[“There is this history of not just who kills, but what kills
and what creates the atmosphere,” says Barber ]
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RACIST SHOOTINGS “DON’T HAPPEN IN A VACUUM”: BISHOP BARBER ON
DESANTIS, TRUMP & THOSE WHO SPREAD HATE  
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Amy Goodman
September 5, 2023
Democracy Now
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_ “There is this history of not just who kills, but what kills and
what creates the atmosphere,” says Barber _

Mourners attend a prayer vigil a day after a white man armed with a
high-powered rifle and a handgun killed three Black people at a Dollar
General store , Malcom Jackson/Reuters

 

StorySeptember 05, 2023
 
Watch Full Show
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As federal law enforcement opens an investigation into the
Jacksonville, Florida, shooting where a white gunman killed three
Black people at a Dollar General as a possible hate crime and act of
domestic violent extremism, we speak with civil rights leader Bishop
William Barber about the increasing number of racist attacks in
America fueled by racism. “There is this history of not just who
kills, but what kills and what creates the atmosphere,” says Barber,
who calls for a political movement of love to force out hateful
politicians. Barber specifically condemns the Republican Party and
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for attacking cultural issues as a
distraction for policy failures. “The racist rhetoric and the
culture wars and the hatred toward women, the hatred toward
immigrants, the hatred toward the trans community is a form of
deflection,” says Barber. “He’s decided that this is his way to
office: distraction, division, deflection, focusing on culture wars so
that he cannot be labeled as a failed governor.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re looking now at the rise in racist attacks in the
United States and a new campaign to take back the mic from those who
seed hate. The latest deadly attack came just over a week ago in
Jacksonville, Florida, when a white supremacist gunman shot and killed
three Black people at a Dollar General store, then shot himself dead.
The gunman used racial slurs, had a swastika-emblazoned assault-style
AR-15 rifle, along with a handgun. He attacked the store in a
predominantly Black neighborhood after being turned away from the HBCU
campus of Edward Waters University, the historically Black college.
Law enforcement officials say there’s no question the killings were
racially motivated. The three victims were Angela Carr, Jerrald
Gallion and AJ Laguerre Jr. This is Sabrina Rozier, grandmother of
Gallion’s 4-year-old daughter.

SABRINA ROZIER: All my grandbaby keeps saying is “Where’s my
daddy?” And all I can do is grab her, because I don’t have the
words right now. … I thought racism was behind us, but evidently
it’s not. You was a coward. You went in and shot these innocent
people for nothing, that you didn’t even know.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Sabrina Rozier, speaking with CNN.

Federal law enforcement has opened a civil rights investigation into
the attack as a possible hate crime and act of domestic violent
extremism. This comes as federal data shows hate crimes are on the
rise in the United States, that Black people were targeted in half of
all the racially motivated hate crimes.

On Saturday, President Biden addressed the Jacksonville attack when he
was in Florida to tour storm damage after Hurricane Idalia.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: We’re still reeling from the shooting rampage
near Edward Waters University, an HBCU, last weekend, a terrorist act
driven by racial hatred and animus. Our hearts are with you, those of
you who were affected and all your families. A terrorist act, as I
said, driven by hatred and animus.

And, ladies and gentlemen, let me say this clearly: Hate will not
prevail in America. Hate will not prevail in America. Racism will not
prevail in America. Domestic terrorism will not prevail in America.
And to make it real clear, silence on this issue, both public and
private, from the private sector, silence is complicity. We must not,
we will not remain silent.

AMY GOODMAN: President Biden was in Florida to tour the hurricane
damage. Governor DeSantis refused to meet him there. He went around
with Senator Rick Scott of Florida.

Just last year, a gunman targeting Black people killed 10 people at a
grocery store in Buffalo, New York, the Tops grocery store. In 2021, a
gunman killed eight people, including six Asian American women, in
Atlanta. The Jacksonville, Florida, shooter reportedly left a suicide
note and other writings that laid out his racist ideology.

Now a diverse group of faith leaders is calling on elected leaders in
Florida and nationwide to, quote, “cease and desist from sowing
division and hate.” The move comes after Republican Florida governor
and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis spoke at a vigil where he was
booed by the crowds, with one person shouting out, “Your policies
caused this.” DeSantis and Florida Republicans have imposed racist
laws, including rolling back diversity and inclusion policies and
attacking African American studies. DeSantis also opposes gun law
reform.

