Opinion
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ESSAY: Recognizing Retail Workers This Holiday Season
When I was in middle school, my grandma took a part-time job at the mall’s gift-wrapping counter. She showed me how she tied the big, beautiful, glittery gold bows and the fancy way she’d been taught to fold the corners on the red, plaid wrapping paper. I just about died…
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OPINION: Why Charlotte Can’t Look Away From CBP Raids
Charlotte loves to call itself a beacon of diversity, a majority-minority city with bustling immigrant corridors, Black cultural legacy, and neighborhoods where dozens of languages spill out onto the same block. But beneath that bright narrative sits a truth we’ve been trained to overlook: a generations-deep pattern of over-policing, racialized…
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OPINION: Where Is the GOP’s Red Line?
A reading of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies helps to understand what has happened to the GOP under a decade of leadership by Donald Trump. Premised on the marooning of a group of boys on an uninhabited island, it serves as an allegory about the battle between reason and emotion…
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OPINION: Iryna Zarutska’s Murder Has Been Exploited for Black Blood
In 236 years of American presidential rule, there has rarely been a sitting president who has actively recommended the death penalty for a civilian murder. That said, it did not surprise me that when President Donald Trump called for the death penalty, the case involved a Black man as…
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OPINION: CNBC Is Wrong. North Carolina Is Not No. 1 for Business
I’ve spent most of my career investing in and building businesses, and I currently run a nonprofit from my home in Winston-Salem that researches issues impacting our state’s economic and business growth. I believe that sustainable business growth is the surest path to a better future for all North Carolinians.…
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OPINION: Why Do We Hate Places We’ve Never Been?
I spent the weekend celebrating the marriage of a childhood friend, away from my home in Western North Carolina, among the hot rolling hills of Surry County near the Virginia border. Weddings like that quickly become a who’s who of familiar faces. They remember who you were before you became…
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Enemies: A Love Story from These Dis-United States
The following is an essay from The Nation’s series titled These Dis-United States, in which 50 writers and artists report from their respective states of our dis-union, marking the publication’s 160th anniversary edition, out now. People say North Carolina is one of the swingiest of swing states. Having lived here for…
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OPINION: NC Does Not Need Massive, Expensive Duke Energy Pipelines
As a single mother of three and cancer survivor, I work hard to lower my bills however I can. After undergoing radiation treatment, I was playing catch-up with many of my expenses. My energy bill was one of the most burdensome, reaching nearly $450 per month for my house in…
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OPINION: Cuts to SNAP Will Hurt Workers, Employers and the Economy
Imagine completing a job training program, earning a promotion, and then having to turn it down because it means losing access to food for you and your family. That’s the reality for many individuals in our region. Across Charlotte and throughout North Carolina, families face an impossible choice: advance in…
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OPINION: HB 318 Won’t Keep Us Safe
Growing up on the east side, I remember my mom warning us when Mecklenburg County Sheriff deputies were staging checkpoints. When I was 13 years old, Sheriff Jim Pendergraph entered into the infamous voluntary 287(g) agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), deputizing sheriff’s deputies as ICE agents. Over dinner,…
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OPINION: Don’t Push Street Vendors Like Me Out of Business
Editor’s Note: Earlier in June, we reported on the city’s efforts to potentially regulate street vending in NoDa and possibly the entire city. At its June 22 meeting, Charlotte City Council is scheduled to vote on whether to make NoDa a Congested Business District, which would prohibit street vending in…
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OPINION: We Must Modernize NC’s Good Samaritan Law
It’s a phrase that has haunted our nation for the better part of the last 50+ years. The “war on drugs” started as a slogan but has evolved over the years to be shorthand for overly punitive and misguided measures designed to address the prevalence of drug use in our…
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OPINION: I’m Ashamed To Be a UNC Charlotte Graduate
A few days ago, the right-wing media outlet Accuracy in Media (AIM) secretly filmed then posted to social media a video of UNC Charlotte staff member Janique Sanders discussing how to uphold DEI-related work in the face of UNC System policy changes. Instead of repudiating AIM’s vile and deceptive tactics,…
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OPINION: The Youth Suicide Epidemic Is a Preventable One
I hope that you never experience the pain of losing a child to suicide. And I hope that no other parent has to go through something like that twice. Unfortunately, that’s what happened to our family. My boys meant the world to me. Jackson loved animals, especially dogs, and he…
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OPINION: Trump’s Deportation Proceedings Mirror ‘Alice in Wonderland’ Trial
As a longtime children’s literature professor, I often see connections between the children’s books that I teach in my courses and current events. This semester, I noticed a striking connection between Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the political/legal debate related to several recent deportation cases. The final two chapters in…
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OPINION: The Workforce Deficit Behind the Trade Deficit
North Carolina’s prosperity depends on the global supply chains that create local jobs. According to a new analysis from the NC Department of Commerce, statewide exports climbed to nearly $43 billion in 2024, led by pharmaceuticals, aerospace products and machinery. Imports surpassed $87 billion, driven by strong demand for medical…
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