CHICAGO – On the 159th day of his rooftop vigil to build a community center designed to provide opportunities to his community, Pastor Corey Brooks wished to share his thoughts on the violence tearing apart American communities, from the wild youths in Chicago to the white supremacist shooting in Buffalo.
What follows has been lightly edited. We strongly encourage you to watch the accompanying video so you may hear the pastor in his own words.
I want to be honest today. I'm not sure how much more I can take. I've seen what's going down in Chicago and in Buffalo and I struggle to make sense of it all. What is happening in America?
Sunday morning, I woke up to the news that 28 people were shot in Chicago this weekend and five are dead. I read about those killed: 13 years old, 16 years old, 19 years old. So young and gone already.
So far, in 2022, over 90 children have been shot and 20 have been killed, and my church has tried to be a blessing by helping those families bury their loved ones.
Not only that, we’ve had wild packs of youths, hundreds of them, taking over parts of Chicago, causing mayhem and destruction. And the question I want to ask is: where are their parents? Where are the community leaders? People talk about the school to prison pipeline. But in reality, we have a lack-of-community to prison-or-grave pipeline. It’s almost like we’re waiting for politicians to come and save us, and we all know that is never going to happen.
Then, like most Americans, I learned of the horrific killings in Buffalo, New York. A white supremacist drove 200 miles from a nowhere town into a predominantly black neighborhood and shot up people in a market. He killed them because, of all things, the color of their skin. He didn’t know them. He didn’t care. And my heart truly breaks for these innocent folks who were grabbing a snack or ingredients for the meal they were going to cook that night. They had no idea that lurking around the corner was pure evil and that it was heading their way.
I’ve been around more tragedy than the average American, and I still struggle to understand. What I do know is this: only fools come along and offer us "the solution." They say, we need gun control. We already have massive gun control in Chicago. They say, we need more racial education training. We need more of this, more of that. We want Black Lives Matter to assure us. We want President Biden to explain the root of the problem.
The reality is that we want someone to make these horrors go away. And I don’t blame people for feeling that way because when you think about Chicago and Buffalo, it is truly horrific. But if we go for the quick Band-Aid fix, it will lead to only more exploitation that benefits the elites at the expense of the victims. Our elites will ignore the mayhem and violence of Chicago, and they will exploit Buffalo to advance their agenda. They pay lip service to Chicago because the trigger fingers are black, and they run to Buffalo because the trigger finger was white.
But a killed human being is a human being before anything. And shame on all of us for having lost sight of this basic human dignity. The Bible says, "thou shall not kill," that all of us are children of God.
What we have to admit first is our powerlessness. We have to admit that we are fallen beings, profoundly fallen. We then have to bear witness, bear witness to what we see. We must live not in ideology, fantasies, but in reality.
I do not have the answers, and I wish I did. Lord knows all I can do is sit with the horror and try to see into it. When I look at Chicago and Buffalo, the common denominator is violence. What I also see is that we have allowed race and politics to become our new religion, and those two values are the lowest of human values.
I read somewhere that a majority of our young Americans do not believe in religion or something bigger than themselves. How unfortunate. A lot of these youths around here are more invested in what they believe being "black" is instead of investing in expanding their minds. They have no faith in our society, and they think nothing of rampaging and destroying it.
The white supremacist shooter wrote over 100 pages on racial political nonsense, as if what he said mattered. Hate governed his soul to the point that he pulled the trigger and killed all those people.
Again, I don’t have the answer but our worship of race and politics in America in 2022, has led to us being coerced into group and racial ideologies instead of focusing on developing the individual. We do not educate kids these days, and without that, how can you have strong individuals? Groups and racial ideologies – on the far left and the far right – led to the hate that is dismantling America to this day.
And trust me, I’m not against groups at all, but I do know that we are developing weak individuals in our society. And if these weak individuals make up groups, then what good are they? Really, what good are they? These groups that destroy Chicago property? The white supremacist may have acted alone but he derived his power from the white supremacy group. And, again, what good is a group made up of weak individuals?
While I may not have the answer at this point, I do know this from experience. I have worked with many of these youths who have a gun within reach. They know where it is in their home and, given the right circumstances, they will pull the trigger. When I’ve sat down to talk with them about bettering their lives, I’ve had several of them put the barrel of the gun right up in my face. They think they’re powerful, "the Man." But you and I know the truth: they’re empty shells of human beings where violence is simply all they know.
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I work with these folks on an individual basis. I try to push the violence out of their soul by filling it with possibility and opportunity. I highlight their own talents to them. I tell them their minds and bodies are the most amazing things ever created and, if developed, can lead them to untold heights. I tell them I love them. I surround them with new and true friends. I teach them skills. I take them to the bank to open up their first account, sometimes when they’re 30 years old.
I say I don’t have all the answers because, despite my best efforts, I have lost who I thought were some of my most promising souls to violent deaths. It breaks my heart every time that happens because I could see their potential. At the same time, I know this focus on building up the individual is the right answer because I have seen the most violent of criminals put their guns down and become some of today’s most industrious citizens. These young individuals believe in things larger than themselves: God, America and in their ability to overcome any obstacles.
I know that my words cannot take away the pain from what happened in Buffalo or what happens in Chicago nearly every day. I’m a humble servant of the Lord, and I will continue to serve him to the best of my abilities every single day. God bless every single one of you, and God bless this troubled but great nation of ours.
Follow along as Fox News checks in with Pastor Corey Brooks with a new Rooftop Revelation.
For more information, please visit Project H.O.O.D.
Eli Steele is a documentary filmmaker and writer. His latest film is "What Killed Michael Brown?" Twitter: @Hebro_Steele.
Camera by Terrell Allen.