- Just ahead on "Black Issues Forum".

Now that the primary results are in, what is on the path to November and the racially targeted massacre in Buffalo that's given air to the so-called great replacement theory.

Stay with us.

[upbeat music] ♪ Welcome to "Black Issues Forum", I'm Deborah Holt Noel.

Sympathies continue to flow for the families of 10 innocent shoppers who were shot and killed in Buffalo this past weekend and we will talk about it.

But first, results are in from the May primaries and they've set the course for November.

What do the winds tell us about what voters want?

I wanna welcome today's panel Attorney Dawn Blagrove with Emancipate NC.

Political analyst, Steve Rao and Professor La'Meshia Whittington of Advance Carolina.

Now, so happy to have all three of you with us.

In both the Democrat and Republican primaries for Senate Dawn, the winner won handly against opponents.

Democrat Cheri Beasley carried 81.1% of the votes and Republican Ted Budd crossed the finish line with 58.6% of the vote.

So now the former Supreme Court Justice will face off with the Trump endorsed, Budd.

What would you say is the strength of each candidate heading into the election and wanting to claim that Senate seat?

- Well, I guess, first of all, thank you for having me.

The strength of each candidate is different for both ones.

I think the strength for Budd is the Trump phenomena and the endorsement from Trump.

What this election I think tells us more than anything and this primary is that, and what we've seen nationally, is that we are not done with Trump, right?

That the Republican party created a monster that they now cannot control.

And so, we have to be ready for all of the curve balls and all of the outlandishness that's going to come as a result of this monster that the Republican Party allowed to fester and be created through Trump.

So I think that is what without question is what got him over the edge, over the top, above his other candidates.

- So basically you're saying it's because of Trump's endorsement.

And what's he bringing to the table you think for voters who are looking at the issues?

- I think that he's bringing to the table a lot of what we're gonna talk about later for voters that are embracing him and Trumpism which is embracing this idea that white Americans are somehow at a disadvantage, they are somehow being marginalized.

They are somehow being forgotten and that he will, in one way or another, help to make white people in America feel like the American dream is theirs first and everyone else is later.

- Steve, let me get your thoughts on, thank you.

And Steve, what would you say those issues are that each one is representing.

You know, Dawn talked about Ted Budd but there's Cheri Beasley out there and what are voters gonna get with either one of those choices?

- Well, first of all, I think Cheri Beasley is a great candidate for the U.S. Senate.

I mean the first Black woman to win state office, serve as a chief justice of Supreme Court.

I know her personally, very smart, graceful person and I think she'll represent North Carolina well.

But at the end of the day, when she accepted the nomination of her party at the Democratic headquarters, she went right to work on the issues, talking about affordable housing, education, healthcare, renewable energy.

And I think that's the bottom line.

I think she's a better representative of many of the issues that represent Black Americans but also all Americans and all North Carolinians.

Ted Budd, I mean, here's the thing, what I learned from this election, this primary, what we also learn is that Trump was still the son that all the candidates revolve around in the Republican politics, right?

They try to distance themselves but they're using his endorsements to talk about guns, building a wall, keeping foreigners out of our country.

And what's amazing is that this Congressman defeated only third governor in the history of North Carolina since reconstruction from the Republican Party to be our governor.

He did not go to a debate.

He did not take on the issues head, head.

And so, at the end of the day, Deb, that's what I think this election is about.

The issues that affect the people are better represented by Cheri Beasley than Ted Budd who's trying to ride in on the coattails of Trump.

The good news is and we'll talk about it later, Trump has been successful with Budd, with Bo Hines, but Madison Cawthorne failed in Idaho.

A Lieutenant governor that was backed by Trump did not win.

So maybe the kinds of candidates we nominate are important as we fight Trumpism and try to win these elections.

- So LA, you know, Dawn talked a little bit about some of these social concerns.

Steve has pointed out more of the kitchen table issues, where do you see things landing?

- Sure, so when we see the percentage and the threshold of each candidate and the percentage by which Cheri Beasley won and the percentage by which Ted Budd won, right?

It paints and depicts a really clear picture that North Carolinians as a whole, we are not being bamboozled by symbolic performative distraction.

And why do I say it like that?

Beyond and I completely agree with my co-panelists of exactly what led to Ted Budd's success right in the primary.

But when we look at his record as, he served as the U.S. representative for North Carolina's 13th congressional district, he voted against the Affordable Care Act which covers over 23 million Americans.

And the fact that we are already still in the fight for access to affordable healthcare, the last thing we need is an opponent against access to healthcare.

When we see that even in 2021, Budd skipped votes citing that he could vote due to COVID-19 pandemic but what happened instead he was actually skipping votes to attend a North Carolinians or with other North Carolinas for Conservative for Political Action Conference.

And so that's led to other groups calling for an investigation.

