William J. Barber > Quotes

“In 2016 there was not a single county in the United States where someone working full time at minimum wage could afford to rent a simple two-bedroom apartment.”
― William J. Barber, White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy

“Poverty isn’t that rare glitch in the current U.S. economy. Poverty is a feature of our economy’s design. The extreme wealth that a smaller and smaller minority enjoys depends on the isolation of people”
― William J. Barber, White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy

“[No] single system of economic ideas can be fully satisfying for all purposes.”
― William J. Barber, A History of Economic Thought

“But we must not overlook this basic fact: white supremacy is as poisonous to white people as it is to people of color. It dehumanizes the people it claims to elevate; it uses the very people it claims to champion; and its weaponized legacy threatens to transform the planet we inhabit, if it has not already done so, into a cold and empty stone spinning in space.”
― William J. Barber, White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy

“I am bothered by people who say so much about what God says so little about, and so little about what God says so much about—especially the plight of the poor and rejected in society.”
― William J. Barber, White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy

“The truth is, “whiteness” is a false identity designed to unite people who don’t actually share much in common behind an economic and political system that doesn’t serve most of us.”
― William J. Barber, White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy

“If you take away from the midst of you the yoke, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,” the prophet declared, “your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach.”
― William J. Barber, White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy

“Anyone who seeks to penetrate beneath the surface of complex economic events requires a frame of reference within which the flux of economic life can be reduced to manageable proportions. Only with the aid of such an organizing framework can the world we observe be made intelligible.”
― William J. Barber, A History of Economic Thought

“The key to winning, Weyrich understood, was manufacturing divisive debates that would rally his base of conservative white voters and split up any opposing coalition.”
― William J. Barber, White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy

“We are not a nation divided by racial identity and political ideology. We are, instead, a people who have been pitted against one another by politicians and billionaires who depend on the poorest among us not being seen.”
― William J. Barber, White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy