Consultants say the candidacy of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson sheds gentle on how Republican candidates rise by interesting to the extremes and the way hate spreads on-line.
by Grace Panetta, The nineteenth
North Carolina Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson has a protracted historical past of attacking influential ladies in private and sometimes vulgar phrases. However Robinson has reserved explicit vitriol for Black ladies in positions of energy, with lots of his social media postings invoking misogyny, racism, homophobia and transphobia.
Consultants and advocates say Robinson’s candidacy and his simply profitable the Republican nomination replicate each the incentives inside the Republican Get together to enchantment to the extremes with inflammatory language and stances — and the way main tech platforms have enabled the unfold of hateful content material disproportionately harming Black ladies.
“Because it pertains to Black ladies specifically, we all know that they’ve traditionally been tormented by biases and disparities that replicate broader problems with illustration and variety inside this nation,” stated Esosa Osa, founder and CEO of Onyx Affect, a nonprofit group centered on Black voters’ civic engagement and combatting disinformation.
“As they turn out to be extra seen on any platform, their presence is weaponized,” Osa stated.
Robinson, the state’s first Black lieutenant governor who has made frequent talking appearances at church buildings, rose to prominence together with his far-right views, embrace of conspiracy theories and incendiary rhetoric on the pulpit and on social media. All through his profession, Robinson has espoused anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ stances — together with stating that God “shaped” him to battle LGBTQ+ acceptance.
Robinson will face Democrat Josh Stein in one of the aggressive and consequential governor’s races this 12 months. If elected, Robinson could be North Carolina’s first Black governor. His candidacy comes at a time when the Republican Get together is trying to win over extra Black voters in battleground states like North Carolina.
However, Osa stated, nominating a Black candidate doesn’t imply the Republican Get together will win over Black voters, particularly Black ladies, who’re the core of the Democratic Get together’s base. Osa stated Robinson’s rise comes from a “historic lack of curiosity concerning the Black voter” and described him as a “tsunami of anti-Black disinformation.”
“I feel that the present media panorama is about as much as amplify division, amplify hate and amplify biases,” Osa stated. “The GOP, specifically, is benefiting from the social media panorama that these tech firms have allowed to proliferate. And it says quite a bit about your efforts to courtroom Black voters when these are the kinds of candidates that rise to the highest.”
Moya Bailey, a Black feminist scholar and professor of communication research at Northwestern College, first coined the time period “misogynoir” to characterize the intersection of misogyny and racism uniquely focused towards Black ladies.
In an electronic mail to The nineteenth, Bailey stated Robinson’s postings present how misogynoir “is an equal alternative type of discrimination” weaponized by Black and non-Black individuals alike.
“Robinson joins a protracted line of Black males of varied political stripes who use misogynoiristic concepts about Black ladies for their very own political acquire,” she stated. In a world the place demeaning Black ladies might help somebody enhance their very own profession, “it’s no surprise that his vitriol is so constant.”
Robinson’s in depth social media historical past, together with a number of beforehand unreported posts, exhibits how he used his Fb web page to domesticate his incendiary political model for years earlier than his profitable first run for workplace in 2020.
In doing so, Robinson has gone after plenty of outstanding ladies in politics — and ladies who’ve accused outstanding males of sexual misconduct. A lot of his assaults over time have typically been based mostly in racist stereotypes.
In 2017, Robinson posted a meme referring to Rep. Frederica Wilson of Florida as a “mendacity, liberal, backside feeding, pond scum” and “dressing like a rejected drag queen from Brokeback Mountain,” as first reported by the Huffington Put up.
He has taken explicit intention at former First Girl Michelle Obama, calling her an “indignant anti-American communist Black girl” and saying she speaks “ghetto” and “wookie.” She was among the many targets of beforehand unreported Fb posts by Robinson:
In 2012, Robinson reposted a meme criticizing the price of the outfit Obama wore on the Children’ Selection Awards. The meme included a graphic of an ObamaCard paid for by the taxpayer, feeding into racist tropes depicting Black ladies as depending on authorities help.