And so, his service and his tenure has been shrouded in not just a potential investigation, his lack of service and duties, not even voting when that's what he's elected for.

We know that he's not going to show up for the job every single day but we can't find that same track record with former Chief Justice Cheri Beasley.

What we can find is that when Budd was skipping votes, Cheri Beasley was calling an emergency moratorium to make sure that North Carolinians were not being evicted.

So when we talk about the reality when folks are wanting to be sheltered in place and stay at home, when we say, who has the experience to actually work with populations that are dealing with being marginalized, frontline, returning citizens, guess what?

You can't beat Cheri Beasley's tenure with being a Chief Justice and working not only on the school board, she also worked to impede the school to prison pipeline once she became Chief Justice.

Her tenure is consistent.

Whereas Ted Budd is consistently not showing up for his actual current job.

How can we expect him to show up for this job if elected?

- You know, there's another, thank you so much, very key race that took place.

And that was in the fourth congressional district, Steve.

That's David, or rather former David Price's seat and the winner there was Valerie Foushee.

What are your thoughts on that particular race and what that says about voters?

- Well, I think it's actually positive for Democrats as they prepare in the general election.

In this primary, you had Nida Allam, 28 years old, a Muslim, first Muslim woman to hold office in North Carolina.

I know her family and really was backed by the progressives.

AOC, Senator Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren.

And a lot of us thought, well, the progressives are gonna win this but Valerie Foushee ran a campaign really based more on, you know, moderate issues.

She did get some money from some PACs but at the end of the day, I think it shows that the progressives don't necessarily have an automatic victory lap lane to, you know, in these primaries.

And so I think that's what we can learn from it is that, you know, if the Democrats can pick more moderates and Democrats that appeal to rural areas, you know, areas in the country where there's white, blue collar workers, I think that is gonna be important.

When you think about progressives right now, most of them are young, they're in college, they're highly educated but they do better in more urban areas.

So I think this is a very big victory for Foushee.

I think she'll be a great Congresswoman.

She's a very smart lady, been a great Senator, school board member but I think it was, you know, a very significant win for her.

- Well, one thing's for sure, the returns show that voting was down in terms of turnout by voters, down by about 20%.

And I'm sorry, not down by 20% but down by 11% from the 2020 primary.

So fewer people are going out despite the fact that we have all of this turmoil in the conversation and mainstream media with, you know, the extremes that we're hearing about.

What do, how do you account for that LA?

- Sure, so when we look in 2020, right, that was a very popular, hot election, right, as is most presidential years.

So when we talk about what is considered off cycle, meaning that it's not a major presidential year, we'll see a little bit of a deviation in voters that turn out.

But when we look at with that, that information, we actually had pretty good voter turnout.

Since 2020, we've had close to 300,000 new voters registered.

That's a big deal and a credit to actual voter rights organizations and other folks who are pushing to pavement to actually get folks registered.

And of course, North Carolinians who are fulfilling their civic duty.

But in addition to that, when we talk about the difference in this year's primary, again, taking considerations off cycle we also have to ask at a granular level, why were there only 1,560 nonpartisan ballots submitted?

There were certain barriers at the poll, such as unaffiliated voters weren't unable to actually receive absentee ballots due to the fact that they were unaffiliated which forced those voters to have to actually go physically to the polls.

But what about accessibility?

Why were they requesting absentee ballots to begin with and did that actually reduce the numbers by which folks did turn out to vote, especially when we're talking about that a higher number of North Carolinians, especially younger population are considered unaffiliated voters.

So we have to really look at voting laws and what is actually the barriers and impediments when folks register to vote.

And then they're told, well, you can't request an absentee ballot because you're not one or another party, you're unaffiliated.

We have to begin to look at is that a form of voter intimidation or outdated, antiquated systems that are impeding our off cycle elections but everything considering, the turnout was great.

Congratulations to all the primary winners including Senator Valerie Foushee and the tenure that she's had for many years.

There's just an example of the excitement that still turned out folks despite the barriers that we are seeing at a actual voting rights level in counties and communities.

- So it's a little bit more, I guess comforting, considering all of the barriers and the potential barriers that were out there, but for sure, people are needing to put more focus and trust in the people who are getting ready to lead this nation and who they're voting for.

And in fact, voter confidence in the current administration is low right now with President Biden's approval rating hovering between 39 and 48%, depending on the age group that is in question.

And in view of the past weekend's tragic killings, leadership is needed right now.

Many are now familiar with the story of how 18 year old Payton Gendron drove hundreds of miles to a black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York after first carefully, scoping it out on a couple of occasions and opened fire in the parking lot and inside of a Tops grocery store, killing 10 people including a former policeman.

All evidence points to this certainty that this was a racially motivated crime.

