The leader of the Asheville/ Buncombe Community Reparations Commission (CRC), Dr. Dwight Mullen, PhD, has made some very disturbing statements revealing his view of white people and of civil rights in general. The CRC is tasked with recommending reparations funding for black residents of Asheville and Buncombe County.
In 2021, Buncombe County and the City of Asheville voted to provide reparations to black persons in our community. Reparations are meant to compensate black residents for slavery and Jim Crow era discrimination. Since 2021, these 2 local governments have spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer monies in facilitating and funding the CRC. The CRC has been meeting for over a year and will soon make recommendations as to how millions in taxpayer funds will be spent to compensate black residents for these distant harms.
In one of its first acts in its first meeting in April 2022, the CRC selected Dr. Dwight Mullen, PhD, as its chairperson and the person best qualified to vocalize the vision and goals of the CRC. Dr. Mullen has previously worked as a political science professor at UNC-Asheville. He has focused much of his research and study on “The State of Black Asheville”, a project which examined disparities between the black and white local communities and then concludes the disparities were due exclusively to racism. Dr. Mullen has also helped to found a charter school in Asheville called P.E.A.K. Academy which restricts the enrollment of white students and the hiring of white employees.
Although Dr. Mullen often presents himself as a torch bearer of civil rights who has inherited the legacy of the civil rights icons of the 1950’s and 1960’s, he has proven himself to be the antithesis of their vision and work In addition to creating a charter school which openly discriminates against school children and employees based on race, Dr. Mullen recently made racial slurs regarding white persons. He then called for re-segregating society based on race.
In a February 2, 2023 speech to an organization called “Carolina Jews for Justice”. Dr. Mullen repeatedly insulted and demonized persons with lighter skin color. He referred to all white persons as “Colonizers”, a derogative term originating from the Marvel movie “Black Panther” which has become a racial slur for whites. Dictionary.com defines “racial slur” as the following: “a derogatory or disrespectful nickname for a racial group.” Dr. Mullen has repeatedly referred to present-day whites as “colonizers”.
Going further, Dr. Mullen repeatedly called white persons untrustworthy stating: “White folks have not proven themselves to be trustworthy in any area.”
Dr. Mullen ascribes this negative “untrustworthy” attribute to all persons of European descent and justifies this stereotyping by referring to actions of white persons in the Jim Crow and slavery eras of American history. Dr. Mullen attributes guilt to white persons who share the same skin tones as persons who committed atrocities in the past. (Dr. Mullen does not elaborate if he uses this ancestral guilt ideology for races other than European descendants).
Britannica Encyclopedia defines racism as “the belief… that there is a causal link between inherited physical treats and traits of personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural and behavioral features”.
Dr. Mullen, by his own statements, certainly appears to be employing racist ideologies.
However, these racial slurs were not the most alarming statements Dr. Mullens made at the event. Dr. Mullen actually called for the resegregation of American society based on race. “Because whites are not trustworthy, it’s important for black persons to develop their own institutions”. He calls segregation an “opportunity” for black persons to develop their own schools, housing, education and businesses. Dr. Mullens further advocates that American should re-embrace a “pluralist society”, where each race has its own separate institutions.
Dr. Mullen’s views were not unique within the CRC. In the July 18, 2022 meeting of the CRC, a member advocated re-segregating the local school system so that blacks could “educate our own children”. They then discussed the need to “revisit” the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision and claimed that black persons never wanted de-segregation in the first place.
The most tragic aspect of Dr. Mullen’s statements and those of other CRC members is that it so glaringly contradicts the hard-fought work of the Civil Rights Movement. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, many blacks (but also white persons) were attacked and even killed trying to end racial segregation and discrimination. Dr. Martin Luther King referred to racial segregation as “morally wrong and sinful”. Thurgood Marshall, who argued the Brown v. Board case on behalf of the NAAACP and later became our first black U.S. Supreme Court Justice, wrote “classifications and distinctions based on race or color have no moral or legal validity in our society. They are contrary to our constitution and laws”.
Dr. Mullen wraps himself in the cloaks of these great civil rights icons and claims to be furthering their work. The reality is that he would take a hammer to everything that was accomplished by the civil rights era. He would classify persons based on their skin color, ascribe guilt for historical wrongs based on skin color, and re-institute racial segregation.
Fortunately, WNC Citizens for Equality will continue to work for the civil rights of ALL persons in western North Carolina regardless of race.
The man is an idiot! He is a prime example of what a racist is and to blame white people today for what happen years ago is ludicrous! I am white and I believe we are all equal and be treated as such and I am certainly not responsible for what went on in the Jim Crowe era. If you believe in what he is quoting then by that logic every black American is guilty of the negative things a few commit.