

- No, a lot of these deals were actually already laid out by the former administration.

It's just that we do unfortunately have a president that does want to threaten our allies.

And I think it will, right, not only result in making us less safe, but make it more difficult for us to have a trade.

I mean, we actually have a border with Canada where people can freely go back and forth and do a number of things.

We should be friends with those that are closest to us.

And these threats really are just unwarranted.

They should be safe for Russia, other countries that are truly, truly threats to the US.

We should be able to freely trade with our partners in North America.

- We're not freely trading, that's the problem.

We're not freely trading.

- Yeah.

- We can't say free trade when we have an imbalance in terms of our trade.

Right now with Canada, we have a $5 billion a year deficit in terms of our trade deficit.

- I wanna pause you there 'cause I just have a little under two minutes.

I wanna bring it local and I just wanna ask Natalie.

- Yes.

- Is there anything on the horizon that the state's working on to help combat some of these things and then how do we see this impacting North Carolina?

- Yes, yes, so proud of my colleagues with the North Carolina Legislative Black Caucus.

They had a press conference this week to react and respond to the filing of the anti diversity equity and inclusion legislation that could be moving forward right here in North Carolina.

I'm thrilled to support the work that they are doing there.

And we are gonna have to be mindful of a state version of DOGE.

Again, this is a national trend of, again, it's nothing wrong with efficiency.

We can always do a better job, but it shouldn't be a way to cut government services that people need and depend on to live every day.

- Emmanuel, last 30 seconds, thoughts about North Carolina?

- Yeah, I think that we have vulnerable people in our state and everything we need to do, we need to make sure that we're protecting them, but everything above them, the individuals, the programs, we need to be looking really carefully at every program.

Is it being effective?

Is it actually meeting the needs of individuals?

And if it's not, then we need to seriously evaluate that maybe we need to get rid of that.

The bottom line is taxpayers' money and taxpayers work very, very hard.

People are working right now very, very hard to do that.

- Emmanuel Jarvis, thank you so much, Senator Murdoch, thank you.

- Thank you.

- And I thank you for watching.

If you want more content like this, we invite you to engage with us on Instagram using the hashtag Black Issues Forum.

You can also find our full episodes on pbsnc.org/blackissuesforum and on the PBS video app.

I'm Kenia Thompson, I'll see you next time.

[upbeat music] ♪ - [Narrator] Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.