North Carolina: Looking Forward, the Backward Way

The smile of progress.

Gaining nationwide notoriety last weekend hasn’t slowed down the nation’s fastest-moving state in reverse, North Carolina, from setting national precedent. Not since Blood Done Sign My Name has the Tar Heel State been pitied by the rest of the country, resented by its younger generation, and hailed by its old, rich (or stupid), and white. Times like these teach us that elections really matter, and with the first Republican-controlled state executive and legislative branches since Reconstruction, North Carolina is in for a wild ride until election season comes back around. Here are a few more bills we can expect to see passed in the coming months.

• Public school textbooks will be replaced with editions from 1865.
• De-desegregated water fountains, schools, and interpersonal relationships.
• Incrimination of people who watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
• Public school teaching assistants will be replaced with monkeys, which cost less to employ and are funny to look at.
• Teachers with master’s degrees will not be paid more, but will be rewarded with a yearly subscription to Field & Stream magazine.
• Reinstating the word “God” into the Pledge of Allegiance, so much that it replaces all of the other words. The new pledge will be, “God god god, god god god, god god god, Second Amendment, Amen.”
• “Bring Your Gun to Work Day”
• Legal gay-bashing or bashing of anyone whose mannerisms upset your grandmother.
• “Indentured Servant” unemployment programs (wink wink, nudge nudge)
• State subsidies for NC’s growing film industry – to create The Birth of a Nation 2.

Here’s hoping that North Carolina’s cutting-edge regression has some long-term benefits that the rest of the country just can’t see yet. Perhaps it’s a play to help boost the economy. Attention in the New York Times can only be good for tourism, right?