- Just ahead on Black Issues Forum from Duke University to Novant Health, as more and more private companies require COVID vaccination, a look at workers' rights.

The bill to control indoctrination in schools moves forward and Biden sinking approval rating.

Is it Afghanistan or more?

Stay with us.

[upbeat music] Welcome to Black Issues Forum.

I'm Deborah Holt Noel.

This week, Duke University announced, employees must show proof of COVID vaccination or they will be terminated and not be employable by Duke University again.

More and more were seeing private entities make COVID vaccination a condition for employment and also participation.

In Louisiana, students at the HBCU Xavier University will be unenrolled if they have not gotten the COVID vaccine, part of the school's updated health policy and many suspect former NFL player Cam Newton was cut from the Patriots due to his vaccination status.

How far can this go without imposing on individuals rights to control their own health care?

I'd like to welcome Terrence Dewberry, vice president of the North Carolina AFL-CIO, and president of ATU local 1328, representing transportation and maintenance workers for Duke University Transit, GoRaleigh Transit and Wave Transit in Wilmington.

Thank you so much for being here, Terrence.

Regarding the pandemic, what is the priority of your organizations and representing the interests of workers and how would you describe the racial demographics of the working population that you represent?

- Well, as a voice for labor, it's our primary job to ensure safe working conditions that is, and having a voice at the table noted to ensure that the concerns of the workforce are heard.

With our demographics, of course, the demographics is more or less Latino and African-American, a lot of, females and we want their safety, the safety of their family and themselves during this pandemic.

- So, you're working to make sure that they are protected and safe.

The issue of protection with regard to COVID is very personal to you.

However, can you share a little bit of what you experienced in the early stages of the pandemic and how your efforts helped to protect frontline workers?

- Well, around about March of 2020 during the pandemic, we had requested certain PPEs, wearing facial mask, rear door boarding in the buses, social distances, a lot of things that would protect the worker and also protect the passengers on the bus.

And so at first, they were resistant, but one day, just so happened I was driving the bus and a lady got on my bus and stated to another passenger, please don't sit beside me, I'm on a quarantine.

And of course this is the early stages of the pandemic.

And it really, I was really scared, I really was.

So I stopped the bus, call it into dispatch and they send the supervisor and police out.

Long story made short, they removed the person from the bus, which was directed to get on the bus because the person had been at wait med the whole night getting tested and got on the bus when they were supposed to been on the quarantine.

So that's concerned for the passenger of not even having a way to get home during this pandemic and then exposing two other routes before she got on my bus.

- Right.

- I was walked, I was instructed to go back to the base.

I was walked out of the facility without entering the building and what the next 15, 20 minutes was really disturbing to me because I had no instruction.

I had no idea of how to come to my house, enter my house without potentially effecting my family.

- But you did that.

You did that, and that was stressful and traumatic to you.

You isolated, as I recall you sharing with me earlier, and from that state of isolation and self-quarantine, you negotiated for the rights of the people who you represent?

- Yes, I guess it gave me a firsthand experience at the beginning, on it happened on a Thursday and long story made short by that Sunday, we had, was allowed to wear mask, we're allowed rear door boarding, and free fares for public.

- Free fare for the public.

It's just amazing how all of this unfolds and impacts larger society.

In your view, do the workers resent the requirement of the COVID vaccination or do they feel like it's restricting their freedoms?

Did they welcome the protection?

- I'm happy to state that about 90% of our workforce is vaccinated.

And when you're on the frontline facing unknown dangers, you wanna be as safe as possible.

So we have some people that may have a medical condition that restricts them from taking the vaccine or religious situation.

So we are pro safety.

We feel that everyone deserves the right to be safe in the workforce in a working environment.

- Why isn't a requirement like this, an edict like this an infringement on the worker's rights?

- Well, we're fortunate enough to have a labor organization representing the people that will have a voice in the say.

And we are proponent of the vaccine.

We're proponent of all the safety issues that on that door for.

So I think that safety is number one.

- So, who is complaining?

- Well, ironically, it's the same folks that may choose the other direction as far as the anti-abortion industry.

And just this morning, I was understanding that Texas has the most restrictive abortion law that was just passed, are upheld by the Supreme Court.

So, the people that said that they don't want to have the vaccine and have the right to not take the vaccine or some of the peoples and that woman doesn't have the right to protect her body.

