"It's Not About Race" — And Other Things We Say When We Don't Want to Look

By MoCo's Voice | MoCoVoice.com

Let's start with what is true.

Racism is real. It is documented, measurable, and present in institutions across this country, including small towns in North Carolina. That is not an opinion. That is history.

Also true: not everything is about race. People can disagree. Leaders can make mistakes. Standards can be applied and challenged in good faith. Accountability is a legitimate value.

Both of those things can be true at the same time. And the moment we treat them as opposites, the moment we say "you're playing the race card" every time race is named, we stop having an honest conversation and start having a defensive one.

Montgomery County is having a defensive conversation right now. This article is an attempt to make it an honest one.

What the Comment Is Really Saying

A comment circulating in response to coverage of Dr. Karen Roseboro's situation reads, in part:

"Tired of stuff always being about race. It's not about color, it's about how you treat people. You can't treat people like the dirt on your shoes and then use your color as a defense by calling everyone racist."

Read that carefully. The commenter is not saying racism does not exist. They are saying: in this case, the concerns are about behavior, not race, and that invoking race is being used as a shield against legitimate criticism.

That is a reasonable argument to make. It deserves a reasonable response.

Here it is.

The Behavior Question

Let us take the behavior concern seriously, because it deserves to be taken seriously.

If Dr. Roseboro has belittled staff, humiliated employees in public settings, or created a hostile work environment, those are legitimate concerns. Leadership is not just about results; it is about how you treat the people you lead. A superintendent who degrades staff in front of others, who dismisses experienced professionals, or who rules by intimidation is not a good leader regardless of her race, gender, or any other characteristic.

If those things happened, they should be addressed. Through the proper channels. With documentation. With due process. With the same procedures that would be applied to any leader facing similar allegations.

That is accountability.

But here is where the conversation in Montgomery County has gone wrong: the process being used to address these concerns is not the proper channel. It is a campaign.

There is a difference between accountability and a coordinated effort to remove someone. Accountability looks like documentation, formal complaints, board-level review, and due process. What has happened in Montgomery County looks like Facebook posts, anonymous comments, a manufactured groundswell of public pressure, and a Special Called Meeting within the first year of a four-year contract.

Those are not the same thing.

The Question Nobody Is Asking About Dr. Ellis

Montgomery County Schools had a superintendent before Dr. Roseboro. His name was Dr. Dale Ellis. During his tenure, there were staff members who described patterns of behavior that were difficult to work under. There were concerns. There were frustrations.

Where was the coordinated campaign? Where were the Facebook posts calling for his resignation? Where were the board members publicly questioning his qualifications? Where was the Special Called Meeting?

This is not a rhetorical question. It is the most important question Montgomery County can ask right now.

If the standard for "unacceptable behavior" is genuinely about behavior, and not about who is exhibiting it, then that standard should have been applied consistently. The fact that it was not is not proof of racism by any individual. But it is evidence of a racial double standard in how leadership is evaluated and challenged in this community.

That is what the race conversation is actually about. Not whether any individual in Montgomery County is a racist. But whether the systems, the social networks, the informal power structures in this county apply the same scrutiny to every leader equally.

The evidence suggests they do not.

What "Reverse Racism" Gets Wrong

The comment also raises the idea that "racism goes both ways." This is worth addressing directly, because it comes up often and it muddies the conversation every time it does.

Prejudice goes both ways. Anyone, of any race, can hold prejudiced views about people of another race. That is true.

But racism, as it functions in institutions, in hiring, in public life, in the kind of community pressure campaign we are watching unfold in Montgomery County, is not simply prejudice. It is prejudice operating through power structures that have historically favored some people over others. When those structures are used to challenge, undermine, or remove a Black woman from a position of leadership, the racial dimension of that is not invented. It is structural.

Dr. Roseboro is not calling anyone a racist. She has not, to our knowledge, invoked race as a personal defense. The community members who are naming race in this conversation are doing so because they recognize a pattern, not because they are looking for a shield.

The Harder Question for Montgomery County

Here is what this community needs to sit with:

Montgomery County has never had a Black superintendent in its history. Dr. Karen Roseboro is the first. She was hired on a four-year contract in May 2025. Within eight months, there was a coordinated effort to remove her, led in significant part, by board members with deep ties to the existing power structure in this county.

Ask yourself honestly: if the first Black superintendent in the history of this county is removed before completing her first year, on the basis of complaints that were not applied with the same urgency to her predecessors, what message does that send?

Not just to Dr. Roseboro. To every Black professional in Montgomery County. To every Black student in Montgomery County who is watching adults decide whether someone who looks like them belongs in a position of authority.

That is the stakes. That is why this conversation matters.

What Accountability Actually Looks Like

We are not asking Montgomery County to ignore legitimate concerns about leadership behavior. We are asking for consistency.

If the standard is that a superintendent must treat staff with dignity and respect, apply that standard to every superintendent, past and present, with the same urgency.

If the standard is that a superintendent must be qualified and competent, apply that standard to every hire in the district, at every level, with the same scrutiny.

If the standard is that a superintendent must be accountable to the community, apply that standard through proper channels, with due process, with documentation, and with the same patience extended to every other leader who has sat in that seat.

Anything less is not accountability. It is selective enforcement. And in a county with the racial history that Montgomery County carries, selective enforcement of standards has a name.

We do not have to call anyone a racist to say that. We just have to be honest about what we are seeing.

A Final Word

To the commenter, and to everyone in Montgomery County who shares this concern: your instinct to separate behavior from race is not wrong. Behavior matters. Treatment matters. The way a leader treats the people she leads matters enormously.

But the way a community treats its leaders matters too. And right now, Montgomery County is being asked to decide what kind of community it wants to be, one that holds every leader to the same standard, or one that reserves its harshest scrutiny for the ones it never expected to see in that seat.

That is a choice. And the community will have to live with it either way.

MoCo's Voice is an independent community publication committed to accountability, equity, and honest conversation in Montgomery County, NC. Visit us at MoCoVoice.com.