Governor Cooper explained in the newspaper he vetoed a bill because “Municipal charter schools set a dangerous precedent that could lead to taxpayer funded re-segregation.”

The way the bill’s opponents see it the suburbs where the schools would be built are white (or ‘whiter’) than the rest of the schools in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District, so the bill was a step backwards towards segregation – in other words, a horde of segregationists are on the loose in the Charlotte suburbs.

There was another article in the same newspaper about racism right here in Raleigh. It turns out four years ago the Department of Education in Washington told the Raleigh-Wake County Schools they’d lose their federal funding if they suspended minority students at a ‘disproportionately high rate’ – and the School Board promptly cut a deal with the Department to mend its ways.

Then President Trump cancelled the old Obama-regulation, so Raleigh was off the hook. Right? Not exactly. The Chairman of the School Board announced they were going to stick with the old regulations no matter what Trump did.  

So it seems the Raleigh schools which, four years ago, were suspending students because they were Black are now not suspending students because they are Black. It sounds screwy. Even screwier than imagining a horde of segregationists in the Charlotte suburbs.

Could it be these boasts about fighting racism are a disguise hiding a deeper problem?