Warren: Racism stymies economic fairness for all Americans
ATLANTA — Speaking at Martin Luther King’s church on the anniversary of his most famous speech, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren warned that racism and racial tensions keep the United States from building a fairer economy that benefits all workers.
“So long as we stay divided, this economy will continue to work for the thin slice at the top,” Warren said, as the liberal icon and potential 2020 presidential candidate buttressed her usual economic arguments with social and religious overtones.
In a friendly Q&A conducted by Bernice King, the slain civil rights leader’s youngest child, Warren specifically bemoaned widening income gaps that disproportionately affect nonwhites and asserted that the only way to combat hate is to see “something holy in every single person.”
Warren’s appearance at Ebenezer Baptist Church comes weeks after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, turned deadly. Warren did not explicitly mention Charlottesville or President Donald Trump’s widely criticized remarks blaming “both sides” for violence during the rally. Warren and King also did not mention subsequent counterattacks by left-wing anarchists in Berkeley, California.