In January 2017, Robinson posted a meme with textual content overlaying a photograph of former President Invoice Clinton, former First Girl Hillary Clinton and Obama at former President Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration studying: “That look you get while you see a 1st girl who’s not an previous hag or a drag queen.” The meme was watermarked “M. Robinson memes.”
In an October 2017 put up, he referred to Rep. Maxine Waters as “Ol’ Maxie Pad Waters” in criticizing feedback she made about Trump.
A Robinson marketing campaign spokesperson didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Robinson has lengthy promoted what he sees as a Biblical view of masculinity, as soon as stating in 2022 he believes “we’re referred to as to be led by males” and that “when it was time to face down Goliath,” God “despatched David, not Davita. David.”
In a beforehand unreported sermon he delivered in July 2020, Robinson stated he believes he and God are “stuffed with machismo.”
“We want our personal males to face up and train our younger males the way to be males. And after I say males, I imply manly males. I’m speaking concerning the type of manly males that they wish to say, ‘You’re a male chauvinist pig’ or ‘You’re stuffed with machismo’ — you higher consider I’m,” Robinson stated. “God put that in me to be a person. There’s not something female standing earlier than you.”
He added: “God created me for a goal, and extra importantly, he created me in his picture. So possibly God is filled with machismo too.”
In different beforehand unreported Fb posts, Robinson assaults the #MeToo motion holding highly effective males accountable for sexual violence and misconduct as an assault on masculinity. In 2017, he wrote that leftists weren’t combatting a “pervasive tradition of sexual harassment” however “making a weapon with it.” In quite a few posts, Robinson each mocked and solid doubt on accusations of sexual assault in opposition to figures like Harvey Weinstein, R. Kelly and disgraced actor Invoice Cosby, together with insulting the appearances of accusers.
He additionally posted in protection of Trump following the discharge of the notorious “Entry Hollywood” tape days earlier than the 2016 election, writing: “I don’t suppose Trump is a ‘disgusting pervert’ for saying what he stated. The ‘disgusting pervert’ is the man who taped it.” Robinson additionally downplayed allegations in opposition to Choose Roy Moore, the Alabama U.S. Senate candidate who was accused by a number of ladies of sexually assaulting them after they have been teenagers.
In a January 2019 Fb put up, Robinson wrote that masculinity was “below assault” by the left and that “devil and his brokers” have been attacking males. He additional charged that the media was specializing in “high-profile abusers in an effort to demonize males.” In one other January 2019 put up, Robinson urged chaperones as a solution to forestall “date rape.”
Shaunna Thomas, co-founder and govt director of the advocacy group UltraViolet, which works to fight sexism in common tradition and on tech platforms, argued that social media platforms have did not curb hateful speech on the expense of Black ladies’s on-line security and a wholesome democracy. Robinson’s posts, she stated, are additionally emblematic of how social media platforms helped gasoline the large backlash to the #MeToo motion, which incorporates discrediting and insulting survivors.
“What was a really inspiring, power-building, majoritarian second round sexual assault actually bought drowned out by forces that have been profiting off of misogyny,” she stated. “There’s at all times a backlash, however this backlash was huge and has had actual endurance largely due to the way in which platforms function.”
Osa, a former senior adviser to Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams, stated she’s working to fight the “lack of infrastructure” defending Black communities from disinformation aimed toward suppressing voter engagement.
And whereas she sees “more and more refined” disinformation campaigns focusing on Black ladies and Black voters, she believes they may nonetheless reject candidates like Robinson.
“Black ladies are a few of the most constant voters that we’ve got in our citizens,” she stated. “I feel that when events again candidates like Mark Robinson which have such a historical past of dangerous, racist, anti-Black narratives, you will note Black males and Black ladies come out and stand in opposition to it.”
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