Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson speaks before a rally for former President Donald Trump at The Farm at 95 on April 9, 2022, in Selma, North Carolina. | Source: Allison Joyce / Getty
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson‘s newly announced campaign for governor is placing a bright spotlight on the Republican’s history of making outrageously right-wing statements.
Robinson, 54, announced his candidacy on Saturday at a rally at Ace Speedway in the town of Altamahaw where his fellow Grand Old Partiers celebrated him as “North Carolina’s next governor,” according to local news outlet MyFox8.
Robinson’s announcement quickly sparked a backlash on social media, where a video recorded in 2021 revealed his stance on the topic of reparations for slavery.
While data shows that most Republicans are firmly against the idea of reparations for slavery, Robinson said that he’s actually in favor of it, with one slight caveat: it would effectively be reverse reparations with Black folks footing the bill.
You see, in Robinson’s view, it is Black people who “owe” a debt to society for slavery, and not the other way around.
He made that abundantly clear during the North Carolina State Republican Party Convention nearly two years ago.
While recounting the time he said he “made a liberal so angry” by telling them “right to their face nobody owes you anything for slavery,” Robinson made a not-so-compelling case fort reverse reparations.
“If you want to tell the truth about it, it is you who owes,” Robinson continued with his story about the anonymous “liberal” who, if his rhetoric was any indication, is more than likely a Black person.
“Why do you owe? Because somebody in those fields took strikes for you,” Robinson reasoned before an audience that responded without any applause.
But he wasn’t even close to being done.
“After those fields were ended and slavery was ended, somebody had to walk through Jim Crow for you,” Robinson added. “Somebody fought wars and died for you.”
Capping off his revisionist remarks about reparations, Robinson concluded that “nobody owes you anything. If anybody owes it’s you — because you’ve been the benefactor of freedom, you are the one that owes.”
The applause was much heavier now.
Watch Robinson’s reparations comments from 2021 below.
Truthfully, Robinson’s comments about reparations were completely on-brand for the firebrand Republican.
Aside from his, um, views on reparations, Robinson unsurprisingly holds “extremist” opinions on other contentious political topics, including guns, abortion and homosexuality.
Just last year, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper broke with traditional notions of decorum and called out Robinson for “dangerous” rhetoric about owning an AR-15. Robinson made the remarks in response to calls for gun control at the NRA Leadership Forum days after the horrific shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
In the clip shared by Cooper, Robinson is shown speaking to a crowd at the NRA Leadership Forum in Houston and sounded like he’s gearing up for a real-life rendition of “The Purge” while making his case for why he needs his AR-15 style rifle, the weapon of choice of many mass shooters in part because of the damage done to victims.
More than a year before that, Robinson came under fire for referring to the LGBTQ community as “filth.”
Video footage showed Robinson sharing his hateful views during in June — Pride month — at the Asbury Baptist Church in Seagrove, North Carolina.
“It is flat out child abuse to take your children and tell them they have to attend school—don’t have a choice—and then some of them will tell them they don’t have a choice where they go to school. You have to send your children here to school,” Robinson said at the time.
“Then when they get there, what do they teach you?” Robinson continued. “Teach them a bunch of stuff about how to hate America. Teach them a bunch of stuff about why they are racist. Teach them a bunch of stuff about transgederism and homosexuality. I’m saying this now, and I’ve been saying it, and I don’t care who likes it: Those issues have no place in a school. “There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality—any of that filth.”
So, to recap, the sitting North Carolina lieutenant governor and current Republican gubernatorial candidate is a homophobe who thinks Black people “owe” reparations for slavery and defends ownership of assault rifles at a time when a parade of mass shooters use them to kill innocent people.
Judging by those qualifications in today’s political climate, Robinson just may have a fighting chance next year.
Robinson, the first and only Black lieutenant governor in North Carolina’s history, would enjoy the same distinction if he wins his gubernatorial race.
This is America.
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