Black Christian Leaders Take Action Against Maxine Waters for Her ‘Call to Extremism’
By Rebekah Baker
July 13, 2018 at 1:26pm
California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters may think she represents the entire African-American community, but one group of black Christian leaders are proving that assumption dead wrong.
On Thursday, African-American conservative activists and religious leaders gathered on Capitol Hill to call on House Speaker Paul Ryan to formally condemn Waters for her vile statements last month instructing her supporters to physically harass Trump administration officials, The Christian Post reported.
“Congresswoman Maxine Waters has violated the sacred trust we each have to each other as Americans to have each of our rights stop at the other’s nose. Her call to extremism based on where another American citizen works and who they associate with must be sternly addressed by Speaker Paul Ryan,” said Star Parker, president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. “An apology is not enough, nor did she offer one when asked by House Speaker. As we move into two months of intense debate over SCOTUS nomination, the censuring of Maxine Waters becomes of extreme urgency.”
During a rally in Los Angeles in June, Waters called for her supporters to harass Trump officials “anytime” and “anywhere” they see them.
“For these members of his Cabinet who remain and try to defend him, they’re not going to be able to go to a restaurant, they’re not going to be able to stop at a gas station, they’re not going to be able to shop at a department store,” Waters told the crowd. “The people are going to turn on them, they’re going to protest, they’re going to absolutely harass them until they decide that they’re going to tell the president, ‘No, I can’t hang with you, this is wrong, this is unconscionable, and we can’t keep doing this to children.’”
Waters even invoked God, saying “God is on our side.”
This group of Christian leaders couldn’t disagree more.
Diante Johnson, president and founder of the Black Conservative Federation, said these sorts of comments are evidence of a United States that is experiencing a “reversal in time.”
“We are discriminating not based upon race anymore but based upon political preference,” Johnson said. “To Maxine Waters, it is very shameful for someone who has experienced segregation to turn around and reverse it to a political party.”
Johnson also mentioned instances of black Capitol Hill interns being turned away from Uber rides because they were wearing pro-Trump “Make America Great Again” hats.
“This is the effect of Maxine Waters,” Johnson said. “This is the effect of the Congressional Black Caucus members who haven’t called her out. This is the effect of Paul Ryan who hasn’t processed the censure. This is the effect of the Democratic Party as a whole who hasn’t said, ‘Maxine Waters, you can’t say that, you shouldn’t say that.'”
Glory to Glory Ministries leader Bishop Aubrey Shines also said Waters’ remarks put innocent Trump supporters at risk.
“(Waters is) asking those who follow her and those that are part of her party to make sure that individuals like myself are accosted — not just the cabinet — wherever we are,” he said. “She said, and I quote, ‘anywhere, anytime.’ That means in supermarkets or in restaurants. Wherever those of us who have supported this current president find ourselves, she is asking those that follow her to make sure that we are harassed in some sort of form.”
“She is spewing this type of venom over and over again,” Shines continued. “Unfortunately, her tentacles have reached as far as the mainstream media. We are now also being called trained dogs by the mainstream media simply because we do not adhere to groupthink.”
Shines concluded that this “type of racial divisiveness is something that is helping destroy America as we know it.”