Catawba County Government Will Keep Its Confederate Statue

 

Randy Isenhour, chair of the Catawba County Commission, published a letter in the Hickory Daily News yesterday that praised the UNC-CH Board of Trustees for denying tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones, and he took the opportunity to blast her 1619 Project as "junk history." It's a remarkable display by an elected official in Catawba County, weighing in so ferociously on the hiring of a famous journalist at Chapel Hill and assessing the historical accuracy of a document I would bet he hasn't read. Not sure of Mr. Isenhour's qualifications for discerning good history from "junk."

He isn't qualified, so Isenhour turns to three authorities for calling the 1619 Project "junk history": the Rev. Corey Brooks, a Black pastor in Chicago trying to quell urban violence; Columbia University Prof John McWhorter, a prominent Black intellectual and contrarian; and Robert Woodson, a Black community organizer in DeeCee. Do you think the racial makeup of his authorities happened by chance?

Isenhour's three detractors of the 1619 Project all have their reasons (which I respect) for rejecting a new historical emphasis on slavery and racism. In Rev. Brooks' case (a view he published in The American Conservative), he worries that because both the 1619 Project and Black Lives Matter "emphasize that America is racist to its core, they both inadvertently make the American Dream inaccessible to non-whites. As a consequence of this viewpoint, blacks are doomed to view the American Dream as spectators rather than as full participants engaged in a wholehearted pursuit of their personal American Dream." 

Isn't that patronizing on its face?

The blisteringly smart John McWhorter has an actually similar reaction -- that even admitting that Black bondage shaped the nation becomes an original sin that cannot be expunged:

But now we have a true Genesis-style scenario under which, at the very outset, a ship brings Africans to this land in 1619 and everything that happens here afterward is rooted in the unjustifiable bondage of those human beings and what was connected to it. Now, not only does the American individual harbor the original sin of being born privileged, but America itself is a product of a grand original sin, permeating the entire physical, sociological, and psychological fabric of the nation, to an extent no one could ever hope to undo, and for which any apology would be insufficient to the point of irrelevance.

McWhorter may be the better writer, but his viewpoint seems as patronizing as Brooks's, that focusing on slavery and racism can discourage, even knee-cap change and keep Blacks in economic and political subservience. I can appreciate these viewpoints without agreeing that change is impossible when you accept unpleasant reality.

Now the reason the Catawba chair of the Board of Commissioners would trot out these guys as his authorities for declaring Hannah-Jones's work "junk history" may have more to do with the recent pressure he's been under to remove a Confederate monument from the courthouse square than it does with his devotion to good history.

Since last August members of a local Truth and Reconciliation Committee have been speaking regularly during public comment at commissioner meetings, requesting that the Confederate monument be removed to encourage at least an appearance of fairness in Catawba County government. The statue of a Confederate soldier was erected on the courthouse square in 1907 during that great reflowering of white supremacy across the South, at approximately the same time Silent Sam went up on the UNC-CH campus and hundreds of other monuments popped up all across the former Confederacy as a pugnacious reassertion of "state's rights" (the right to discriminate via Jim Crow laws against former slaves being primary). Through all that public comment, Chair Isenhour remained stony-faced, like granite.

That outward refusal to be moved changed suddenly last December when a 16-year-old boy, Colby Dagenhart, stood up during public comment and admitted that he had been raised a racist (from reporting in the Hickory Record):

“I believed those large Confederate statues needed to stay right where they were because it showed the power of us whites,” he said. “I believed that was our heritage.” ...

By eighth grade Dagenhart had made many Black friends, but still didn’t support the Black Lives Matter movement, he said.

“I continued to believe that the Confederate monuments were my heritage,” Dagenhart said. “Then, I had a discussion about race with them [my friends].”

Dagenhart said their perspective changed his mind. His friends detailed struggles they’d faced from childhood simply because of the color of their skin.

“To put it simply, I never knew. I [became] educated,” Dagenhart said. “I realized I had spent my childhood growing in a world where my skin color never put me at a natural disadvantage. I never had to avoid cops on the street because I didn’t have to worry if I would come back home to my mother that day alive. I never had to walk by statues honoring people that I knew fought against my freedom.” ...

“This statue needs to be removed,” Dagenhart said, addressing the commissioners. “History has its eyes on you. We are Gen Z and we are watching. We are rising faster than you think. Change is coming, and it’s going to come with our vote.”

Well, apparently young Colby Dagenhart shook Mr. Isenhour's granite facade, because for the first time in all the months of citizens' speaking out about the statue (according to the Daily Record reporter) Isenhour broke his silence and got defensive with the 16-year-old who had spoken from the heart. Isenhour started listing all the "accomplishments" that he and his fellow commissioners had achieved and said that “the reason we accomplish so much in this county is because the citizens, by and large, in this county don't sit around ruminating about wrongs, and how their ancestors were wronged … or what their grievances were.” (Never mind that Confederate statues on courthouse grounds were and still are expressions of grievance against the North, no?)