- Well, North Carolina and the whole nation actually are already suffering worker shortages.

So do you think that this requirement will impact companies and larger society in terms of that labor force?

- I think so, I think this pandemic has brought forth some glaring problems in the workforce, especially those that are not represented by labor, but companies are gonna have to treat people better.

They're gonna have to come up with creative ways to train and retain people.

They're gonna have to also recruit and offer a safe working environment.

It should affect the workers.

It's gonna change the whole dynamics of the workforce as far as what the employees demand and what the employee can offer.

- Well, this pandemic has certainly created changes.

Terrence Dewberry, thank you so much for your time today.

- Thank you for having me.

- Efforts to pass a law that would control how race is taught in schools is off to Governor Cooper's office for signature.

Although he is expected to veto the legislation, the bill has certainly been a source of contention among lawmakers and also Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, who assembled a task force that released a report compiled from hundreds of complaints about the handling of race, gender, and identity in schools.

Let's get our panel's views on this.

I wanna welcome Brett Chambers, communications instructor at North Carolina Central University, La'Meshia Whittington of Advanced Carolina, and Dr. Sean Colbert-Lewis, associate professor of history and social studies education and director of the history department teacher education program at NCCU.

Now, some have said that this effort, which is similar several across the country is about the great fear about the teaching of critical race theory in schools.

Some have dismissed the lieutenant governor's report, which is called the facts report as a compilation of complaints.

However, the complaints highlighted are telling, "One that jumped out at me was this one."

It said, "My daughters quickly learned to just write papers, assignments from the teacher's point of view to get an A, and that's exactly what they got.

They wrote countless papers supporting the BLM movement, although they did not support it as they are not racist nor were raised to be.

But with so much focus on racism, they just played the game."

Dr. Colbert-Lewis, what is happening in our schools and around some of these fears.

- I believe some of these fears are a direct result of a lot of media coverage that when it comes to either the late Mr. George Floyd in Minnesota, or what happened to Ms. Breonna Taylor in Kentucky, a lot of these stories and a lot of feelings of anguish, uncertainty, maybe some feelings of guilt has caused this kinda response.

I think in psychology, they call this sort of that cognitive dissonance where deep down a person feels really upset about a situation and sometimes a natural defense that each of us as human beings may have is to build a wall.

And within that wall, we may develop some counter opinions to help distract from the realities of the systemic inequalities that have happened.

When I say inequalities, I mean, just that, whether it comes from the inequalities that women still face in academia or in the workforce, or inequalities individuals face based on their sexual orientation, inequalities individuals face based on their religion, gender, ethnicity, social economic status, the list goes on and on.

And I think there needs to be a retraining, a rediscussion in a lot of our K to 12 circles and also our education circles about what some of these words mean.

- Well, apparently, and obviously so, when I hear and I read about fears like this, Brett, let me get your thoughts on this.

You know, we certainly to Dr. Colbert-Lewis's point, people are maybe having cognitive dissonance, but this is not something new.

- People having disinformation and misinformation because people also do this thing called confirmation bias.

So that's being used against different sectors because they have different mean of information.

So you get different information, you base your reaction on what the information that you consume, and then you fill it as my son will say a certain kind of way about it.

And then we have a discussion.

Our discussion may turn to an argument quickly because we're not basing it on any common facts.

So that's where part of it is and the powers that be, making sure that we keep that so that they don't have to deal with it.

- Yeah, it's the powers that be that I think is concerning.

It's the powers that be that I think are concerning, even though this bill may die on the governor's desk, it's reflective of something that's happening, I think in larger society.

- LA, let me get your thoughts on that.

- Sure, I completely agree with that.

When we combine what Dr. Lewis and Brett have said around cognitive dissonance and these elements, we also see where some of our political government bodies are manipulating those feeds and charging it in a way that can set up for midterm elections and their party winning.

So far, 25 states have considered legislation or other steps to limit how race and racism can be taught.

We hear critical race theory as a notion as this curriculum that was grounded in the 70s and 80s.

That curriculum is taught at grad school or law school.

It's not taught in K through 12.

So when we hear it, it's become a buzzword.

We saw that in the previous administration, where to Brett's point this information, as soon as a topic becomes hot and is shrouded in this political partisanship of just like extreme partisanship, extreme, hey, we don't need to know what it means anymore as a nation.

Instead, it's just thrown out as a buzzword that doesn't actually apply.

