Posted on 01/10/2022 4:07:24 AM PST by Kaslin
You can count on three fingers how much Al Sharpton has in common with Pastor Corey Brooks, the pastor who’s on a 100-day rooftop “campout” in frigid, single-digit weather to bring attention to the culture of violence and poverty in Chicago.
They’re both black. They’re both focused on issues in troubled black communities. And they both hold titles as members of the Christian clergy.
Other than that, these men are worlds apart in their approach to solving the generational problems of blacks – especially young black men – in urban areas.
Sharpton curses the darkness from a distance, then adds to it. Brooks builds his home in the middle of the darkness and shines a light. With cameras staring, Sharpton shouts from pulpits about “wickedness in high places” (meaning Trump and Republicans) while fanning the flames of wickedness in low places at every opportunity. Brooks throws himself into harm’s way to put out those flames by creating opportunities for young black men who are engulfed by a culture of deviancy, and by challenging them to take responsibility for their own lives.
“Race is not the biggest problem that we face in the United States of America,” said Brooks, “and it’s definitely not the biggest problem that we face in Chicago. It’s easy to say, ‘the white man, the white man’ when in reality we need to take a closer look at ourselves. … And you have to take responsibility.”
But no matter how irresponsible young black criminals are during run-ins with cops, Sharpton exploits the imagery of “white cop against black man” to raise money for his organization, and to conjure up the superstition that the criminal system is unjustifiably weighed against blacks. Since there’s no money in the back-breaking labor of changing the criminal, Sharpton wants to change the whole criminal system.
Here’s the hard truth: Police are disproportionately in troubled black neighborhoods because young black men commit a disproportionate amount violent crime. Massive crime drives mass incarceration. To reduce mass incarceration, reduce massive crime.
At a golden moment when the entire planet expressed unanimous sympathy for George Floyd and outrage against one bad cop, Sharpton couldn’t resist using the imagery to push a narrative that Floyd is proof that America’s criminal system is rotten.
The country has never been the same.
As businesses were burned, looted, or shuttered and innocent people were killed, Sharpton – like a proud rooster – strutted around the country cock-a-doodling that what we were witnessing was wickedness reaping the wrath of justice.
“All over the world, I seen grandchildren of slave masters, tearing down slave master statue over in England, and put in the river,” Sharpton said in a “sermon” at George Floyd’s funeral, noticeably wearing black gloves. “… I’ve seen whites walking past curfews saying, “Black lives matter. No justice, no peace.’ … You have now lived to where you’ve sown wickedness. And now you have to reap the wrath of those that don’t want to be wicked no more.”
Pastor Brooks is no Rev. Al Sharpton.
He’s gotten his hands dirty in a broken community where the sound of gunshots is as common as dog barks, as one CEO put it. He’s mostly out of the limelight, mostly ignored, and mostly vilified by left-leaning disciples who’ve sacrificed common sense for the political pieties of fundamentalist wokeness.
“I believe the church is the hope of the world,” said Brooks, founder of Project H.O.O.D, and pastor of New Beginnings Church of Chicago. “We’ve seen a lot of young guys in the neighborhood who don’t value their lives. A lot of it is a result of not having someone to encourage them that ‘You can do better,’ … if you don’t have those messages going forward, it’s hard for you to value life when everybody is shooting and killing.”
Inside one of the most dangerous police districts in Chicago, men with ears to hear are listening.
Varney Vokerv and Lavondale “Big Dale” Glass are two of many. Once mortal enemies in rival gangs, they spoke with Brooks on Day 39 of one of his daily “Rooftop Revelations.”
“We tore the neighborhood up. Seriously tore it up,” said Glass, whose son was killed in a gang-related shooting last Halloween. “Enough is enough.”
Glass told The Epoch Times that he’s now looking to “right his wrongs” by helping put young black men on the right path, most of whom come from broken homes where mothers are struggling to feed and clothe them. Many turn to crime.
“It’s not the right way,” said Glass. “It’s only a one-way ticket to either jail or Hell. … Many of these kids … are really just looking for a father figure.”