The new Take Back the Mic from Haters campaign will also mark this
month’s 60th anniversary of the horrific bombing of the 16th Street
Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, often called “Bombingham”
at the time, that killed four young Black girls September 15th, 1963.

For more, we’re joined by Bishop William Barber, president and
senior lecturer at Repairers of the Breach, founding director of the
Center for Public Theology & Public Policy at Yale Divinity School.
His new piece
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for _The Guardian_ is headlined “The racist murders in Jacksonville
didn’t happen in a vacuum. Words came first.”

Bishop Barber, welcome back to _Democracy Now!_ Talk about the context
in which that young white shooter, leaving behind racist manifestos,
first tried to get into a historically Black college, when turned away
by a brave security guard, opened fire at a dollar store.

BISHOP WILLIAM BARBER II: Yeah, Amy. Bishop Reid of the AME Church in
Florida, the oldest Black denomination, has been working with myself
and others to bring together a diverse group of clergy — Jews,
Muslims, Christians — to actually have a whole season of resistance,
that will continue even after the actions, this coming Thursday having
a press conference and to announce what’s going on, calling for 10
days of fasting, confession and repentance, and for politicians to
cease and desist or resign, and then calling for the communities to
rise up, take back the mic, not let hate have the last word, and to
mobilize and register to vote. On the Saturday — next Friday, the
Friday will be a massive leaflets drop of these cease-and-desists by
students, Black and white and Asian students, in Tallahassee, leaving
from the conference of the AME Church. And then, on Saturday the 16th,
the one-day anniversary right after the bombing of the four girls in
Birmingham, there will be a massive gathering in Jacksonville, diverse
people coming together and denouncing all of this hate.

You think about — we’ve got to talk about what, not just who, has
killed these people, and who, what is killing across this country.
DeSantis and others are spewing hate rhetoric, hate against Black
history, hate against trans people, hate against women, hate against
immigrants. And the suggestion is that these are the problem. Now, we
know that this is this division and distraction. They use hate
rhetoric and culture wars to distract from the areas that he’s
failed as a governor, which I’d like to talk about in a second.

But this has a history. In the early 1900s, Woodrow Wilson spewed
hate, called _Birth of a Nation_, that glorified the Klan, the history
that the nation needed. And in a few years, what did you have? You had
Red Summer, where Black men and others were killed and run out of town
all over this country in reaction to what was being spewed by the
president. In 1963, you had an Alabama governor, George Wallace, say,
“Segregation yesterday, today and tomorrow.” He loosed the idea
that Black people were the problem, that the fight for integration was
the problem. By the end of year, you had people blown up in
Birmingham, dogs sicced on children, children blown up in Alabama. And
if you continue down this road, in 1960, August 17, 1960, the Florida
Legislature, the extremists, the Dixiecrats, were railing against
integration. They were pushing all kind of divisive rhetoric. Even the
governor, who was a moderate at the time, Collins, but he had said
that the Supreme Court had overreached. What happened? You had the ax
handle mob in Jacksonville, where a white mob brought ax handles and
beat Black men, while the police watched, until Black men started
fighting back, and then they joined in.

So there is this history of not just who kills, but what kills and
what creates the atmosphere. And spewing hate from the most powerful
levels of government gives license. It others people. It puts it in
the ethos and suggests that it’s all right to eliminate folks. So,
what happens is, this guy goes to a Black HBCU. He’s been hearing
all the while that Black history is a problem, it’s a lie, wokeness
is a lie. So, if he’s already skewed toward racism, then he begins
to hear from the most powerful people this is what you do, it can
trigger. We’re not saying DeSantis did the killing, but as Dr. King
said at the death of, funeral of the four girls that were killed, he
said, “We must not just talk about who, but what — what killed
them.”

And lastly, I want to put this on the record. It’s not just
DeSantis. Down in Florida, he has gotten Black people, certain Black
scholars, to join with him and lie about Black history and call for
the elimination of courses. He has gotten Black people to join him,
some of them to join him in pushing against affirmative action
programs. They are just as guilty, as well, because it doesn’t
matter what the color of your skin is. Once you spew this stuff and
loose it and suggest that people are the problem — they’re not
people with problems, but problem people — it can create all kinds
of justifications in the ethos for violence and other kinds of death.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Bishop Barber, I wanted to ask you — in the
same climate of intolerance and hate that is promoted by some of these
top Florida leaders, we see a judge rule on a redistricting case,
congressional redistricting in North Florida, saying that DeSantis and
the other political leaders violated the state’s constitution,
ordering them to create a new map. Your response to this news?

