By Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck | Associated Press
Editor’s note: The below story contains offensive language.
(CNN) — Mark Robinson, the controversial and socially conservative Republican nominee for governor of North Carolina, made a series of inflammatory comments on a pornography website’s message board more than a decade ago, in which he referred to himself as a “black NAZI!” and expressed support for reinstating slavery, a CNN KFile investigation found.
Despite a recent history of anti-transgender rhetoric, Robinson said he enjoyed watching transgender pornography, a review of archived messages found in which he also referred to himself as a “perv.”
The comments, which Robinson denies making, predate his entry into politics and current stint as North Carolina’s lieutenant governor. They were made under a username that CNN was able to identify as Robinson by matching a litany of biographical details and a shared email address between the two.
Many of Robinson’s comments were gratuitously sexual and lewd in nature. They were made between 2008 and 2012 on “Nude Africa,” a pornographic website that includes a message board. The comments were made under the username minisoldr, a moniker Robinson used frequently online.
Robinson listed his full name on his profile for Nude Africa, as well as an email address he used on numerous websites across the internet for decades.
CNN is reporting only a small portion of Robinson’s comments on the website given their graphic nature.
Many of Robinson’s comments on Nude Africa stand in contrast to his public stances on issues such as abortion and transgender rights.
Publicly, Robinson has fiercely argued that people should use bathrooms only that correspond to the gender they were assigned at birth. He’s also said transgender women should be arrested for using women’s restrooms.
“If you’re a man on Friday night, and all the sudden Saturday, you feel like a woman, and you want to go in the women’s bathroom in the mall, you will be arrested, or whatever we gotta do to you,” Robinson said at a campaign rally in February 2024. “We’re going to protect our women.”
Yet privately under the username minisoldr on Nude Africa, Robinson graphically described his own sexual arousal as an adult from the memory of secretly “peeping” on women in public gym showers as a 14-year-old. Robinson recounted the story as a memory he said he still fantasized about.
“I came to a spot that was a dead end but had two big vent covers over it! It just so happened it overlooked the showers! I sat there for about an hour and watched as several girls came in and showered,” Robinson wrote on Nude Africa.
CNN is not publishing the graphic sexual details of Robinson’s story.
“I went peeping again the next morning,” Robinson wrote. “but after that I went back the ladder was locked! So those two times where [sic] the only times I got to do it! Ahhhhh memories!!!!”
In other comments on Nude Africa, Robinson discussed his affinity for transgender pornography.
“I like watching tranny on girl porn! That’s f*cking hot! It takes the man out while leaving the man in!” Robinson wrote. “And yeah I’m a ‘perv’ too!”
In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Robinson repeatedly denied that he made the comments on Nude Africa.
“This is not us. These are not our words. And this is not anything that is characteristic of me,” Robinson said. Presented with the litany of evidence connecting him with the minisoldr user name on Nude Africa, Robinson said, “I’m not going to get into the minutia of how somebody manufactured this, these salacious tabloid lies.”
CNN first reached out to Robinson Tuesday morning with evidence connecting him to the comments on Nude Africa. It took his campaign two days to respond and issue a denial.
During his interview with CNN, Robinson repeatedly said the issues that faced North Carolinians were more important than what he called “tabloid trash,” and he steered the conversation toward attacking his opponent in the race, Democrat Josh Stein, the state’s attorney general.
“We are not getting out of this race. There are people who are counting on us to win this race,” Robinson said.
A history of controversial statements
Campaigning for lieutenant governor in 2020, Robinson advocated for a complete abortion ban without exceptions. He later expressed regret in 2022 for paying for his now-wife to have an abortion in the 1980s.
Now campaigning for governor, he says he supports a so-called “heartbeat” bill that would ban abortion when a heartbeat is detected – approximately six weeks – with exceptions for rape, incest and health of the mother.
But writing as minisoldr on Nude Africa in December 2010, Robinson said he did not care about a celebrity having an abortion.
“I don’t care. I just wanna see the sex tape!” Robinson wrote.
In another thread, commenters considered whether to believe the story of a woman who said she was raped by her taxi driver while intoxicated. In response, Robinson wrote, “and the moral of this story….. Don’t f**k a white b*tch!”
Robinson, who would become North Carolina’s first Black governor if elected, also repeatedly maligned civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., attacking him in such intense terms that a user accused him of being a white supremacist.
“Get that f*cking commie bastard off the National Mall!,” Robinson wrote about the dedication of the memorial to King in Washington, DC, by then-President Barack Obama.
“I’m not in the KKK. They don’t let blacks join. If I was in the KKK I would have called him Martin Lucifer Koon!” Robinson responded.
CNN’s reporting on Robinson’s comments comes a few weeks after The Assembly, a North Carolina digital publication, reported that Robinson frequented local video pornography shops in the 1990s and 2000s. The story cited six people who interacted and saw him frequent the stores in Greensboro, North Carolina. A spokesperson for Robinson called the story false and a “complete fiction.”