“We was raised up with a gun in a pack …” said Voker, whose son was paralyzed several years ago after being shot at 30 times. “Our older guys, they misled us. If I knew what I know now, I would have took a different route in life.”
Voker and Glass, who teamed with Brooks on Project H.O.O.D’s Violence Impact Team, are credited with preventing as many as 50 retaliation killings a month in Chicago. This is stuff that gets to the root of the problem but rarely, if ever, make the headlines.
But you do see Sharpton, who’s rhetoric perpetuates division, discontent and death, and who supports people like Alvin Bragg, Manhattan’s first black district attorney, who wants reduce mass incarceration by lowering the definition of crime.
You see Obama and Oprah – both with ties to Chicago – lavishing their influence and incomes on government solutions to imaginary problems: “whiteness” and systemic racism.
You see the Marxist group Black Lives Matter flourishing around the globe, filthy rich from George Floyd’s death but impoverished on ideas of how to actually enrich black lives in troubled communities – communities governed by black mayors, black police chiefs, black judges, and black district attorneys.
Then there’s Pastor Brooks, and a handful like him, who stares in the eyes of the elephant in the room, hammers a stake in the ground, and commits to the back-breaking work of piecing together broken human beings.
I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing none of the most celebrated blacks and organizations – overwhelmingly liberal – donated a dime to Pastor Brooks, who’ll be camping on the roof until Feb. 28 to raise $35 million for a Leadership and Economic Opportunity Center designed to be a nerve center for fighting violence and poverty.
Especially Al Sharpton, whose livelihood would be jeopardized by shifting his focus from racial pyromania to shining a light on the real problems in troubled black communities.
I applaud this man.
It is an uphill battle. As Booker T. Washington once said:
"There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs-partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs."
That was true then, and 110 years later, is still just as true.
When will they learn?
Lovely quotation. I have heard the gist before, but don’t recall reading such solid precise phrasing.
Corey Brooks is the real deal, $harpton has been working his “holy man” grift since he was 10.
Sigh. That is what is disturbing.
Leftism seems to inhibit or actively repel the ability to see reality, and appears to make people more akin to alcoholics or drug addicts requiring an intervention rather than ignorant people receptive to education.
It is as if they aren’t lacking the intelligence or knowledge, they are lacking the wisdom.
If you have never read Booker T. Washington’s book, “Up From Slavery” I cannot recommend it highly enough.
It is inspirational, yet pragmatic. It is a travesty that many (though not all, as this article shows) elements of the black community over the years have bought into the W.E.B. Dubois approach to citizenship, instead of following the suggestions and example of Booker T. Washington.
Now, W.E.B. Dubois is lionized, and Booker T. Washington is forgotten and vilified. And that is a crime, IMO.
I am kind of unhappy about the article. Big front page picture of Al, but you have to search for a picture of Corey Brooks or more information on him and his ministry.
“ It’s easy to say, ‘the white man, the white man’ when in reality we need to take a closer look at ourselves. … And you have to take responsibility.”
^This. Shout it from the rooftops.
Prayers for Pastor Brooks safety.
I am thinking of donating money to him. Anyone got info on his church? He’s doing a great job...
I was thinking of doing that too. Two ways:
Project H.O.O.D. https://www.projecthood.org/
New Beginnings Church of Chicago https://www.faithstreet.com/church/new-beginnings-church-of-chicago-chicago-il
I’m big on contributing to organizations that target problem solving by focusing on the root cause. This is Corey Brooks.
Alas, I’m in the higher education gig and am aware of my woeful ignorance within my own field.
I have heard of “Up From Slavery”, but alas, not even at the level where I can come and go and talk of Michelangelo
I wasn’t aware that Brooker T had been forgotten—then again I had no idea who Dwayne Johnson was until it was explained to me this past weekend, and with any luck I will have forgotten who he is three weeks ago (though he is now in my class notes as a possible fall back in an analogy on the importance of St. Augustine to his contemporaries in the event that my students do not know who Michael Jordan was).
