North Carolina Needs to Stop Bleeding

Born in the great city of Durham, I am a North Carolina Tar Heel by birth. And I’m mad.

I don’t like seeing my beloved state — the place that my extended family and so many other American families call home — become the target of physical and ideological strife.

Obama has put far too many blacks at the back of the bus in today’s economy. Meanwhile, he rides up front — in a golf cart.

Looting, violence, and destruction of property are ruling the streets of Charlotte right now. “Black Lives Matter” is scrawled on buildings and business doorways. The National Guard has been called in. A state of emergency has been declared.

Charlotte is being torn apart by progressive policies advanced by the Obama administration — as is true of so many other cities. These policies keep lower-income residents poor, frustrated, and dependent on the largesse of the government.

Obama has put far too many blacks at the back of the bus in today’s economy. He, meanwhile, rides up front — in a golf cart.

We’ve all seen it, in every city like Charlotte — that mom pushing a baby stroller down a littered city sidewalk, her pace listless, no life in her eyes. She has nowhere to go and nothing to do. If she works, she won’t get an unemployment check. If she marries her baby’s father, her benefits will be cut. Her potential has been buried under programs that are meant to help her.

There are 514,135 female-led families with no males present in North Carolina alone, according to suburbanstats.org.

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“People are trapped in the neighborhoods with no hope, no future, and no jobs,” former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said Thursday on Fox News, explaining the plight of too many urban Americans.

This is progress? No. This is desperation and frustration.

Despite the promises of liberals, a life of desperation and frustration leads minorities to commit more and more crimes — which means more and more police work, more police involvement. This is when tragedies like police shootings happen.

Donald Trump, speaking in Pittsburgh Thursday, said there has been a 17-percent increase in violent crime in America’s 50 largest cities. More than 3,000 people have been shot in Chicago this year, he noted. Police every day are tasked with managing increasingly violent streets.

Charlotte shooting victim Keith Lamott Scott had a weapon when confronted, according to police — a weapon he refused to drop. The officer who shot him is black. Police say Scott was threatening them, Fox News reported — and the dashcam video bears this out. The investigation is ongoing.

In Obama’s America, personal accountability takes a back seat to the blame game. In Obama’s America, you should be able to wave a weapon menacingly and be given the benefit of the doubt. In Obama’s America, city streets are the new Wild West.

As Gingrich also said on Fox News Thursday morning, “It’s a tragedy that eight years after our first African-American president took office, eight years after we’ve had two African-American attorney generals, the gap and the hostility, if anything, is worse. I think that’s a tragic failure of leadership.”

Related: Isaiah Washington Says ‘Fed Up’ Blacks Should ‘Shut It Down’

My grandmother lived in Durham, North Carolina, back in the 1960s. She employed a black woman named Mary for housework. Mary came to her home once a week. The two women were friends. Truth be told, the two women were both lower-income.

They talked to each other about the issues of the day. More importantly, they listened to each other. Mary had dignity and worked tirelessly to provide for her family. She would have scoffed at the idea of staying home idle. What would she do with herself all day long? How would she provide for her kids?

But she was from a different era. Then, pride was a common characteristic in all colors of people. Back then, the government didn’t coddle the citizenry.

In Obama’s America, you should be able to wave a weapon and be given the benefit of the doubt.

North Carolina has a state motto: Esse Quam Videri. It means: “To be, rather than to seem.” North Carolina is trying to live out its motto with the bathroom wars — to “be” a sensible state rather than “seem” progressive.

But entities such as the NCAA, businesses such as PayPal and DeutscheBank, and musical acts such as Bruce Springsteen are trying to punish all residents of this great state by withdrawing businesses and patronage, until they allow transgender people to wander freely into the bathroom of their choice.

North Carolina is so far standing firm.

I know North Carolina as a place of good people of all colors and races, the home of many amazing artists and creators, the place where you can eat the best barbecue on the face of the earth. My memories are of a loving family teasing me — telling me that no matter how far I roamed, I would always be a Tar Heel at heart. I would “bleed Carolina blue.”

I am a Tar Heel at heart, proudly. And it is time for all bleeding — real and metaphorical — to end. North Carolinians and all Americans deserve better.