Mary C. Curtis, award-winning columnist, writer, speaker, and editor, talks about the killing of George Floyd, and why when white friends don’t believe what blacks go through, they’re not friends.
Has a pandemic changed America or revealed its heart?
On the same day, it was two very different scenes from Michigan.
The Detroit funeral last week of 5-year-old Skylar Madison Herbert, the young victim of COVID-19, received some notice, though in days that followed, other victims rapidly filled the screen and news pages. Yet it was impossible to forget young Skylar’s beautiful face, soulful eyes and enchanting smile. Thinking that she would never again get to dress up in the Disney princess dresses and her mom’s high heels that family members said she favored, or grow up to fulfill her dream of becoming a pediatric dentist — well, how could your heart not ache?
All that joy, all that potential stopped by a virus.
May072020
He Said, She Said, We Said, You Said
For the latest Weekend Watch Party, our critics cued up “His Girl Friday,” Howard Hawks’s fast-paced 1940 newspaper comedy about a big-city editor and the ace reporter who also happens to be his ex-wife. The romantic, journalistic and political high jinks that drive the picture defy easy summary, but there are a lot of spoilers here. The two leading players — Rosalind Russell as Hildy Johnson and Cary Grant as Walter Burns — have a lot to say. As did our own newsroom motormouths and, of course, the soul of any paper, printed or digital — you, our readers.
Apr122020
Cory Booker bows out, Ben Carson backs off fair housing and issues of race recede in America
OPINION — It doesn’t take a candidate of color on a debate stage to raise issues of justice and inequality. But that has been the way it has worked out, mostly.
For example, it was exhilarating for many when then-candidate Julián Castro said in a Democratic debate, “Police violence is also gun violence,” while naming Atatiana Jefferson, killed in her Fort Worth, Texas, home by a police officer who shot through the window without identifying himself. Castro’s words were an acknowledgment of the lived experiences of many in America. He has since dropped out of the race, as has California Sen. Kamala Harris, who chided her party for taking the support of black women for granted.
Jan162020
Takeaways from the Democratic Debate
CHARLOTTE, NC — With the Iowa caucuses less than three weeks away, six of the democratic candidates battled it out on a debate stage Tuesday night. Political contributor Mary C. Curtis discusses the biggest takeaways.
Jan152020
Pete Buttigieg tries to solve his South Carolina puzzle
[OPINION] ROCK HILL, S.C. — Why was South Bend, Indiana, mayor and Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg in South Carolina over the weekend, with a busy schedule that included tailgating at a historically black college homecoming and delivering remarks at an AME Zion worship service?
“To say that I want to be the president who can pick up the pieces, that we’ve got to be ready not just to defeat this president but to guide the country forward,” he confidently told me. “I have my eyes on that moment and what America’s going to need.”
It’s quite a tall order for a candidate polls show in single digits in the first-in-the-South primary, where he is still largely unknown to the African Americans who make up the majority of the state’s Democratic voters, even as his campaign coffers and Iowa poll numbers rise. In a weekend packed with public appearances, he and a diverse group of campaign workers and surrogates, including some from South Bend, were trying to catch up — and distribute those “African Americans for Pete” buttons.
Oct312019
Elijah Cummings, a man of character and the best of Baltimore
OPINION — In the summertime, Baltimore can be hot as blazes with humidity to match. Trying to cool off in a public pool would be quite an ordinary outing for an 11-year-old boy. But for young Elijah Cummings in 1962, it turned into a nightmare in the still largely segregated city. White adults and children resisting integration yelled, “Go back to where you came from” — sound familiar? — to children and, over the heads of a police line, threw rocks and bottles, one of which caught young Elijah in the face.
That day taught Cummings he had rights, he later said, and it made him determined to become a lawyer despite teachers who dismissed his dream as impossible. With strong parents and supporters such as his boss at a drug store, who paid his college admission fee, Cummings fulfilled that dream and so much more.
The experience and the lesson he learned from it told you a lot about the boy who would become the man, a fighter for justice and a leader with a sense of right and wrong, even when there was a price to pay —lasting physical and emotional scars, reminders of work left to be done.
Oct182019
Charlotte Talks News Roundup: Clayton Wilcox In CMS Limbo; Trump Racist Tweet Stirs Anger
The revolving door of Charlotte-Mecklenbrg Schools superintendents appeared ready for another turn with the sudden suspension of Clayton Wilcox. President Trump, on the heels of his racist tweet, appeared in front of a North Carolina crowd that chanted “send her back,” which the president later tried to disavow.
David Boraks, reporter, WFAE (@davidboraks)
Danielle Chemtob, development reporter, The Charlotte Observer (@daniellechemtob)
Mary C. Curtis, columnist, Roll Call (@mcurtisnc3)
Erik Spanberg, managing editor, Charlotte Business Journal (@CBJspanberg)
Jul192019
This election, black voters will not lie low and take one for the team
OPINION — Republicans often say that the Democratic Party takes black voters for granted. They are right.
Of course, the GOP then does nothing to appeal to those voters. In fact, with the actions and words of its leaders on everything from gerrymandered districts (see North Carolina) to fair-housing enforcement (or the lack of it), the Republican Party, which once claimed broad support as the party of Lincoln, takes deliberate action to repel them.
So, election after election, Democrats count on GOP radioactivity to drive African Americans to vote for the “D.” What choice do they have, after all?
Jun272019