Then Mr. Isenhour cut to the chase, essentially daring Colby Dagenhart and his Gen Zers itching to vote to find three people who'll agree with them, who might run for county commissioner and win, and then there would be a voting majority on the board to get rid of that Confederate monument.

In other words, "We got the power, kid, and until we don't, you can shut the hell up."

Kim Bost, Taking Another Shot in Catawba County

In 2018 we paid attention to Democrat Kim Bost when she ran for the NC House, District 96, contained entirely within Catawba County and taking in most of Hickory and Conover and some of Newton. The 2018 Blue Wave didn't make it to NCH96. Bost drew only 39.26% of the vote against Republican incumbent Jay Adams.

She announced on Facebook yesterday that she's going again for the seat in 2020. It's an uphill slog, no doubt, but certain indicators ought to mean something for Bost to build a stronger coalition in 2020.

For one thing, Charlotte Williams, a very strong Democrat, won her primary for Hickory Ward 2 alderman back on October 8. She's up against a Republican in the November elections. Granted, the alderman races in Hickory are officially non-partisan, but Williams in one of those classic progressives who's very visible in the community: She's the associate dean of Engaged and Global Learning and the program coordinator for the Human and Community Service major at Lenoir-Rhyne University. She serves on the Habitat for Humanity board and the Cognitive Connection Substance Abuse Program board. She previously held leadership roles as the vice-chair of the Hickory City Public School Board, president of the Women’s Resource Center, vice-chair on the Council of Adolescents, and secretary of the United Arts Council.

Why am I talking about Charlotte Williams, a candidate for Hickory City Council, and not Kim Bost, an incipient candidate for the NC House? Because Charlotte Williams obviously has a base of support in Hickory that Kim Bost can/should build on (especially if Williams ends up winning the Ward 2 alderman seat in November).

Furthermore, the two candidates squaring off in November for the Ward 1 alderman seat are both Democratic-leaning Unaffiliated candidates, which means I can't bring myself to think of the City of Hickory as a total Republican stronghold. There are signs of progressivism afoot. Plus the City of Newton has two Democrats serving on its city council and two very left-leaning Unaffiliated members. All of which should add up to an opportunity for coalition-building by a Democrat running in this heavily urban/suburban NC House district. (City of Conover, also in Dist. 96, is a much harder Republican nut to crack, with all of its sitting council members registered Republicans.)

First thing I'd do if I were Kim Bost and had the money -- conduct a telephone robo-poll (combined with texting) of all voters in Dist. 96 and ask one question: "Do you support President Donald J. Trump?" The answer to that question will tell her a great deal about where the persuadable voters are, and where the boulders are that she should avoid dashing herself against. After impeachment, do the poll again. If there's no movement in the Hickory electorate, go to Plan B.

Something's Stirring in Catawba County

I'm told that Catawba County voters haven't elected a Democrat to the county commission in over 30 years. No Democrat even bothered to file for the office in 2016, and going back many election cycles on the State Board of Elections site, I found some Democrats on the ballot in various years, but none of them ever came close to taking a seat.

This year there are three Democrats on the ballot for the Catawba County Commission, all women, all exceptional in one way or another. You can read about all of them on the Catawba Democratic Party website.

Geniey Yang in action

I'm particularly drawn to Geniey (pronounced gee-knee) Yang, an Asian-American woman of 30 who's been an international teacher of English and is also an accomplished rock-climber: "I got on the rocks and never looked back. It guides my travel plans and has a key impact on how I govern my life. Rock climbing has taken me to some of the most exquisite places in the world. It has been the guiding light to my self-assurance, assessing different situations, and preparing for all things possible."

Geniey's family was part of the Hmong (the 'h' is silent) immigration to the United States in the late 1980s. The Hmong were ethnically Chinese living mainly in the mountains of Laos and Vietnam. Many of them helped American forces in the Vietnamese War, and after the Pathet Lao seized control of Laos, they began a brutal persecution of the Hmong. Hmong refugees fled to Thailand, and from there many immigrated to the United States, some of them to Catawba and Burke counties in North Carolina where they have become well established as professional workers of all kinds, farmers (they excel at agriculture), and in the case of Geniey, a candidate for public office.

I hear from insiders in Catawba that Geniey and her team of volunteers have already knocked over 4,000 doors in the county. That kind of commitment and out-reach is golden. Observing her energy and commitment, a Catawba County Democrat told me, "a young Asian woman knocking doors every day of the week in rural Catawba County is very impressive." More than impressive, I'd say. #2018BlueWave courageous!

Geniey writes, "My drive for progress and satisfaction is fearless, and it is tantamount to what I feel for my community. I have seen the proof of universal strength of community repeatedly through my travels across the world  -- people taking care of people, neighbors pulling together for the benefit of all .... we must all strive to be better than we are. I believe in self-betterment and looking after one another. To make that a reality, I am ready and dedicated to give back to my community."

I was already watching Catawba County because of candidates like Kim Bost and Ric Vandett and David Wilson Brown and DD Adams. Geniey Yang gives me a tingling sensation that 2018 ain't like any other year in Catawba and in many other North Carolina counties.