Photo caption: Father Michael Pfleger
Referring to the growing divide between Blacks and Hispanics over the City Council’s approval of $51 million to care for the growing migrant population, Father Michael Pfleger warned African Americans to not fall into the ethnic and cultural “trap” created by those “at the top.”
“There are powers in control who would like to keep Black and brown people divided and against each other, fighting for the crumbs they throw from the table,” said Pfleger. “We must not allow that. We must unite, Black, brown and white who are of one conscience for justice and demand that every person has food, shelter, clothing and education.
“Do not let the powers that be divide us between Black and brown people,” said Pfleger during his Sunday, June 4, worship service. “We must not play into the hands of those who will continue to divide us while they stay on the top.
“I understand the anger. I understood those who stood up at the City Council meeting angry about the $51 million that is part of $500 million,” Pfleger said. “I was angry this week that a homeless person was turned away because they were told the police station could only take in migrants.
“I say let’s turn this crisis into an opportunity. This is an opportunity of whites, Blacks and brown people of conscience to come together and say to the government ‘you will and you must’ take care of everybody.”
Pfleger said America must take care of “every single person in this country, whether they came across the border or whether they came by the way of 63rd Street, or 79th Street, because nobody in America should be sleeping on police station floors, or in Lower Wacker, or in the airports or on 51st Street or Wilson Avenue,” Pfleger told his cheering congregation.
“No one in America should be going through garbage cans to try to find food to eat. This is America…,” he said, which is supposed to be the richest country in the world.
“I don’t care who is in the White House,” he bellowed. “You have the responsibility” to take care of everyone because, Pfleger said, the resources are here. They just aren’t equally allocated.
“If we can find trillions of dollars for Ukraine and billions of dollars for Israel, then damn it we had better find billions of dollars for the poor who are starving and hungry,” he said.
Referring to the wording on the Statue of Liberty, which says in part, “Give me your tired, your poor…,” Pfleger pointed out, “This is the time of opportunity. We’ve got to bind up the lack of mentality and loosen up the abundance mentality. America is not lacking. She finds money for whatever she wants to do.
“So we call on the abundance of America to be let loose so that everybody in the borders of America may have food, a place to live and a good education in this country.”
Pfleger said some people in this country are more concerned about the protection of the Constitution’s Second Amendment. “Let’s give the First Amendment and the right to life and a right to people in this country” the same protection.
“Let’s have an abundance mentality. We are being distracted by the brown and the Black” divide based on a humanitarian issue of people being bussed into Chicago by a Texas governor who shut the door of freedom in their faces.
To those who are against the presence of the migrants in this sanctuary city, Pfleger said, “Don’t fall into the trap. Step back and say no you will take care of everybody. You came together to raise the ceiling debt. Now come together and raise the humanity debt that is going on in this country,” Pfleger reasoned.
“We must demand America be who she calls herself to be…. I am not taking sides, but I am not falling into that mess. I am taking a vow and demanding that everybody has food, a place to live and a good education,” he stated. “It’s both, not either/or.”
However, Darva Watkins, founder of the Just US 12 Entities, reluctantly opposes the passage of the migrant funding ordinance. “I am against it only because we have not received the share that we need. We can help anyone who comes to this country as long as the Black people get their fair share.”
Watkins said that might be the reason for the deep divide between Hispanic and Black communities over this migrant issue. “People are asking how can they get $51 million and we got nothing. When it comes to our elected officials, they should make sure they take care of home first, African Americans who are suffering.”
“We don’t have enough money even to survive, and they are giving other people the money that we deserve,” she said. “They should give us something, but they’ve given us nothing,” Watkins said. Referring to the passage of the ordinance in a 34-13 vote, she said, “I think it is unjustifiable. It’s unfair, and I think we should get our share because so far we’ve got nothing.”
