Marianne Williamson on Reparations: ‘Anything Less Than $100 Billion Is an Insult’

Author and speaker Marianne Williamson defended her spending plan on slavery reparations in response to a question by CNN’s Don Lemon Tuesday evening during the 2020 Democratic debates, saying any proposal that is “less than $100 billion” is “an insult.”

“If you did the math today it would be trillions of dollars, and I believe that anything less than $100 billion is an insult, Williamson told Lemon. “I believe the $200-500 billion is politically feasible today because so many Americans realize there is an injustice that continues to form a toxicity beneath the surface that only an emotional reparations will heal.”

Lemon, when pressing Williamson earlier, said she had been “calling for up to $500 billion in financial assistance” and asked how she was qualified to put a dollar amount on reparations.

Williamson answered that the country was in dire need of “deep truth-telling” instead of a commission to examine the impact of reparations on this country.

“Well first of all, it’s not $500 billion in financial assistance, its $500… $200-$500 billion in payment of a debt that is owed,” Williamson said. “We need some deep truth-telling when it comes, we don’t need another commission to look at evidence. I appreciate what Congressman O’Rourke has said, but it is time for us to simply realize that this country will not heal.”

She also said there is an “economic gap between blacks and whites” in this country that comes from hundreds of years of injustice.

“All that a country is is a collection of people,” she continued. “People heal when there is some ‘deep truth telling.’ We need to recognize that the economic gap between blacks and whites in America; it does come from a great injustice that has never been dealt with,” she said. “That great injustice has had to do with the fact that there was 250 years of slavery followed by another 100 years of domestic terrorism.”