African American Pastor in Chicago Says Democrats Are ‘Failing’ Blacks

AP Photo/ Donald Traill
AP Photo/ Donald Traill

An African American pastor from Chicago’s murder-ridden South Side is slamming Democrats, saying that the party has failed the black community.

In a Daily Beast article on Thursday, Pastor Corey Brooks pointedly noted that while blacks have been entirely loyal to Democrats, the sentiment has not seemingly been returned.

“African Americans have been loyal to the Democratic Party,” Brooks said. “But there is a group of African Americans that feel like the Democratic Party has not been loyal to us.”

“They have a failing plan,” Pastor Brooks said of the Democrats. “A business owner wouldn’t allow the person who runs it to remain in charge for 50 years, constantly running it into the ground.”

Brooks, who has been criticizing Democrats for some time in the Windy City, said he is looking to a different way of setting out on the road to solve his community’s problems:

We have a large, disproportionate number of people who are impoverished. We have a disproportionate number of people who are incarcerated, we have a disproportionate number of people who are unemployed, the educational system has totally failed, and all of this primarily has been under Democratic regimes in our neighborhoods. So, the question for me becomes, how can our neighborhoods be doing so awful and so bad when we’re so loyal to this party who is in power? It’s a matter of them taking complete advantage of our vote.

In keeping with the desire for a new direction, Brooks became a vocal supporter of Illinois’ new Republican Governor, Bruce Rauner, and Kentucky Senator and GOP presidential hopeful Rand Paul has spoken at his New Beginnings Church of Chicago.

Brooks has also invited all the other GOP candidates, but thus far, only Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Texas Ted Cruz have started talks with him to set up a visit.

Chicago’s South Side neighborhoods have been some of the most violent areas of the city in a year when 146 Chicagoans have been shot and killed and a whopping 864 have been wounded. In just the first five days of June, for instance, 18 have already been shot and one killed.

Despite the rampant shootings, Brooks is pro-Second Amendment, and his support of Republicans, he said, is not unusual. “In quiet areas, this is something we talk about,” he said.

But Brooks has taken abuse from grievance pushers in the Chicago media. One such incident occurred when Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell attacked Brooks, asserting, after he endorsed Republican Rauner, that he should stay out of politics.

Brooks responded by stating:

Obviously she doesn’t know scripture. And obviously she doesn’t know her history because were it not for the African American church being involved in the political process, we wouldn’t have had such civil rights reformers and abolitionists as we had, so I don’t know where she’s coming from with that.

Brooks’ church was also vandalized late last year, and death threats forced him to briefly go into hiding for arranging an event with a group of black ministers who announced support for the Republican gubernatorial candidate.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.

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