And after the sympathies and thoughts and prayers are through, Dawn, what actions are our national leaders taking to curb this kind of violence?

- Well, clearly they're not taking the appropriate actions and they're not taking or saying the words that are important.

What we need to do is have a real reckoning in America with the problem, the growing problem of white nationalism and white terror, right?

White terrorism, because that is what this is.

Until we are willing to not mitigate full out hate crimes by interjecting conversations about mental health or conversations about gun accessibility.

None of those things are really going to ever get to the heart of why there is this racially motivated desire to kill black people, to kill people of color by non people of color.

And until we have that conversation head on and until we, our leaders make it a hundred percent clear that there is a zero tolerance in America for that kind of hate, for that kind of violence, which we have yet to see from any of our elected officials.

Black, white, Republican, Democrat, whatever, no one is willing to actually say out loud that America has a problem with white supremacy.

- And that is so, so important, that is key what you just said.

even though president Biden went to Buffalo and said in his speech that this is a terrorist incident.

I wanna know are we treating it, is America, are the leaders, treating this like a true terrorist incident?

I remember what happened on 9/11 and the policies that came out after that.

So Steve, would you say, and Dawn and LA too, are we treating this like a terrorist incident?

- No, I don't think so.

I mean I think that these things happen and then it's like a news cycle, You just go on to the next thing.

But we cannot accept white supremacy in America.

We're in a country where we need to be respecting each other, we might have differences.

I think a lot of what's driving this white supremacy and we're gonna talk about great replacement theory in a minute is this is economic as well.

You know, automation, jobs being lost in the rural areas, it's easy to point their finger at immigrants, people of color, saying they're taking away our jobs.

But I will say this, I think it's also important to hold politicians accountable for what they say which encourages violence.

Let's not forget that Marjorie Taylor Greene, before she was in Congress, said that Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi should be executed.

Paul Gosar, a representative in Congress, did an animated picture, killing AOC, and also having swords going at the president.

People are gonna see these things, seeing our politicians are saying these things, it's okay to act and condone violence.

So we have to hold these politicians accountable, censor them, find them, make them resign from office, I don't know what it is, but at the end of the day, the law of the land of the United States should be putting these white supremacists, if they're writing things like this, if they're saying things like this, I don't know what the constitution will allow, but they need to be put behind bars and told that you don't do that in the United States of America - Free speech, but with consequences, LA your thoughts on this being a terrorist incident and the reaction of leadership and talking about introducing the idea of a mental health issue in this particular incident - Right, so there was a statement made by president Hewitt of the Lawyers' Committee For Civil Rights Under Law.

He said that we need a Marshall Plan style approach to galvanize federal attention and resources.

We can have symbolic policies, but without mechanisms of enforcement, it's empty platitudes.

We can have a symbolism and trust, Juneteenth is coming up.

We can celebrate, but if we are not actually placing mechanisms of enforcement, that creates punishment for domestic terrorism, then they're empty platitudes.

When it took us more than a century to pass an anti-lynching bill, we can tell that this corruption at the heart of America is as American as apple pie.

And the fact that it took 200 failed attempts at passing that anti-lynching bill, which passed this year.

That's very clear.

When the fact that it actually was very first introduced in 1900 by Representative George Henry White of North Carolina, the body's only black lawmaker, it's clear that we have to introduce our own legislation because no one else did it for us.

And even though he introduced it in 1900, it didn't pass until it was introduced again by Senator Tim Scott, a black man, a Republican, and it was co-sponsored by Senator Cory Booker, a black man, a Democrat.

So what is very abundantly clear, we just spoke about elections, is representation matters, especially when we talk about our lives and how do we protect ourselves?

Because it's clear we are not being protected at the scale by which we deserve, that is morally right, morally right.

So what do we do?

And I think that's the question I have to pose back to everyone.

What do we do?

We have to show up to the polls.

We have to organize the community, and we have to demand enforcement mechanisms, not just empty platitudes and performative again, distraction.

- It is the voice and the will of the people that has got to stand up and make the change, make the difference.

We just got an election, that we've just come through a primary albeit, but we've got another one coming up in November.

And there have been too many incidents for people to kind of reference in making their decisions.

We've had a recent possible Supreme Court decision around a woman's right to choose.

And now we've got this incident that's come in, Dawn, the data's certainly clear that there's been a rise in hate crimes.

And now what's being said, is this assailant put out a manifesto and that this manifesto, he said in his manifesto that he was acting alone.

What are your thoughts on this statement in the manifesto?

And how does that matter?

- I think it doesn't matter at all.

And I think that, again, it gives comfort, like that one out of all of the pages, the fact that that one sentence is the one that was drawn out and has been embraced by so many speaks volumes about the complicity of the larger society in this crime.

Everyone, these white folks, and all our politicians and our leaders who really want to believe that they can embrace part of these abhorrent ideologies but distance themselves from the violence is problematic.

