Mark Robinson and I grew up poor and Black in the South. But we learned different lessons. | Opinion

I used to be angry with Mark Robinson, the North Carolina Republican Party’s choice for governor. After giving it considerable thought, I pity him more. He’s a little boy inside a grown man’s body.

Because he’s atop the ticket in North Carolina, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has a good chance to win the state. His extremism has given many pause, including fellow Republicans.

For me, it’s deeper. Robinson has been using his identity as a Black man who overcame struggles to appeal votes.

All my life, I’ve known men like him. I am one.

Robinson grew up in rural North Carolina when official desegregation was ending. I grew up in rural South Carolina when official desegregation was ending. Robinson grew up poor, the ninth of 10 children. I grew up poor, the fifth of 11 children.

His father was a drunk who abused his mother. My father was a drunk who abused my mother. His mom made a way for the family despite a fifth-grade education. My mom made a way for us despite dropping out of elementary school to work in cotton fields to help her parents make ends meet.

Robinson worked in the manufacturing industry and credits Christianity for making it through.

Growing up, I picked tobacco and cucumbers. I sold concessions and swept up popcorn at movie theaters alongside teenagers after I earned my Davidson College degree, and I credit Christianity for helping me make it through tough times.

If Robinson grew up in extreme poverty, his family may have relied upon the government the way my family did: long-rectangular boxes of government cheese, free lunches in school, free lunches during the summer, Pell grant access, welfare benefits and the like. Even if his family didn’t receive help directly, every poor family — heck, most American families — receive some sort of government assistance.

There’s nothing wrong with getting the help you need. It’s just that Robinson may have joined a long line of critics who have long relied upon government largess but want to pull up the ladder behind them. Not only that, it seems nearly every time a new revelation about something untoward Robinson said or his family was involved in, he falls back on the same, tired defense — that he’s being unfairly persecuted by a “liberal” media or “Democrat” party officials.

Recent reports show he didn’t pay taxes for years and filed for repeated bankruptcies. He and his wife sold a child care center they operated amid an investigation by the state’s Department of Health and Human Services that unearthed numerous violations. He made recent comments in a church declaring that ”Some folks need killing.” His family owes the state $132,000 for suspicious expenses for a nonprofit they ran that received more than $830,000 in taxpayer money for salaries. And there are his anti-Black and antisemitic rants.

I want no one to get the impression from Robinson’s story that those of us who’ve faced hardships lose our sense of integrity. Sure, we’ve faced extra struggles, unfair hurdles. But most of us who grew up poor and Black in the South were taught we had to be twice as good to get half as far. That we had to live excuse-free lives. That because we were on the wrong side of structural imbalances, we could not expect to receive the benefit of doubt very often. That’s where we diverge from Robinson, whose life shows he has repeatedly thumbed his nose at such values.

Robinson is right that growing up in such circumstances makes it more difficult for us in adulthood, even after we’ve overcome. We don’t have the natural safety net that those more fortunate are privy to. That should not be discounted, no matter your political views.

It doesn’t mean we are more prone to make the kinds of mistakes Robinson has. Having to struggle didn’t make us lose a sense of right and wrong. Something else made Robinson lose his.

This story was originally published August 7, 2024 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Mark Robinson and I grew up poor and Black in the South. But we learned different lessons. | Opinion."