- Rev. Earle Fisher launched a petition against a Tennessee bill that would ban the study of reparations
- In just two days, the Memphis pastor’s petition gathered more than 500 signatures from other Tennesseans
- Senator Brent Taylor, who sponsored the bill, said reparations should be handled by the federal government, not local government.
Tennessee is torn over a Senate bill that would ban the study of reparations for the descendants of slaves.
The bill, which will be voted on in the House of Representatives next Wednesday, has caused some backlash in the state.
Chief among the bill’s critics is the Rev. Earle Fisher, the senior pastor of Abyssian Baptist Church.
This week, the Memphis pastor launched a petition against the bill, collecting more than 500 signatures in just two days.
Speaking to NewsNation, Pastor Fisher said the decision to halt future reparations investigations was not motivated by a desire to save money.
Reverend Earle Fisher (pictured), the senior pastor of Abyssian Baptist Church, launched a petition against the bill in Tennessee that would ban the state from investigating reparations
Senator Brent Taylor, who sponsored the bill, believes that reparations are a matter within the purview of the federal government, but not that of local government.
‘This isn’t about money. This is about ideology. This is about political power,” Fisher said.
He continued, “This is about people who are determined to perpetuate racial and economic inequality across the state and who are terrified that the truth will come out. So they don’t want anyone to study it.”
Sen. Brent Taylor, a Republican representative from Shelby County and the bill’s sponsor, has argued that reparations should not be addressed at the local level.
Senator Taylor believes that the issue of reparations needs to be resolved on the national stage, and that it is not within the power of a local government to solve such a major problem.
The bill, which would ban the future study of state reparations, has been hotly contested and will be voted on in the House next week.
“I will make it very clear that our vote today does not pass judgment on reparations. That is a very important and very important issue for many people in our country,” Taylor said.
He continued by saying that the issue of reparations “belongs to the federal government and not to our cities and counties.”
“I think it’s inappropriate for our cities and counties taxpayer dollars to go toward an issue like this,” Taylor said.
Amendment No. 1, which was added to the bill a year ago and passed by the Senate, is the source of the controversy.
It states that it “rewrites this bill to prohibit any county, municipality, or metropolitan government from expending funds for the purpose of education or the payment of reparations.”
Senator Taylor (pictured) has emphasized that the state does not vote on whether or not reparations are justified, but on whether this is the responsibility of local government.
The amendment defines “reparations” as “money or benefits provided to persons who are descendants of persons who were enslaved.”
Reverend Fisher insists that if the state has a budget surplus, they should use that money for a good purpose, such as the study of reparations.
“If the state of Tennessee has hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars in surplus, a surplus means we are meeting all of our financial responsibilities, and this is how much money we have left. We can even call it fungible income,” Fisher said.
“There are other entities and organizations that get paid 25 times as much to do something that most of us would probably say is a lot less important.”