Charlotte Talks Local News Roundup: Phase 3 Reopening, CMS Adjusts Return Plan, CMPD Officers Resign

Featured at WFAE

On the local news roundup, North Carolina moves into Phase 3 of reopening. With the state’s coronavirus metrics stable, Gov. Roy Cooper is easing restrictions to allow bars and other entertainment venues to open with reduced capacity. We find out what that means and check in our COVID-19 numbers.

The first CMS students began returning to the classroom this week, with more on the way. And the school board holds an emergency meeting to adjust their return to school plan for elementary students.

Five CMPD officers connected to the in-custody death of Harold Easter resign ahead of video release.

And county elections boards across the state have begun to process tens of thousands of absentee ballots.

Our roundtable of reporters fills us in on those stories and more.

Guests

Steve Harrison, WFAE’s Political Reporter

Claire Donnelly, WFAE’s health reporter

Mary C. Curtis, columnist for Rollcall.com and WCCB-TV

Nick Ochsner, Chief Investigative Reporter at WBTV

Ann Doss Helms, WFAE’s education reporter

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Oct022020 TAGS: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Trump’s ‘good genes’ rhetoric illustrates why the fight for justice never ends

Featured at Roll Call

It was one of lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s cases before she took her place on the Supreme Court or in pop culture memes. It is only occasionally mentioned, perhaps because the details illuminated a truth people prefer to look away from, so they can pretend that sort of thing could never happen here.

But something terrible did happen, to a teenager, sterilized in 1965 without fully consenting or understanding the consequences in a program that continued into the 1970s in the state of North Carolina. The girl became a woman whose marriage and life crashed before her story became the basis of a lawsuit Ginsburg filed in federal court that helped expose the state’s eugenics program. While North Carolina’s was particularly aggressive, other states implemented their own versions, long ago given a thumbs up by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1927 decision written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Read the rest atRoll Call
Sep242020 TAGS: , , , , , , , , ,

Mary C. Curtis: President Trump Visits Kenosha After Police Shooting of Jacob Blake

Featured at WCCB Rising

CHARLOTTE, NC – President Donald Trump makes a visit to Kenosha, Wisconsin amid protests following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

WCCB political contributor Mary C. Curtis talks about the president’s call for law and order.

Read the rest atWCCB Rising
Sep022020 TAGS: , , , , ,

The Heat: Donald Trump’s case for four more years

Featured at CGTN

It was a long speech, lasting more than one hour.  US President Donald Trump promised to rebuild the economy, to develop a vaccine against the coronavirus and to end the protests around the country. But most of the time was devoted to attacking his Democratic rival.  After Trump’s speech, a fireworks display illuminated the night in Washington, closing out the Republican National Convention. The president is already in full campaign mode, hosting a rally in New Hampshire, Friday night. The election in the United States is scheduled for November 3rd.

Joining the panel:

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Aug302020 TAGS: , , , , , , ,

‘It’s just history’: Kamala Harris as the VP nominee

Featured at Roll Call

Kamala Harris made history, again, this week, when she became the first Black woman and first Asian American picked for a major political party’s presidential ticket. The daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, the California Democrat has been many firsts.

She has been a county deputy district attorney; the district attorney for San Francisco — the first woman and first African American elected to that position; and California’s first female, Black and Asian American attorney general. Harris was also the second Black woman to join the Senate, succeeding Democrat Barbara Boxer in 2017.

Not quite four years ago, it was Joe Biden, as vice president, who swore her in as California’s junior senator. Now Biden is counting on Harris to help him win the White House as his running mate.

With us on Political Theater to talk about this pick is CQ Roll Call columnist Mary C. Curtis, a longtime political correspondent covering the intersection of politics, culture and race.

Read the rest atRoll Call
Aug122020 TAGS: , , , , , ,

Mary C. Curtis: Biden Picks Kamala Harris as Running Mate

Featured at WCCB Rising

CHARLOTTE, NC — The ticket is set.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has picked Sen. Kamala Harris as his vice presidential running mate.

Harris is the first Black and Asian-American woman to be on a major party’s presidential ticket.

WCCB Political contributor Mary C. Curtis gives her expert analysis on the decision.

Read the rest atWCCB Rising
Aug122020 TAGS: , , , , , ,

Chaos is all Trump has, as he hopes ‘law and order’ appeal will work in GOP’s favor

Featured at Roll Call

The Queen of Soul sang it clearly. The “Respect” Aretha Franklin was craving — yes, demanding — in that classic is still in short supply for black Americans. More protesters have been arrested than police officers involved in the death of George Floyd, the black Minneapolis man who died after now-former officer Derek Chauvin held his knee on the handcuffed man’s neck for nearly nine minutes while three fellow officers stood by or assisted.

Would there have been protests across the country and the world if Chauvin and his fellow officers had been charged immediately? There is no way to know for sure. But it is clear that the anguished reaction has been about much more than the death of one man, and has been generations in the making.

Read the rest atRoll Call
Jun042020 TAGS: , , , , , , , , ,

POLITICAL WRAP: Coronavirus – Business vs. Health & Impact on Minorities

Featured at WCCB Charlotte

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Rising tension between business leaders and health officials about when to re-open.

And new data showing how minorities are at higher risk for Coronavirus infections and death.

Click above for more with our political contributor, Mary C. Curtis.

Read the rest atWCCB Charlotte
Apr122020 TAGS: , , , , , ,

Cory Booker bows out, Ben Carson backs off fair housing and issues of race recede in America

Featured at Roll Call

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.

Read the rest atRoll Call
Jan162020 TAGS: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Double standards for 2020 Democratic hopefuls? You don’t say

Featured at Roll Call

OPINION — There is a particular line that stuck with me in the just-opened film “Queen & Slim,” about a black couple on the run after an altercation with a white police officer goes awry in the depressing and terrible way you might imagine. During their perilous road trip, in a quieter moment, he (a retail worker) asks her (an attorney) if she is good at her job. “I’m an excellent lawyer,” she replies, to which he answers with a question that’s really a statement: “Why do black people always got to be excellent? Why can’t we just be ourselves?”

Since the pre-mortems were written a bit ago, it’s time for a post-mortem on the presidential campaign of California Sen. Kamala Harris, who never seemed to quite discover who she was or at least convey authenticity and excellence to enough voters or donors to make a difference.

Read the rest atRoll Call
Dec052019 TAGS: , , , , , , ,
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