The following is the Part II Conclusion of Bishop William Barber’s sermon on white supremacy :
What precipitated the rise and the boldness of white nationalism and white supremacists, in this particular moment, was not merely Trump talking ugly, it was the policy direction, the mean – spiritedness that lined up with the policy directives of white nationalism. That’s what really is going on. It’s not just a statue. It’s the STATUTES. It’s the law. Which means that people of conscience must – yes, yes challenge the statues. But we cannot stop there. We have to challenge the way in which the policies of white supremacy and white nationalism is flowing through our state capitols and many of our policies in our US Congress. It doesn’t sound like white supremacy. But the impact is that the laws have a disparate racial impact upon Black people, Brown people and guess what ? Hurt also more poor Whites and working – class Whites. So our protests must be strategic, must be long – term. What we have to do now is, while we march to denounce hate, we’re going to have to march to the voting booth and we’re going to have to march on Congress and state capitols. We’re going to have to say to politicians; ” If you say that you denounce white supremacy in its most violent forms, like what happened in Charlottesville, do you denounce the policies that precipitated that kind of violence and embolden white nationalists ? So we need to take on the policy agenda of the white nationalist organization.
Where do they stand on : health care, voting rights, equal protection under the law, Muslims, LGBT people ?
The death of that young girl traumatizes me and the nation. You cannot push back against that with just now and then having a rally. You have to have a long – term movement that names the issues, and then challenges them with a deep moral argument, not just a political argument. There is a moral movement rising in this country that is saying; ” Dr. King is dead. Fannie Lou Hamer is dead. Rabbi Herschel is dead. Dorothy Day is dead, Harriet Tubman is dead, Elizabeth Cady Stanton is dead, Frederick Douglas is dead. But we are their children, and it is time – now for us to raise our moral dissent. It is time for us to believe in our moral dreams. And it is time for us to be the moral defibrillators that revive the heart of this country.
Reverend William J. Barber II, DMIN is President, Repairers of the Breach and Architect, Forward Together Moral Movement.
bob-gardner says
Two important books on this subject this year,–The Color of Law, by Richard Rothstein and
Hitler’s American Model, by James Q. Whitman.