Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II on the Politics of Rejecting
the Poor

Along with the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, I co-chair today’s Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, which is bringing together people of every color, creed, sexuality, and immigration status to build a movement led by those who’ve experienced rejection. Before we launched this campaign in 2018, we conducted an audit of America that revealed 140 million people—43 percent of this nation—living in poverty and low wealth. According to a report from the Mailman School of Public Health, 250,000 people die from poverty every year in the United States, the richest nation in the history of the world. We must be honest that the politics of rejection and policy violence against the poor are still far too real.

I’ve watched our country cut two trillion dollars for the wealthy, when four hundred people make an average of $97,000 an hour and three people have more money than the bottom 50 percent of Americans combined. And, at the very same time, I’ve been arrested with people who are fighting for $15 an hour and a union. And I know that the politics of rejection and policy violence against the poor are still far too real.

When 37 million people go without health care in America—people who pray not to get sick because they can’t afford treatment—and thousands die every year because of the lack of access to health care, forcing preachers, many times, to preach sermons over bodies that should not be laying prostrate but should be full of life; and all the while we know that the United States is the only one of the twenty-five wealthiest nations that does not offer our people health care, we must be honest that the politics of rejection and policy violence against the poor are still far too real.

When Indigenous people on reservations face cruel decisions that trace all the way back to wartime treaties; when corporations frack and drill on their sacred lands and poison their aquifers, the politics of rejection and policy violence against the poor are still far too real.

When 53 years after Episcopalians and Anglicans and Catholics and Baptists and Methodists marched from churches and were beaten on bridges, black and white, and some died to win voting rights for all God’s children, we have open and blatant voter suppression and refusal to restore the Voting Rights Act, the politics of rejection and policy violence against the poor are still far too real.

When a country of immigrants is weaponizing deportation and ripping families apart—even losing the children of migrant families while they brag about doing God’s will, I’m telling you, the politics of rejection and policy violence against the poor are still far too real.

When families in Flint, Michigan, like four million other families all over America, can buy unleaded gas but can’t buy unleaded water for their children, the politics of rejection and policy violence against the poor are still far too real.

When a war economy drains social programs and impoverishes communities here at home to destroy and pollute poor communities around the world; when we spend 53 cents of every dollar on war—and only 15 cents on education and health care—the politics of rejection and policy violence against the poor are still far too real.

When the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism doesn’t follow the call of Jesus that asks nations, “When I was hungry, did you feed me? When I was naked, did you clothe me? When I was a stranger—when I was an immigrant, when I was undocumented—did you care for me?” but instead preaches a false gospel of division and building walls and says so much about what God says so little and so little about what God says so much, then the politics of rejection and policy violence against the poor are still far too real.

When far too many do not see that a Palestinian child is just as important as a Jewish child, and the black child as precious as the white child, then the politics of rejection and policy violence against the poor are still far too real.

Rejection. Poverty. Broken hearts. Bruises. Millions of people who have not been accepted are in our midst. It’s not just numbers. I’ve seen it. We’ve seen it all over this country. The organizers of today’s Poor People’s Campaign have seen it. And we live with the nightmares.

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On June 20th, 2020, the Mass Poor People’s Assembly & Moral March on Washington will be held digitally. You can learn more about the event (a “gathering of poor, dispossessed and impacted people, faith leaders, and people of conscience”) here.

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Excerpted from We Are Called to Be a Movement by Reverend Dr. William J Barber II, President of Repairers of the Breach and Co-chair of the Poor Peoples Campaign (Workman Publishing). Copyright © 2020.