We cannot allow them to have that level of comfort.

We have got to say and be willing to say, as a collective, that there is no way to disassociate yourself from believing these racist ideologies and then also separate yourself from that violence that ensues from those ideologies, all of them are part and parcel.

There is no way this young man acted alone, he did not act alone.

He acted, his co-conspirators, were every person that watches Tucker Carlson, who talks about the great replacement theory on Fox News, and has said it over 400 times, on 400 different episodes of his show.

All of those people who embrace these ideologies are complicit, they are his co-conspirators, and anybody who does not stand up and speak out against the abhorrent nature of this kind of rhetoric is also a co-conspirator.

- And I almost hate to give that expression more oxygen but it's already in the wind.

Mainstream media reporting that the document that Payton Gendron left centered on actions around an ideology that we have already named here, called the Great Replacement Theory.

Steve, what does that really mean to you and what can people do, in your opinion, to be anti-racists?

- Well, we have to go back to the history of this country and realize that this country was founded on the premise that you can come from any corner of the Earth and come here with your dreams and come to the United States of America.

We're a nation of immigrants.

It doesn't matter whether you came from Germany, Ireland, Britain.

From the founding of this country, there was nobody here that claimed this country as their own.

This country was founded by people from all over the world.

Ronald Reagan, the last speech he ever said as President, and I want Republicans to listen to this, is he read a letter that was written to him and he said, "you can go to France, but you'll never be a Frenchman.

You can go to Germany, Turkey, or Japan, but you'll never be a Turk, a German, or Japanese.

But you can come from every corner of the Earth to be an American."

So at the end of the day, that's really what negates this whole idea of white replacement.

What's driving it a lot is economic.

They say foreign-born immigrants... 20% of our population today is foreign-born.

It's only inevitable that the minority very soon will become the majority, but in blue collar rural America, people are saying if you keep immigrants out, you're going to create new jobs.

But the idea we're all going to go see "Hamilton" this weekend, the musical DPAC, immigrants get the job done.

44% of our Fortune 500 were founded by immigrants.

55% of our workforce and electronics.

26% of our foreign-born population are graduate degree holders.

35% software developers in the tech sector.

We wouldn't be on Zoom, we wouldn't be on Slack, we wouldn't have Google, we wouldn't have Yahoo if it wasn't for immigrants.

So this is the conversation we need to bring to the table and we gotta focus on education, that's critical.

Retraining our workforce as we automate jobs so that white Americans in rural areas can get the jobs in today's economy and the new economy.

- Absolutely.

LA, I'm gonna give you sort of the last word here because one of the words that kind of stood out to me in President Biden's speech was the word "alienated".

And he used that word to describe how people who subscribe to this Replacement Theory feel and are.

What are your thoughts about that word, alienated, and they're feeling like they're alienated?

- We have to be very careful with allowing certain hate groups to continue to rebrand themselves so they can be a protected class while terrorizing other folks that are still American-born.

Because let's be very clear, unless you are Indigenous or Native American, everyone is foreign-born on American soil because it's formerly Turtle Island, and I say that as an Afro-Indigenous woman.

And so we can call it colonization during slavery, we can call it a coup d'etat in Wilmington 1898, we can call it massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a genocide of Native Americans, the targeting of Chinese laborers in the late 1800s, the targeting of Japanese-Americans and placing them in concentration camps in the 1900s, eugenics on Black and Brown communities, school-to-prison pipeline, Charleston, South Carolina and the attack on the parishioners at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal, we can call it all those events.

No matter how much you rebrand it, it is simply hate against Black people and people of color that is continually wrapped in a new label for us to continually chase a ghost that in reality we have to wake up every single day and be scared to actually go grocery shopping.

And I say that in honor of our people who just lost their lives to senseless violence, in honor of the Black people in Buffalo who were actually retirees, the majority, that were American-born and have been there their entire lives and the descendants of enslaved ancestors that have poured their blood, sweat, and tears in the service of this country was lost in a massacre based on racial hate in Buffalo, New York.

Domestic terrorism, that's what this is and I refuse to give it a new brand.

- And it is senseless.

LA Whittington, thank you so much.

Steve Rao, Dawn Blagrove, we appreciate all three of you being here.

And certainly our thoughts and prayers go out to the loved ones and family members of the 10 who were killed in Buffalo.

- [Steve] Thank you, Deb.

We pray for everybody.

- [Dawn] Thank you.

- I want to thank our guests for joining us today and we invite you to engage with us on Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #blackissuesforum.

You can also find our full episodes on pbsnc.org/blackissuesforum or listen at any time on Apple iTunes, Spotify, or Google Podcast.

For Black Issues Forum, I'm Deborah Holt Noel.

Thanks for watching.

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