Despite earning the full endorsement of former President Donald Trump and the North Carolina Republican Party, Robinson faces an uphill battle in the race for governor against Stein.
Robinson’s history of controversial remarks, including mocking school shooting survivors, his past support for total abortion bans without exceptions for rape or incest and disparaging the civil rights movement have been a consistent theme in the race. Recent public polling shows Robinson is losing to Stein.
Identifying minisoldr as Robinson
On the Nude Africa website in both comments and his profile, minisoldr offered numerous details that align precisely with Robinson’s personal history.
In his profile, minisoldr listed his full name as “mark robinson” and disclosed a private email address Robinson used elsewhere online. In 2012, a user responded to a comment by calling minisoldr “Mark.”
Minisoldr mentioned in 2008 being married for 18 years, which corresponds with Robinson’s marriage to Yolanda Hill in 1990. In 2011, minisoldr wrote he had been married 21 years. Minisoldr wrote in a 2011 post that he lived in Greensboro, North Carolina, the same town where Robinson lived at the time and currently lives.
In a post in 2012, minisoldr said he served in the Army in the 1980s, during the same time period as Robinson. In his sexually graphic comments detailing watching women in the showers in 2011, minisoldr wrote that his mother worked at an Historically Black College and University (HBCU). Robinson’s mother worked as a custodian at North Carolina A&T State University, an HBCU located in Greensboro.
Both minisoldr and Robinson often posted about the same topics online, including reviews for remote-controlled helicopters, their attraction to specific celebrities and their favorite “Twilight Zone” episode.
The email address associated with minisoldr on Nude Africa was also used by Robinson elsewhere online and social media. On the commenting platform Disqus, a user who joined in April 2011 features Mark Robinson’s photo under the username minisoldr.
Usernames and email addresses from Disqus were publicly leaked online in 2017, according to the company. CNN confirmed that Robinson’s username minisoldr on Disqus shared the same email address as the one used on Nude Africa.
Robinson’s Disqus page is also linked to the Black social networking site Black Planet. The Web Archive shows a user named “minisoldr” described themselves as 40 years old in February 2009 – the same age as Robinson at the time – and living in Greensboro, North Carolina – Robinson’s hometown.
A username often used by Robinson
Robinson has frequently used the username “minisoldr” elsewhere on the internet. On X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Robinson once used the minisoldr username, according to a screenshot he shared on Facebook in 2018 and data in Robinson’s old tweets.
A YouTube playlist for a user named “minisoldr” features exclusively videos of Robinson. On Pinterest, a user “minisoldr” lists his name as “Mark Robinson.”
The “minisoldr” username has also posted reviews of products and places Robinson has also publicly recommended. On Amazon, a user named “minisoldr” reviewed products frequently shared by Robinson on Facebook, including remote-controlled helicopters. And the same email address and username used on Nude Africa also left reviews on Google for two local businesses Robinson later posted on Facebook that he used.
Robinson’s unique choice of language further links him to the “minisoldr” alias on the pornographic forums. Uncommon phrases such as “gag a maggot,” “dunder head,” “I don’t give a frogs a**,” and “I don’t give two shakes of it” were used both by minisoldr on Nude Africa and by Robinson on his personal Facebook page.
Robinson as minisoldr ‘Slavery is not bad’
In the pornographic forums, Robinson revealed his unvarnished thoughts on issues such as race, gender and abortion.
Writing in a forum discussing Black Republicans in October 2010, Robinson stated unprovoked: “I’m a black NAZI!”
That same month, Robinson wrote in another post that he supported the return of slavery.
“Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it (slavery) back. I would certainly buy a few,” he wrote.
In March 2012, Robinson wrote that he preferred the former leader of Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler over the leadership in Washington during the administration of Barack Obama.
“I’d take Hitler over any of the sh*t that’s in Washington right now!” he wrote.
Robinson’s comments on Nude Africa often frequently contained derogatory and racial slurs directed at Black, Jewish and Muslim people.
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In a series of seven posts in October 2011, Robinson disparaged Martin Luther King in such intense terms, calling him a “commie bastard,” “worse than a maggot,” a “ho f**king, phony,” and a “huckster,” that a user in the thread accused him of being in the KKK. Robinson responded by directing a slur at King.
In October 2010, Robinson used the antisemitic slur “hebe” when discussing how he liked the show “Good Times” developed by Norman Lear, saying “the show itself was a bunch of heb [sic] written liberal bullshit!”
While discussing the Taliban, he referred to Muslims as “little rag-headed bastards” and said that “if Muslims took over liberals would be the 1st ones to be beheaded!”
Robinson also used homophobic slurs frequently, calling other users f*gs.
In a largely positive forum discussion featuring a photo of two men kissing after one returned from a military deployment, Robinson wrote the sole negative comment.
“That’s sum ole sick a** f*ggot bullsh*t!” he wrote.