Critical race theory is not taught in K through 12.

It doesn't apply here.

What applies is you have these states, these legislatures, including our own, that have introduced bills that are distracting and deflecting from the real issues.

And the real issues is that economic deficit has been exacerbated in pandemic.

And we see this report, this fax report by our lieutenant governor here in North Carolina, it was elevated an overwhelming response of indoctrination without overwhelming response was 500 students and teachers.

Okay, we have 1.5 million students across nearly 3000 schools in North Carolina to inflate 500, statistically out of 1.5 million students who have families that represent the broad swap right of a purple state.

That's what we are in North Carolina.

It may be changing, but we're purple state it's gaslighting, but it's also a fear mongering so that we don't have to know the facts, our community members who are going these school board meetings, don't come with facts.

They come with buzzwords, disinformation, fear that's going to amplify a party's position to get success in their seats next year.

That's all it is.

- Now you mentioned buzzwords, and I wanna get your thoughts on this, Sean, because I think that in the wake of, like you said, George Floyd and people wanting to be socially conscious, including teachers, there may be some learning, some teaching to be done, some training to be done on the part of teachers who are in the classrooms, and these classrooms are primarily manned by white female teachers.

And they're trying to, I guess, I don't wanna use the word but I will, be woke, but they're using strategies out there and this is not exclusive to white female teachers, but using strategies out there that are counterproductive to the wellbeing and the intelligence and education of kids.

Talk about some of the training that's really necessary.

What's happening with preparing these teachers to teach very difficult content in terms of our history.

- Thank you for that question.

As a multicultural educator and diversity trainer, and I believe my STEAM panelists have also done this training as well for others as well.

You have to make clear from the get go when you teach controversial subjects, it must be made clear on a part of the teacher that when you hear some of the more disturbing aspects of some kind of history, whether it's American history, world history, women's history, or a history of a particular area, is not to make any student feel quote unquote guilty.

Now, there is some truth that teachers want students to have a sense of empathy when it comes to different areas of oppression that we will teach in the classroom.

For instance, the Holocaust, there's no question the Holocaust happened.

And when we teach about the Holocaust, one would hope that students would get a sense that antisemitism is a moral wrong.

And when it goes unchecked throughout society, or when a government endorses such behavior, it can lead to the kind of horrific sites that we teach about in the Holocaust.

But the key is you can teach to bring empathy, but you never teach to bring about any sense of guilt.

For instance, I've read some the governor's report, and there's a concern that I heard him say that I think does have some validity, if there's any truth to what that Coca-Cola company did for workshop in telling people be less white or, no, to me, that's a problem.

No person should ever feel less of who they are regardless of their ethnic background.

I believe teachers have the moral responsibility to encourage students to be proud of who they are.

- And I think that's important too.

It just seems as though right now, and I'll get your thoughts on this Brett, that we're talking about people not feeling shame in the classroom, and I agree, no one should be made to feel rather guilt, but for so long, where was the concern also about the shame, the possible shame that students of color feel in the teaching of some of this history and so forth.

- LA said it so eloquently.

This is a strategy.

This really is not so much about critical race theory was most of the them don't even understand.

Most of the people were fighting against it.

Most of them do not understand what it is.

A lot of people in the classrooms don't understand what it is.

This is not something that is being forced on K-12 teachers.

Most of the students in college don't take it unless they choose to take it.

This is, I mean, we had part of this discussion when we were talking about Nikole Hannah-Jones, it was not about her.

It's about a movement.

It's about a strategy.

It's about the shiny object in the room to distract folks, to get them riled up in the fear-mongering.

And that's what this is all about.

If this was really a conversation about critical race theory, this will have a whole different, it would be a whole different conversation.

I get kind of frustrated because in my classroom, we have discussions and our discussions get really passionate.

And most of my class are African-American students.

So sometimes they disagree with each other about whatever we're talking about and it's encouraged, but we always tell them within these gray, these four gray cinder block walls, which is my classroom, you're allowed to say and support whatever you want respectfully.

- Absolutely.

And that is the purpose of education and an open forum.

So the conversation continues.

- That's it.

- This week, President Biden concluded the US departure from Afghanistan with an address to the nation.

- Last night in Kabul, the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan.

Remember why we went to Afghanistan in the first place?

Because we were attacked by Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, on September 11th, 2001, and they were based in Afghanistan.

