"You know, some days I get so frustrated I just want to go up to the closest white person and say, 'You can't understand this, it's a black thing,' and then slap him, just for my mental health."
-- Charles Barron
Barron is on the left wing of the Democratic party. His major issues include affirmative action, reparations for slavery, and improving the living conditions for blacks through closing the wealth gap, reducing police brutality, and fighting racism. He has described himself as "pro-black" and has great interest in establishing more representatives for the black community, so that they can control their own economy and political future. [1]
He also believes the police and the government are enemies more often than allies, citing violence and surveillance by the police and the government departments as proof. He has often spoken against police brutality, saying that crime is not the fault of the black community. Rather, it is economic plight that brings crime, he believes, and crime can only be reduced by economic opportunities and advancement.[2] In fact, he went on to say that without economic opportunities for blacks, "every black community is a powder keg."
Barron has taken on an array of issues, such as voting for non-citizens, and has welcomed illegal immigration with the phrase, "don't criminalize, legalize." He appeared on the television program The O'Reilly Factor[3] and said the entire "immigration problem" is really a black-white issue. He argued that Germans, Jews, Poles, Greeks, and Italians who immigrated to the United States during the late 1800s were welcomed because of the color of their skin, but now, "All of a sudden when the complexion of immigration changes, now it's 'these people'." He rejected rebuttals from host Bill O'Reilly on the grounds that the original white European immigrants had received preferential treatment, stating "They had enough black people here already that were skilled and couldn't get the jobs that your people [referring to European-Americans] were able to get." O'Reilly accused Barron of trying to "let everyone into the country" simply "to change the complexion of America". Many viewers responded to this episode, upset that Barron would not concede that white immigrants indeed were discriminated against as well.[4]
Discuss amongst yourselves.
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