The reparationist and redistributionist
Posted on 06/24/2020 4:43:41 PM PDT by lightman
Prominent Religious Left activist The Rev. Dr. William Barber preached that Christians must support expansive social welfare programs or else be proponents of death.
Sprinkling the words of the prophet Amos throughout his thickly political sermon, Barber posited that most injustices are interlocking consequences of a racist history. To resolve this blunt diagnosis of injustice requires an equally blunt solution: Big Government and wealth redistribution.
“It is no longer a matter of left or right,” Barber argued from the pulpit of the Episcopal Church’s Washington National Cathedral on June 14, “but life or death.”
Barber is the facilitator of the “Moral Monday” movement that protests against fiscally conservative policies at the North Carolina statehouse. The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) clergyman, along with other liberal North Carolina clergy, argues that racism is a main motivation behind U.S. military conflicts. But on June 14, Barber pushed this argument further: racism is the main reason for all economic and health disparities in the U.S.
In his sermon delivered from the Episcopal cathedral’s Canterbury pulpit, Barber outlined political compromises that he claimed mobilized oppression and death throughout America’s history. First, the U.S. Constitution gave Southern slaveholding states twenty years to end the international slave trade which resulted in planters and breeders consolidating political power.
Next, the Electoral College drew Barber’s ire. He insisted that the Electoral College protected the southern delegates’ influence over the African American population, leaving Northern states without the ability to contest their slave-supported power. Barber condemned the South further when noting how southern power increased after counting black individuals as 3/5 of a person. Barber failed to mention that Southerners originally wanted slaves to be counted as a full person without freedom in order to increase Southern representation in Congressional reapportionment. Northern states were, in fact, the ones who required the 3/5 compromise. “Only in Congress,” Barber declared, “people are fractionized for the sake of political compromise.”
Finally, Virginians insisted that the Constitution guarantee states the right to bear arms and their own militias because they feared violence from their black neighbors. Racism was the reason, Barber insisted, that Americans have 2nd Amendment gun rights and a police force that he charged “disproportionately targets black bodies.”
These political compromises never had to happen, Barber declared. But because of them, America allowed the Civil War, lynching, higher mortality rates of pregnant black women compared to white women, more cases of asthma in black communities, and higher COVID-19 mortality rates in black populations. While most of Barber’s statistics were sound, many of them stemmed from problems that are too complex to be attributed to racism alone. And when his statistics were not sound, they were exaggerated. For instance, he claimed that “one black man was lynched per day between 1900 and 1930.” However, about 55 people were lynched per year during this period, many of whom were white. While these numbers are still egregious, exaggerating a troubled past will not prevent a troubled present—a fact that a self-proclaimed truth-teller, such as Barber, should know.
Barber listed out multiple disease outbreaks that were attributed to certain marginalized groups in the 19th century: the Spanish were blamed for the flu, Irish were blamed for cholera transmission, Italians for polio, and tuberculosis spread as a supposed “Jewish disease.” Barber argued that immigrants, people of color, the vulnerable—essentially anyone not white—were blamed for bringing disease and destruction throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. However, Barber did not address the possibility that diseases were named based on their perceived origin and without racist intent. To him, racism and racism alone is the sole reason behind disease categorizations.
The National Cathedral guest preacher went on to say that a congressional hearing and presidential briefing was instigated for seven individuals who died from vaping, but “not a word was spoken for the thousands who died because they were denied healthcare.”
The Poor People’s Campaign official claimed that for every discretionary dollar in the Federal budget, $0.53 is spent on war and less than $0.16 is spent on health care, education, and infrastructure. However, Barber did not include mandatory, discretionary, and interest spending. If he had provided a more comprehensive picture of federal spending, military spending accounts for less than 20 percent. In 2019, $644 billion was spent on Medicare and $409 billion on Medicaid, which is more than the $676 billion spent on defense (not to mention the trillions spent on social security, non-defense, and national interest each year). Barber’s numbers lacked that context.
Barber stated that indigenous peoples were forced to trade their land for healthcare and—even after the trade—were given only $0.16 for every dollar required to meet basic medical costs. He claimed this is the reason indigenous deaths account for the second highest death rate in the U.S. behind African Americans during COVID-19. Congress budgeted trillions in relief funds for COVID-19, but Barber fumed that “84 percent of that money went to corporations and banks.” Barber seemed to assume that these corporations and banks kept the money in inaccessible vaults rather than keep business afloat and pay employees.
Thus, Barber told the congregation that the “virus was never powerful in and of itself” but was exacerbated by the wounds inflicted through a history of racism and poverty.
But, Barber offered, Americans can stop choosing death.
The first step towards life, according to Barber’s interpretation of Amos, is lamentation and addressing a racial past. If the majority does not participate, God will send a remnant to weep and to wail. That remnant, Barber interpreted, can be seen protesting on the streets today. Barber did not distinguish between violent and nonviolent protestors as belonging to “God’s remnant.”
Following lament, Barber gleaned several specific contemporary policy points from the 8th Century, B.C. biblical author: restrict the influence of “big money” in politics, implement automated online voter registration, pay a universal living wage, end mass incarceration, and reallocate funds from patrolling the southern border to Medicaid. Barber suggested that the present state of affairs would be better if “6.4 trillion dollars poured into the War on Terror” were instead used towards a renewable energy grid. Barber claimed that “a small tax on Wall Street trade” could have raised more than $70 billion and enabled free public college for all. A wealth tax on the richest households in the country would have facilitated $275 billion dollars a year for funding public infrastructure.
Barber concluded his sermon with a warning that we are bound together, and if we choose death, “none of us can breathe.” It is time, Barber said, “that America spoke truth and chose life.” Apparently, Big Government and wealth distribution is Barber’s formula for life.
The reparationist and redistributionist
foad commie toadie in a frock
You left out "fool".
America allowed the Civil War, lynching, higher mortality rates of pregnant black women compared to white women, more cases of asthma in black communities, and higher COVID-19 mortality rates in black populations.
Classic
It is his way.
We have already spent $20 trillion on Great Society programs since Lyndon Johnson.
There was a big government solution. It was called LBJ’s War on Poverty, and it didn’t work. It doesn’t matter how much money you throw at it, it will never be enough. The riots and destruction that has been going on over the past 3 weeks has nothing to do with racial disparities. It has everything to do with dividing this nation to gain control and power. It also appears that the Rev. Barber hasn’t been discriminated against when it comes to sitting down to get a meal.
It is a matter of life and death. I will live - whether the useless protesters live or die depends on how well they stay out of my path.
africans enslaved Europeans for a millenia and eventually quite a few Americans which led to the formation of the US Navy.
It doesn’t look like this guy has come up short on the food distribution.
That fat pos was one of leaders of the lynch mob in the Duke lacrosse case when he was head of the NC NAACP.
Good graphic.
I must admit to a certain grudging respect for Malcolm X.
70% of black kids are raised without a father. Until that is fixed, no amount of money will fix their problems.
“I must admit to a certain grudging respect for Malcolm X.”
To be fair Malcolm X wasn’t all that fond of white conservatives either. Of course I don’t agree with all of Malcolm X’s ideas, but I do feel he was sincere about his beliefs and wanted the best for his community. I sure as hell don’t feel that way about any of the so called “black leaders” of today.
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