When I say he has been forgotten, that is surely true with him as sure as it is with nearly everything.
There is a quote from Michener's "Tales of The South Pacific" that I love. It makes me feel sad and small every time when I read it but the absolute truth, beauty, and sentimentality makes me love it all the more:
"They will live a long time, these men of the South Pacific. They had an American quality. They, like their victories, will be remembered as long as our generation lives. After that, like the men of the Confederacy, they will become strangers. Longer and longer shadows will obscure them, until their Guadalcanal sounds distant on the ear like Shiloh and Valley Forge."
I don't know why, but I find comfort in that.
And so it is with us, each of us, and all we have known. And so it is with the remarkable Booker T. Washington.
He deserves better, but someone like W.E.B. Dubois (a dishonorable man who appealed to the weak side and lazy side of human nature in my eyes) in today's woke society supplants an honorable, true, and hardworking man like Booker T. Washington who appealed to hard work, discipline, self-betterment, and self-control, and it is to our detriment that Dubois eclipses Washington in many influential circles.
Most people even around Chicago have no clue all the great things that Corey Brooks does for the community. He doesn’t care if you’re black or white, he only cares if you are in need.
Yes Corey Brooks is the real deal.
THanks.
Strangely, not only have I read more than half of Michener (mostly in my youth) I was leant two books by him about three years ago, finished one (forget the title—it was about Palestine) and still have Sayonara on my shelf, half finished.
I would be a better person if I were half-way through Up from Slavery instead (or played less internet chess, or Freeped Less).
What is Tales of The South Pacific about?
Back to class prep.
I read “Tales of The South Pacific” late in life, and it is mostly about...the life in the support areas in the South Pacific after the fighting had moved a little further on (if my memory serves me correctly)
I did not find it overly engrossing, but one thing I did pick out as probably pretty accurate-the boredom of war when you aren’t actually engaged in it, and the longing for home.
Sigh. I had one of my best friends who passed recently, and later in life as he became more reclusive and sick, he wanted to play Internet chess with me. I refused. He was very talented (Played a lot for a long time) and I was more or less a slightly advanced amateur. Whenever we played, I would say “Look. You always nail me within a few moves because I make that move every time. Can you just tell me what it is so I don’t do it?”
Well, he never would. And I would get my ass kicked repeatedly, even if I avoided that first blunder by sheer luck! So I told him I didn’t want to play chess with him, and he stopped asking, then he stopped seeing anyone for a few years until he died. I regret that as much as anything. I wish I had taken that time to play him online, and I could have at least talked or communicated with him. I really miss him.
On the funny side, he used to play Chess with one of my other friends who played him a lot, and was much closer in ability to him. But in all the years I knew them, he had never beaten him, but he tenaciously kept at it.
One day, in college when he lived in the basement of his parent’s house, the two of them were going at it. They set up the chess board on one of those extendable writing surfaces that can be pushed into a desk to save space, and pulled out when needed. They would then seat themselves on either side of it.
On this day as I watched, I had taken a rolling office chair with one of those adjustable oval back pads and positioned myself close to the pulled out part, the oval back part repositioned to a horizontal mode and was resting my forearms on it watching the pitched battle intently.
My other friend (Brian), for the first time in his life, was going to win. He knew it, and my other friend (the more accomplished one, Mark) surely knew it too. (They were lifelong best friends with each other)
Brian could barely suppress his glee as he looked at the board, nearly licking his lips, and Mark, knowing he was doomed, cast about frantically for SOME tactic that might even get him a draw. Mark was...a trapped animal.
As the end grew closer, I was so intent that I was leaning heavily on the back of the chair when, with a snap, it collapsed and I fell bodily onto the chess board, sending the board and all the pieces flying into the air in every direction.
Brian, was was going to win against Mark for the first time in his life, grabbed the board, put it back on the table, an frantically began collecting pieces to put the board back to where it had been, his eyes bulging, but Mark just folded his arms and said “Nope. That isn’t how it was. I don’t remember...”
I was so embarrassed and crushed I fled from the house without saying a word!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.