Presidential candidate Marianne Williamson appeared Tuesday afternoon with other Democratic Party notables at Cobo Hall in Detroit as part of the 2019 NAACP Convention.
The Houston-born candidate lived in Metro Detroit at one time. She is an author and co-founder of The Peace Alliance and Angel Food.
At the event, she called racism one of the country’s “original character defects,” and said she has addressed white audiences open to conversation on reparations.
Williamson has proposed several new government agencies, including a Reparations Commission to spend $200-500 billion over ten years on education, infrastructure, and projects dedicated to African American communities.
“I think many of us would agree if you kick someone to the floor,” she said, “and have been kicking them for three-and-a half-centuries you owe more than just to stop kicking.”
Williamson has also proposed creating a U.S. Department of Children and Youth to address the chronic trauma of millions of American children. Her USDCY would coordinate information and solutions for families and children with wraparound services, anti-trauma, restorative justice, education, conflict resolution, emotional health services, and medical care.
“One of the ways that you hold a people down is you make sure their children cannot prosper,” Williamson said. “Any minority group knows that.” She promised that if she became president, “the passive attack on the children of the United States would end.”
“Because we can talk about criminal justice. We can talk about voter suppression. We can talk about housing. We can talk about any other issue involved in economic injustice. But none of that will get to the core of the matter if we continue to allow injustice toward anyone’s child.”
Her new U.S. Department of Peace would make gun safety its first priority.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, and Michigan Sen. Gary Peters were among other speakers at the convention.
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Abigail Nobel reports for Battleground State News.
Photo “Marianne Williamson” by Marc Nozell. CC BY 2.0. Background Photo “Cobo Center” by Michael Barera. CC BY-SA 4.0.