BISHOP WILLIAM BARBER II: Well, you know, I know about that. In North
Carolina, we beat back extremists who redistricted, and we met them in
court, found out that they had engaged in racism with surgical
intention. And what we know with redistricting is it’s another form
of diversion and division and lies, because what it says is that
somehow people are cheating, somehow people are not doing right. But
the extremists, they want to cheat, because they can’t win. They
can’t win on policies. So what they want to do is create a situation
where they stack, pack and block and bleach Black voters, not just so
Black can’t elect Black people, but so Black people and white people
and others can’t form fusion coalitions to elect the candidates of
their choice.

And why do they do this? Why are they so afraid? Because DeSantis and
those with him, they don’t want to talk about the real record.
That’s why they redistrict illegally. That’s why they engage in
culture wars. They don’t want to talk about Florida. There are 9
million poor and low-wealth people, 44% of the state, and their
policies aren’t doing anything about that. They don’t want to talk
about the 7 million voters in Florida that are poor and low-wealth.
And if just 3% of them would vote that haven’t voted, they could
send any of them home. They don’t want to talk about the fact that
in Florida over 4 million people make less than a living wage, while
the Legislature there and the governor there have been blocking living
wages. They don’t want to talk about — that’s 32% of white
workers and 57% of Black workers. They don’t want to talk about the
fact that you have over 2 million people in Florida — 2.5 million
people, who are uninsured, even during the pandemic, and that the life
in Florida, the life expectancy, went down in Florida. And one study
shows that among Republicans, their life expectancy went down, and
it’s directly connected to the ways DeSantis and others like him
railed against vaccines and railed against protections during COVID.
They don’t want to talk about the fact that 8.4 million workers, 78%
of the workforce, do not have access to paid leave. They don’t want
to talk about when you end, cuts in Medicaid, 800,000 people who lost
access to healthcare.

See, they support all of those policies, so they don’t want to talk
about this. So, where do they want to focus? They want to focus on
culture wars and division and dissension, and they want to fight for
redistricting, racist redistricting, which undermines the ability for
votes to count. And that’s why when we criticize them, we can’t
just talk about hate. We’ve got to make the connections. One of the
things we’ve said to Democrats is: Don’t just talk about the
deaths that are caused when somebody uses a gun to kill; connect that
to the deaths that come when people are kept in poverty. Poverty is
now the fourth-leading cause of death. So, if you are fighting
addressing poverty and fighting addressing living wages and fighting
addressing healthcare, that is also a form of death and a form of
violence. We have to connect the dots. Racist voter suppression
creates death, because when you suppress the right to vote and you
stack and pack and bleach Black voters, you allow extremists to get
elected, who then, once they get elected, they block healthcare, they
block living wages, they block addressing poverty. And when you do
those things, people die. Bad public policy creates death. Racist
rhetoric and division can create a context of death, give people the
license to kill. All of it is deadly.

nd we must take back the mic, raise up an army of love and truth and
light, that will say, “We’re not having it anymore. We’re going
to call you to cease, desist, to repent, to confess. And if you
won’t, then we’ve got to mobilize and send some people home,” so
that they won’t have the power and the mic to continue to do what
they’re doing. They may have the same opinion, but they won’t have
the power, and the power of the office and the mic, to continue to
spew their divisive rhetoric.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Bishop Barber, I wanted to ask you — in this
recent hurricane, Idalia, clearly, the country is facing and the world
is facing more and more natural disasters, so many of them fueled by
climate change. President Biden goes down to Florida, and the
governor, DeSantis, doesn’t even bother to meet with him. Your
response to the president’s words? Especially he spoke out against
the attack, this racist attack, as well as offering assistance to the
people of Florida ravaged by Idalia.

