It is at once funny and sad that so many people think this guy has anything worthwhile to add to the public discourse.
Just because you're sober, don't think you're a good driver, Cookie.
John Irving, Last Night in Twisted River
I have to admit to truly enjoying North Carolina Lt. Governor Mark Robinson. It’s not that I share his ridiculous politics. He’s a Black Republican who holds some of the most off-the-wall views of a Black person and/or a Republican I’ve come across. The man’s just an absolute freak show, and I mean that in the most loving way possible.
How could anyone fail to be entertained by someone like Robinson? No rational person could take him seriously, but I do wonder if someone somewhere along the line hurt him badly. His political views, as entertaining as they can be, are as angry and hateful as any Republican I can think of.
Martin Luther King Jr. was just an “ersatz pastor” and a “communist,” and the 1960s civil rights movement was “crap,” according to a series of Facebook posts by Mark Robinson, the leading Republican candidate to be North Carolina’s next governor.
Robinson, who is currently the state’s lieutenant governor, regularly criticized King and the civil rights movement for years on Facebook ― specifically on MLK Day ― HuffPost found amid a review of his posts. The Black politician also downplayed slavery, rejected the idea that he’s part of the African American community, and attacked the late congressman and civil rights icon, John Lewis.
The first paragraph alone is a “WTF??” moment, and how someone like him came to be elected as the Lt. Governor of a southern state defies rational understanding.
Sadly, this is where Robinson’s comic relief value comes to a screeching halt.
Of course, I’m not Black, and I can’t pretend to get inside Robinson’s head (which sounds like it would be a fun place, eh?), but for a Black man to claim he’s not part of the Black community? And to attack the late Congressman John Lewis…and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.? I can’t even begin to understand what’s behind that.
These posts are surfacing at a time when Robinson, who is on track to be the GOP nominee for governor in November, has been trying to soften his rhetoric, and celebrate King and the civil rights movement.
Last month, former President Donald Trump hailed Robinson as “better than Dr. Martin Luther King” at a campaign event, and Robinson responded by saying he “took it as a compliment” and “knowing what I know about him, and the history thereof, you know, those are big shoes to fill.”
His social media posts tell a different story.
In January 2018, Robinson mocked people who celebrate King, who he said was just a subpar pastor. He didn’t mention King by name, but he was clearly talking about the civil rights leader in his series of messages posted on MLK Day that year.
“It is at once funny and sad that so many people will follow the lead of a bunch of atheists and worship an ersatz pastor as a deity,” he wrote in one post.
Yeah, it is at once funny and sad that someone who took cheap shots at two icons of the Black community is now acting as if it never happened now that he’s running for Governor and needs Black votes.
As for being “better than Dr. Martin Luther King,” I don’t think comparisons are appropriate, but I would ask the Lt. Governor what he’s done that wasn’t self-interested. What has he done for his community to lift up those who haven’t always been considered equal by the White community? After all, he’s not White, so he knows what that means…and he can’t pretend otherwise.
As I’ve already said, the man has some serious issues.
Robinson also used MLK Day to dismiss the idea that racism is real.
“The ‘state of race relations’ exist chiefly within your own mind,” he said.
“‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty we are free at last!’ Now what?” he said in another post that day.
Those posts came exactly one year after Robinson wrote that he planned to work on MLK Day, a federal holiday, to show that he wasn’t “a leach” on society and allowing the government to cut him a break.
“Tomorrow I will do my ‘service to the community’ by going to work to continue to support myself and my family so I’m not a leach on said community,” Robinson posted on Jan. 16, 2017.
I don’t know what universe Robinson is living in, but I’m White, and even I understand that racism is real. Granted, these posts were from a few years ago, but they point to a terribly immature level of understanding regarding the realities of today’s world.
Denying that something exists doesn’t make it less real, though that seems to be Robinson’s strategy regarding issues that have traditionally impacted the Black community.
His attitude toward Dr. King is particularly offensive.
He also wrote on MLK Day that year, “I don’t like Communist. No matter what ‘color’ they are.”
The North Carolina Republican later admitted in his 2022 book, “We Are The Majority,” that he had been calling King a communist.
“December of 2007 was when I joined Facebook,” he wrote on pages 156-157. “Every political thought I had in my head, I put on there, up to and including my posting photos of Martin Luther King and calling him a communist.”
Officials with Robinson’s campaign and in his official government office did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t want to comment. Insulting Dr. King is not a particularly intelligent or sensible thing to be doing, given how revered he is in American society and particularly in the Black community.
Get more from Jack Cluth in the Substack app
Available for iOS and Android
But it wasn’t just Dr. King that Robinson felt free to insult.
Robinson hasn’t limited his Facebook criticisms to King on MLK Day. That same day, in 2017, he attacked Lewis, who nearly lost his life fighting for voting rights. On March 7, 1965, Alabama police officers gassed and brutally beat Lewis and hundreds of other peaceful protesters on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. That day, now known as “Bloody Sunday,” left Lewis with a fractured skull.
Yeah, when you’re a dick, you’re REALLY a dick.
That same day, Robinson posted that actual real-life slavery isn’t as bad as slavery “of the mind,” which is Satan’s greatest tool.
“Slavery of the mind is FAR worse than physical slavery,” the GOP gubernatorial hopeful wrote. “Slavery of the mind cannot be seen, cannot be made illegal, and is and always has been the greatest tool of Satan used against man..... and men against each other.”
Of course, Robinson would know this because he was around when slavery was still in place, and he had first-person knowledge of how it worked and how it impacted the enslaved, right?
