I learned recently that California Democrats were pushing hard for a bill that would have given individuals who have crossed over our southern border illegally up to $150,000 to buy their first homes. 

Here’s how Fox News reported the story, “last month, the California legislature advanced AB 1840, known as the ‘California Dream for All’ loan program, which would have given illegal immigrants up to $150,000 in first-time home ownership loans — a bill that if signed into law would have given first-time homebuyers up to 20% of a home’s value or up to $150,000 as down payment assistance.”  Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the AB 1840 last Friday.

When I read about this plan, I first thought of some of my staffers who work with me at Project H.O.O.D., the nonprofit I run on the South Side of Chicago. My staffers work hard every day and have yet to reach the point where they can afford to buy a home. Though Illinois does not have a bill similar to California’s, the state has given millions upon millions of dollars to these newly arrived people who have yet to pay their dues in America. 

What kind of message are we sending to all of those who pursue their version of the American Dream by saving part of their paycheck for a home purchase?

NEWSOM VETOES CONTROVERSIAL BILL THAT WOULD HAVE GIVEN HOUSING LOANS TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

What I find especially ironic here is that the Democratic Party has made so much bank off the backs of Black people by claiming that America is racist and systemically racist. President Obama has said that racism is in the DNA of America. President Biden essentially said that America is so racist that he must hire the first Black female Supreme Court justice because she can’t do it without his help. And on and on it goes.

So, my question is this: Then where is the help for Black people?

Of course, I ask this question rhetorically. I don’t believe white supremacy is America’s problem. What bothers me is how the Democrats continue to play Black people for fools.

MY 21-YEAR-OLD GODSON JUST DIED A HORRIBLE, SENSELESS DEATH. HE IS NOT A STATISTIC

Several years ago, then-Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot ran her campaign on the promise that she would make the city of Chicago safer. It is no secret that predominantly Black neighborhoods like mine suffer disproportionate violence. What did she do upon being elected? She declared Chicago a sanctuary city, not for those suffering violence, but for newly arrived migrants. Why do they get the sanctuary and not our life-long taxpayers?

I have no issue with migrants as individual people. I’ve taken them into my church, for we are all children of God. My issue is with our politicians playing us off each other.

More recently, politicians in California and Illinois dangled the promise of reparations for Black people. Neither state owned slaves and, yes, there was redlining and block busting and the like. We heard rumors that Blacks in San Francisco might get upward to hundreds of millions of dollars in reparations — cash, homes for $1, tax-free annual payments, etc. I knew it was nothing but a scam and I had to sit there and watch too many Blacks I know talk about what they would do with the money that was coming their way.

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Then the politicians in California said, “Oh never mind.” No cash payments for you. We’ll just give you more services. Which means what? More money for government employees. Like the Vegas casinos, the government always wins in the end.

And then, to add insult to injury, the same government turns around and announces it wants to give $150,000 to the newly arrived migrants. Which means what? Black taxpayers will be helping with footing this bill.

This is not even about playing with Black Americans by the Democrats anymore. This is outright abuse. They’re abusing a group of people who have been abused so long that they don’t even know they’re being abused anymore.

If you think I’m exaggerating, I will give you one example and it should suffice for any decent American. The elementary school down the street from my church has only 4 percent of the kids enrolled there doing math at grade level. In reading, it is only at six percent. The politicians know this. The teachers’ union knows this. And yet they continue to lie, saying that they are fixing the problem…by focusing on white supremacy.

And then they call us race traitors if we vote for anyone or any policy other than what’s offered by Democrats.

This won’t end until Blacks wake up. At this point, it is not even political or about joining the Republican Party. It’s about survival. It’s about exercising our rights as Americans that our people fought so hard for — they’d be ashamed of us now. It’s about being Americans and it is about respecting ourselves, our children. 

That is the only way we will move forward into an America where we are the leaders and game changers.

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