ZANE: Why have NC Democrats waited so long to do something about racism?

RALEIGH – The woke culture that Governor Roy Cooper, Attorney General Josh Stein, and much of the Left cater and subscribe to — the radically anti-American, collectivist, societal assault cloaked in an insidious anti-racist movement — employs a dogma specifically constructed for adherents to always fall short. They’re always at risk of expulsion, of getting ‘canceled,’ for not being sufficiently woke.

By this standard, suggests J. Peder Zane in the Charlotte Observer’s op-ed page, the woke should be demanding Cooper and Stein resign for their years and years of perpetuating a systemically racist system. Zane asks, Why have Democrats, like Cooper, waited so long to do something about racism?

From the Charlotte Observer:

“I don’t think Governor Roy Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein should resign from office.

But their actions and words as well as the climate that has led to the purging of editors, executives and students deemed insufficiently woke, would seem to demand it.

Since the protests began following George Floyd’s horrific killing by Minneapolis police, both Democrats have issued strong denunciations of systemic racism that, they claim, pervades our nation and state.

On Tuesday Cooper signed an executive order creating a task force to “help eliminate systemic racism in our criminal justice system.” Stein – who has denounced systemic injustice “in the criminal justice system, in the economy, or in the health care system” – will lead the group with N.C. Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls.

While optimists applaud the action and cynics say Geez, Marie, another commission everyone should ask the two leaders: If you truly think the problem is so bad, what took you so long to address it?

Before he became governor in 2017, Cooper served as North Carolina’s Attorney General for 16 years. From that perch he had ample opportunity both through constitutional authority and the bully pulpit to root out the systemic injustice he is now denouncing.

Why did he make such little progress?

Stein served in the North Carolina Assembly for eight years before succeeding Cooper as Attorney General in 2017. He’s had plenty of time to address police brutality and what he sees as systemic injustice in our criminal justice system. But the 10 ways “Josh protects the people of North Carolina” listed on his website Tuesday did not directly address either.

How come?

Yes, policing is mostly a local issue. But when the status quo is so corrupt leaders of conscience must work tirelessly – and sometimes outside the limits of their own authority – for reform.

Cooper’s failure is especially troubling given his full-throated support of the protests in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yes, he probably couldn’t- and shouldn’t have – stopped them But his posture also suggests he believes the fight against systemic racism is so crucial that it is worth risking untold numbers of deaths.

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