We delivered justice to bin Laden on May 2nd, 2011, over a decade ago.

Al-Qaeda was decimated.

- This announcement, however, continues to compete with the heart-wrenching images of planes departing Afghanistan, reports of violence and returned to Taliban rule and the memory of the 13 young American service men and women who lost their lives during the evacuation mission.

And now, Biden's approval ratings have reached an all time low.

So LA with that low rating, is this about Afghanistan and certainly not to dismiss public sentiment or are there other things contributing?

- There are other factors contributing, Afghanistan absolutely is not just uplight, but just really harmful and hurtful for the many service members and the families that are dealing with the aftermath of what war really meant.

And that means for 20 years, not just this year, right?

But in addition to that, right, the low approval rating of Biden is also the associated economic fallout becoming deficit, the loss of jobs, loss of wages, loss of health insurance, especially the impact on rural communities that were already in deficit pre-pandemic.

Well, that's a part of that low approval rating.

The other is the mishandling continual of how we're doing the Delta variant, right?

How we're handling the lack of shutdowns, the lack of how we're resourcing communities.

What does it really mean with the American rescue plan?

That money is still yet to be seen, but those are the three main factors for the little approval rating.

But to back it up a bit more, Biden was actually elected under a historic low approval rating because of two things, negative partisanship was just means that there's a stronger hate amongst party lines.

The polls that were taken 40 years ago, democrats felt kind of neutral about republicans.

Republicans felt neutral about democrats that's changed.

That changed with the administration of the Obama era, that unveiled a lot of racism and still racial tension under the underbelly by our nation.

And then it was exacerbated under the Trump era administration, because of course the vitriol, the terminology we hate, state sexual violence that was ongoing.

That has changed how Americans feel about politics, about the hopefulness and presidency.

And even though we turned out to rock the boat, we were so empathetic because we are cautious due to the fact that our people are still being murdered, due to the fact that economic deficit is still at an all time high and houselessness is even higher, right?

And so those are the factors that have contributed to approval rate even before Biden step into the office.

The last thing is generally, presidents who come in new presidents, they come in around a 60% approval rating, right?

60% or higher.

Biden came in an only 53%.

- Wow.

That's very telling, you know, and Dr. Colbert-Lewis, I wanna ask you, have expectations been where they ought to be, and in terms of Biden's delivery on campaign promises and on everything that was expected of him.

- Yeah, he has been successful in some areas.

I think when it comes to addressing the devastation of the coronavirus, he's gotten high marks, given doctors a chance to use their science and knowledge to help the common good versus political decisions, determining how this virus should be fought, which was a big criticism of the previous presidential administration.

He has been successful in that regard.

I think right now, the staying of Afghanistan, as LA said brilliantly, definitely is playing on a lot of Americans feelings understandably.

- Absolutely.

- And, but I think when things settled down, I believe the polls may go up slightly, when I've checked the Washington post poll, not too long ago, he was down to, I think, 49.5%.

- Well, time, I'm sorry to cut you.

Time will certainly tell, I wanna get Brett in here because I wanna know your thoughts on what public opinion will foretell as we entered the midterm elections.

- Oh, it's gonna come.

And I think the Afghan situation has to be dealt with.

No matter when they left Afghanistan, it was gonna be messy.

It's a war.

And it's a war that not many countries have come out of Afghanistan in a clean manner.

There is some question about the intelligence that they based their plan on.

But as quote, Mike Tyson, in this instance, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face."

And we got punched in the face and we didn't recover well.

It'll be interesting to see how they handle it, but his steadfastness to let's get outta here may have led to some of his downfall.

And I think they overestimated how the Afghani trainees, the Afghani army was gonna respond.

And I think that was probably a biggest, one of the biggest intelligence failures, but the intelligence community don't believe that we're done yet.

- No.

- They always have- - There's more to come.

- A through Z, - More to come.

- They're really smart people up there.

So they'll, and there's, I'm sure that things are going on, that we won't know about, which is probably good because one of the problems we're seeing is this misinformation, the disinformation.

- I'm gonna have to wrap you up there, Brett.

Thank you so much, Brett Chambers.

Let me show Whittington and Dr. Sean Colbert-Lewis.

Appreciate your time and your insights on all of these topics.

I wanna thank today's guests and we invite you to engage with us on Twitter or Instagram using the #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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