BISHOP WILLIAM BARBER II: Well, you know, DeSantis, though he’s
trained and educated even at Yale and got a law degree, he’s rooted
in racism and meanness. He has decided that this is his way to office:
distraction, division, deflection, focusing on culture wars so that he
cannot be labeled as a failed governor. That’s what he really is —
not a presidential candidate, he’s a failed governor. Anytime you
have this many poor and low-wealth people and low-wage workers and you
haven’t addressed those issues, you’re a failed governor.

The president was right to call out the racism and call out the
rhetoric and say that, either private or publicly, if you’re quiet,
then you’re complicit. I would also encourage the president to go
one step further, though. And that is to say it’s not just the
racist rhetoric. The racist rhetoric and the culture wars and the
hatred toward women, the hatred toward immigrants, the hatred toward
the trans community is a form of deflection. And then the president
run the record and show how the same person who’s spewing all of
this division, guess what? He’s not addressing the issue of poverty
in your state. He’s not addressing more than 40% of the people
working for less than a living wage, even though the people voted for
a living wage to happen in Florida. He’s not addressing the more
than 2.5 million people that don’t have healthcare. In other words,
connect the rhetoric not just to the deaths that are caused by someone
like the young man who did what he did and creating the ethos of
death, but actually show how they are failing in their roles as
governors and legislators, and that’s why they want the division and
the deflection and the deception, so that we don’t see how they’re
also engaging in forms of policy violence and policy murder, which is
hurting the lives of people. And it doesn’t have to be this way.
Imagine if this same governor was bringing people together, was
raising the minimum wage, was ensuring healthcare and those things.
Florida would be a very, very different place. He does not want people
to look at that, and so he’s posturing himself like the Dixiecrat
governors of the old South.

And we need a new South to rise that’s not fooled by that, that
brings Black people together, white people together, Brown people,
Asians, Latinos, gay, straight — it doesn’t matter who you are
— and says, “We’re not having it anymore. We’re taking back
the mic. We’re mobilizing.” And we’re going to do it, because
the fact of the matter is, Juan, if just 2 to 3% of poor and
low-wealth voters in Florida who have not voted chose to vote an
agenda, they could send any candidate home, including Ron DeSantis.
Poor and low-wealth folk have the power. That’s what Bishop Frank
Reid and others are saying. They understand. And why they’re calling
for this is that there comes a time, as the Bible says, when the stone
that the builders rejected have to rise up and become the cornerstone
of a new reality. That’s what we’re going to launch on Thursday
and beyond. It must happen, not just in Florida, but across the
country. Take back this mic.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Bishop Barber, I wanted to ask you — Ron
DeSantis is still only a — he’s not the major candidate for the
Republican Party. Obviously, Donald Trump still remains the major
candidate. And could you comment on Trump’s virtual silence on all
of these racist attacks that have been occurring and these hate crimes
around the country?

BISHOP WILLIAM BARBER II: Well, you know, he laid the foundation for
it, so he doesn’t have to say anything. His very presence has
already laid it down. He does enough at his rally. I mean, he is the
provocateur par excellence. You know, he is the one that has really
laid the playbook down, and Ron DeSantis is playing it.

But I think Ron DeSantis, in some ways, is more dangerous than Trump
because of his background, his education, that he’s been a governor
— Trump had never held political office — and that Ron DeSantis
is doing all these things as the governor. Right now he’s caught up,
you know, in the popularity of Trump among people who are mean and
racist. You know, he doesn’t have that kind of play nationally, but
he has that kind of play within the party. And he has a lot of play
within the country because of the ongoing history of racism and
division. And, you know, hatred and meanness sells and works, and
othering people turns a lot of people on. That’s why folk that
don’t agree with it, we can’t stay home. You can’t have low
voter turnout, because that allows extremists to get elected. But
DeSantis, I think, in some ways, and these legislatures are more
dangerous than Trump, because they actually can enact policy. You see,
they are actually passing policy. And that’s what I don’t want
people to miss.

I said to some people it’s OK for us to get upset when he attacks
Black history. It’s right for us to be bothered with them and move
when these folk have been killed. But let’s not think that there
wasn’t a big problem before this, and there weren’t problems
beyond just the rhetoric. Go back to the policies. DeSantis is a
failed governor. He is a man that only got elected the first time by
1.5% of the vote. He didn’t get elected overwhelmingly. And then,
the second time, I think maybe about 3 or 4%. He is not even
invincible. But as long as he has the mic, as long as he has that
Legislature, they can continue to push and promote not only rhetoric,
but policy. And both the rhetoric and the policy is deadly. That’s
what makes DeSantis and these other extremists in these state houses
and legislatures even more formidable, in some way, than Trump,
because they actually have legislated.

