Of course elected officials ought to put country over party. Of course the people ought to prefer representatives who govern for the sake of the common good. Of course congressmen and senators ought to do their work in a manner that honors the nation’s values — even when doing so might conflict with their own, […]
Author: Michael F. Roessler
Charlotte citizen. Husband. Lawyer. Dog dad. Book worm.
The resolutions of two recently concluded homicide cases — one involving a Black man and the other a white cop — gave us fresh examples of the biases of our criminal justice system, inequities that both reflect and reenforce broader social perspectives. The results raised key questions: Who gets the benefit of the doubt? Who […]
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Stonewall Is Dead
Another Charlotte Pride Festival is in the books — and not a single rock went through a single plate-glass window of a single anti-queer bank or business. I pondered this omission last weekend while strolling down Tryon Street past the countless tents of corporations hocking their wares to the festival’s attendees, and I was reminded […]
Incoherence animates the Green Party’s budding Senate campaign in North Carolina. The thicket of confusion and contradiction in which the party finds itself stems from its refusal to forthrightly confront two questions — one empirical and the other moral — while forgetting it’s now engaged in the practical work of electoral politics, not the performative […]
The Queen of Hearts grew impatient at the trial where she presided. “‘Let the jury consider their verdict,’ the King said, for about the twentieth time that day,” Lewis Carroll wrote in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. “‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first–verdict afterwards.’” “‘Stuff and sense!’ said Alice loudly. ‘The idea of having the […]
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Tariq Trolls Us Again
It’s not practical politics, but amateur performance art on civic themes. Every now and then, for the sake of getting a little media attention, Charlotte Councilman Tariq Bokhari trolls the city with ostentatious, meaningless publicity stunts — often while exploiting vulnerable groups like people of color, workers, and the LGBTQ community. Bokhari offers not policy […]
When a hundred members of the white supremacist Patriot Front marched through Boston this weekend, they carried a banner announcing their hope to “Reclaim America.” A desire to take back what has been lost — or, worse yet, stolen — finds frequent expression not only on the fringes of the American Right, but in its […]
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All That Glitters Is Not Gay
As Pride Month winds down under the shadow of emboldened reactionaries on the Supreme Court, let’s take a moment to appreciate that Charlotte’s self-proclaimed gay-friendly corporations fund the homophobic agenda threatening to overtake us. Consider just three examples: Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Truist, each of which sought to mollycoddle the LGBTQ community by […]
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Neither Civility Nor Courtesy
Israel seemed surprised. Shocked, even. After explaining my commitment to liberty of conscience, I told him I had no intention of arguing about the correctness of his religious views. Nor would I attempt to defend my own. I couldn’t convince him, and he couldn’t convince me. To try would be folly. He believes life begins […]
Outside the gates of Charlotte’s municipal government sits a modern-day Trojan horse from which members of Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis’s political party hope to take seats on City Council. They will succeed in their efforts only if local voters forget that membership in a political party means something. There exists no better short-hand expression […]
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