Here’s what Rev. William Barber would like to say to writer of NC GOP’s racist tweet

The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II said Friday he’d like to sit and talk with the person who called him a “poverty pimp” the day before on the North Carolina Republican Party’s Twitter account.

The unsigned tweet was posted Thursday morning, hours before Barber appeared at a “Rally to Raise the Wage” event at the Hayti Heritage Center in Durham with Sen. Bernie Sanders, who took part in the event virtually.

“I’m not interested in a Twitter fight, or calling folk names,” Barber told The News & Observer in a phone interview Friday. “People are dying. Poverty is killing people. We can’t afford to ignore this.”

The tweet, still visible Friday evening despite dozens calling it racist, said, “Socialist Bernie Sanders is teaming up with poverty pimp William Barber to hold a rally with NC Democrats in Durham today. While @NCDemParty embraces Sanders’ push to make us more like his beloved USSR, Republicans work to protect the good old timeless values of the USA.”

The tweet generated an uproar on social media and among political circles with many blasting the NCGOP.

A call and email to NCGOP spokesperson Jeff Moore were not returned.

The remark may have been a reference to Barber’s rallies with the Poor People’s Campaign in which he includes the testimonies of local people from different races and backgrounds about their struggles with poverty, joblessness, lack of health care and other issues Barber wants policymakers to address.

Barber, reached on his way to another rally in Nashville, said he didn’t know if the tweet was intended to reference this practice. But if so, he said all politicians, including those in the N.C. Republican Party, should consider connecting more with the poor, not less.

“The reason we put real people on the stage is because this is about real people,” Barber said. “And they’re white, Black, Latino – they’re every race, every creed, every color.

“I often wish that when politicians, when they debate bills, they would have to do that in front of the people who are being impacted. Like, 500 of them, right there in front of them. That would be a different conversation.”

Focus on minimum wage

Barber responded on Twitter late Thursday, urging his followers to: “Keep the focus on the issue of living wages that impacts 2 million low wage workers of every race in NC. We’re fighting for all of them. Forward together!”

The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since 2009. Twenty-seven states will raise their their minimum wage this year. North Carolina, Tennessee and South Carolina are not among them.

That’s why he is appearing at rallies in those states to call for raising the federal minimum wage to $17 an hour over five years.

Barber said he would like to talk about low wages – among other things – with the author of the NCGOP tweet.

He said the writer is unoriginal in the tactic of trying to divert people’s attention from issues, this time by using insults.

“I can see why they would want to distract,” Barber said, “and try to get headlines not about the real issue, which is that a federal increase in the minimum wage to $17 is not about socialism. It’s about substance. It’s about the people who struggle in their daily lives. Working people. It’s about following the Constitution, which says people ought to be able to enjoy their fruits of their own labor and not have to make a choice between buying food and buying medicine.”

Part of the strategy of distraction, Barber said, is to use attacks to divide people, making them unwilling to work together though they have common concerns.

Barber said Dr. Martin Luther King preached in the 1960s, “The great fear of the greedy, of the aristocracy, is that masses of poor white people and masses of poor Black people will come together to form a voting bloc,” overturning policies that Barber says place and keep people in poverty.

Since the tweet was unsigned, it’s not clear whether its author is a politician, a political strategist or a social media manager, but Barber said if he gets to meet with the person, he might bring along a Bible and copies of the state and U.S. constitutions. If the person is an elected official, Barber said he would remind them they took an oath to uphold people’s rights to enjoy the fruits of their own labors, which he said, “they can’t do if they’re not making a living wage.”

If the tweet was posted by someone who calls themselves a Christian, Barber said, he would tell them the Bible urges its followers to take care of the sick, the poor, the orphaned, the widowed and the immigrant.

Then, Barber said, he’d like to talk about statistics, including that in a February poll by the University of Maryland, two-thirds of respondents support increasing the minimum wage.

“Let’s talk about the people,” Barber said. “Let’s don’t do name-calling. Let’s do life-changing.”