Now, right now it looks like Trump right now has, you know, this
popularity within the body of extremism. But make no mistake: These
guys are not just running for office for right now. They are running
— they’re hoping Trump goes to jail. They’re hoping they can
step in afterwards. And if you listen to the Republicans that are
running, there’s not a dime of difference, there’s not a penny of
difference, between them and the policies of Trump. The only thing
they’re differing is the antics of Trump, in terms of the way he has
done some things seemingly illegal. But they have the same policy, the
same rhetoric, the same division, the same deception, the same denial
of dealing with poverty. It’s the same thing.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, speaking of taking the mic, Bishop Barber, when —
after that young white male shooter killed three people, Black people,
in Jacksonville, there was this vigil, and Governor Ron DeSantis took
the mic. But he was booed roundly by the crowds. One attendee shouted
out, “Your policies caused this!” I want to play that clip.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is here. We’re going to ask the
governor if he would come down and give remarks —

CROWD: Boo!

ATTENDEE: You’re not welcome here! These deaths are on your hands!

CROWD: Boo!

GOV. RON DESANTIS: Thank you for doing this. I want to just say to the
councilwoman —

CROWD: Boo!

GOV. RON DESANTIS: Councilwoman — councilwoman —

CROWD: Boo!

GOV. RON DESANTIS: I got you. Don’t worry about it. We’ve already
been looking to identify funds to be able to help.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you can hear what was going on at that vigil. So,
there you have just the crowd essentially taking the mic. But then you
have, in Tennessee, a young man you know well, just celebrated his
28th birthday, the legislator Justin Jones, who was thrown out, along
with another Justin, Justin Pearson — one represents Nashville, the
other Memphis — of the state Legislature.

BISHOP WILLIAM BARBER II: Yeah, Justin Jones was silenced by —

AMY GOODMAN: And now — right. Then he was thrown out. They spent a
lot of money having to redo the election. He’s voted right back in
by Nashville. And then, last week, he is silenced by the Legislature.
This is the last minute we have, but if you can talk about what’s
happening?

BISHOP WILLIAM BARBER II: Well, a couple things. Justin Jones got
elected in the most diverse district in Tennessee. Let’s note that.
That’s why he’s such a thing of fear to the extremists. Also, he
got silenced when he went to the floor to put a slate of policies, 12
things that he’s calling on legislators to join him in fighting for.
He’s not just dealing in the emotionalism; he’s actually dealing
in policy.

DeSantis was booed, should have been booed, because the only reason he
should have been there was to get on his knees and repent for how he
has helped create an atmosphere and an ethos of othering and division
that gives license to this kind of violence. We’ve seen it down
through history.

But I also want to say to Floridians, even before this happened, he
should have been booed. He should have been booed for the way that he
has not dealt with poverty. He should have been booed for the way
he’s not dealt with living wages. He should have been booed for the
way he’s blocked healthcare. He should have been booed for the way
he lied and caused people to die, in essence, by saying you don’t
need to get vaccines. He has a whole record that needs to be booed.
And that’s what I’m arguing for. He needs not just for when he has
attacked Black history and in this moment. Sure, this is — what we
see here and all that rhetoric has created such a bad atmosphere, but
look at his whole record.

And let’s take the mic and raise up and mobilize all over the
country, but starting in Florida, people who will not be about
partisan politics but will be about principled politics, and say,
“If you are going to use the mic to spread division, deception and
distraction and create an ethos of death and violence, we’re going
to take the mic from you, send you home the best way we can, in love
and through our votes. Our votes are going to speak, our voices are
going to speak, because what we cannot have in this moment is leaders
who use powerful positions to create a kind of a pathological
atmosphere and an ethos of violence and destruction. It’s been
deadly in the past, and it’s deadly in the present.

AMY GOODMAN: Bishop William Barber, we thank you for being with us,
president and senior lecturer at Repairers of the Breach, founding
director of the Center for Public Theology & Public Policy at Yale
Divinity School. We’ll link to your new piece
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in _The Guardian_, “The racist murders in Jacksonville didn’t
happen in a vacuum. Words came first.”

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