Robinson was, as is often the case, speaking from a place of astonishing ignorance and supreme arrogance. This allowed him to believe that he KNEW he was right and possessed the answers when, in fact, he was breathtakingly supercilious and naïve.
As laughable as Mark Robinson may be, he’s still the Lt. Governor of North Carolina, and he’s probably the leading candidate to become Governor. I can only speak for myself since I don’t live in the Tarheel State, but I think everyone would be better off if he were on a high dose of Thorazine instead of taking the Oath of Office.
But that’s just me; I’m an atheist who lives in Oregon.WTF do I know, right?
I know enough to understand that if Mark Robinson’s a Christian, I’m your next American Idol. He may be entertaining, but he’s also extremely dangerous. If he becomes Governor of North Carolina, I shudder to think of the possibilities. He may not be a Black Donald Trump…but he’s not far off.
I live three time zones west of the Tarheel State, so my knowledge of the state isn’t exactly deep. Still, even I have to believe North Carolina deserves better for a Governor than an arrogant, self-righteous twit whose entertainment value far surpasses his worthiness to serve his state. Mark Robinson shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the Governor’s mansion in Raleigh.
Greensboro has been at the forefront of just about every major movement of justice in the United States. A key battle of the American Revolution was fought on Battleground Avenue, the vestiges of the Underground Railroad still exist today on the campus of Guilford College and, of course, the Woolworth lunch counter protests happened at what is today the International Civil Rights Center & Museum.
As we celebrate the life and work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. this week, I’ve been reflecting on my hometown’s storied history in the Civil Rights Movement. One of my fondest memories as a child is of my mother placing my feet on a historical marker in downtown Greensboro that traces the feet of the A&T Four in front of the site of their courageous protest. As a Greensboro native, it feels as if the fight for justice is in my blood.
That’s why it pains me that my fellow Greensboro native, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, has repeatedly denigrated the Civil Rights Movement at large and even our hometown heroes, specifically. Robinson has frequently referred to the fight for freedom as the “so-called Civil Rights Movement” and decried that “so many freedoms were lost during the Civil Rights Movement.”
What’s sad about this is that Mark Robinson has benefited from the Civil Rights Movement. Does he seriously believe he’d be Lt. Governor of North Carolina absent the Civil Rights Movement and the sacrifices and activism of people like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and those who worked alongside him?
What freedoms does Robinson believe were “lost” during the “so-called” Civil Rights Movement? Is he so beholden to the White power structure that he’d deny his heritage and the struggles of those who came before him? These are people who, in some cases, risked their lives so people like him could reach the heights he has.
He even called the successful Greensboro lunch counter protests a “ridiculous premise” designed to pull “the rug out from underneath capitalism and free choice and the free market.”
Robinson has shown no shame in belittling our civil rights icons, even addressing John Lewis on Facebook in 2017, and saying “just because you got beat up … in 1965 doesn’t mean you can’t get criticized.”
Robinson, who is now campaigning to be governor, is running away from our city’s history of being a hub for freedom and liberation and into the arms of the most discriminatory and hateful right-wing politics our country has to offer. And he has been rewarded for his troubles.
Just last month, former President Donald Trump endorsed Robinson at Mar-a-Lago. When referring to Robinson’s speaking style, , Trump said he told Robinson, “I think you’re better than Dr. Martin Luther King.” Trump added, “I think he didn’t like that comparison, but he accepted it.”
Of course, Dr. King and Mark Robinson couldn’t be further apart. While Dr. King preached nonviolence, Robinson has bragged about potential violence, saying he has an AR-15 in case the “government gets too big for its britches.” And while Dr. King believed in loving one’s enemies, Robinson has called his political opponents “cowards” who will face the “vengeance” of Jesus Christ.
I was a History and Anthropology double major, so I can’t begin to claim the qualifications to diagnose Robinson. Still, if I had to hazard a guess, I’d go with megalomania. The man has an overamped ego that would cover the North Carolina coast from Virginia to South Carolina, and he’s not afraid to let his freak flag fly.
But calling out his political opponents as “cowards” who will face “vengeance” from Jesus Christ? It takes some serious chutzpah to assume without question that, OF COURSE, God is on your side.
How could He not be, right…because you’re MARK FUCKING ROBINSON!!!
In his campaign, Mark Robinson will surely play up his Greensboro ties, portraying himself as our beloved native son. But his betrayal of our history of freedom has long ago disgraced him from that title. Greensboro is a city that fights for justice, and Mark Robinson just fights for himself … he does not speak for us!
Mark Robinson uses his heritage and his Blackness when it serves his purpose. But when he’s trying to appeal to those marinated in “the most discriminatory and hateful right-wing politics our country has to offer,” he negates and runs away from what he is to appeal to the White majority.
No matter what he does, he can’t escape the color of his skin.
Robinson is trying to be all things to all people to advance his political prospects. It’s pretty easy to see through, and there are those, like the Rev. C.J. Brinson, trying to call attention to Robinson’s duplicity and dishonesty.
It is at once funny and sad that so many would vote for a man devoid of honesty and integrity who denies everything he is to advance his political career.
It doesn’t get much more pathetic than that.
North Stars and Cowboy Bars is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
(All of my posts are now public. Any reader financial support will be considered pledges- support that’s greatly appreciated but not required to get to all of my work. I’ll trust my readers to determine if my work is worthy of their financial support and at what level. To those who do offer their support, thank you. It means more than you know.)
Thank you for reading North Stars and Cowboy Bars. This post is public, so feel free to share it.
