Chapter 15
Brother Martin was given complete charge over the new outreach to the community of Ethiopian immigrants. He was expected to report to Pastor Gillespie each week on the progress that was made. Brother Martin, for reasons not yet obvious, was not too thrilled about this new ministry at all. However, he did not voice what was in his heart to Pastor Gillespie — only to his wife, Zelda.
“These illegal aliens are a burden on our country and a menace to society,” he said. “They only want to feed off of us and especially our church. They will do nothing but cause problems and bring down the standards of the church and the community. Pastor Gillespie is setting himself and the church up for big problems. We’ve already got some Jamaicans in the congregation and you know how proud and arrogant they are. And we still have the Haitians over here that Pastor airlifted from Haiti during the earthquake, supposedly, temporarily. But I told him then that they weren’t going back. Now they are breeding faster than we are. And how can we forget the increasing number of wetbacks coming from South America, which the Pastor is so excited about, who refuse to learn the King’s English or the Queen’s English. Now we have to kick out thousands of dollars each month for them to have a separate Spanish-speaking service.”
“Now, honey, you know you ought not to call them wetbacks,” Zelda interrupted.
“Well, I believe they call us something in Spanish,” Brother Martin retorted. “I saw one of those little macho men say something about you when you passed by the other day. What did he say? You know a little Spanish.”
“If you would take the time to learn Spanish yourself through Rosetta Stone like Pastor told you, you would be able to communicate with them,” Sister Zelda said.
“Well, I don’t have to learn Spanish. This is America; we speak English here,” Brother Martin snapped. “On top of that, even the white crackers are starting to come up in the church more now.”
“Now, you know you should not call them crackers. They are good Christian brothers and sisters just like us,” Zelda replied.
“Well, why is it that as soon as we get a white person in the church, the Pastor has to always promote them to assistant pastor or the director of something?” Brother Martin asked. “It’s almost as if he has a psychological hatred for his own people and thinks like some Negroes used to think in the past that ‘white is right and black get back’ even though he is black himself. The old black people used to use the example that if a black man was selling ice and a white man was selling ice, black people would think that the white man’s ice was better. When you go to a white church, you don’t see a whole lot of black people in leadership positions, do you? These white pastors are always talking about the need for racial reconciliation, but they don’t ever talk about the need for repentance. How can there be reconciliation if there is no repentance on their part? They think they can just come in here and start telling us how to run things. I have an M.Div and a Doctorate in Theology, plus, I have thirty years of experience in the ministry and I have never been divorced. But if I went over to First Baptist Church right now, they will try to sign me up to be a janitor. Now, you know that’s true, honey. And even though you graduated from Spelman and got your Doctorate from Harvard, they’ll have you taking care of their children like Aunt Jemima.”
Zelda chuckled.
“Now, we are about to be invaded by a whole group of real Africans all the way from deep Africa in Ethiopia. What’s next, the people from the Congo? Knowing Pastor Gillespie, we’ll have the Jews and Palestinians in here after a while. Then we’ll really be a sinking ship. The Lord wants us to get on the good ship of Zion not on the Titanic.”
Zelda shook her head. Even she was surprised at her husband’s words. But Brother Martin was too fired up to stop. He went on: “Pastor just does not understand that when you mix niggers, crackers, wetbacks, and a bunch of other people, you are going to have a hellacious time trying to keep things going smoothly. I even told the Pastor that he needs to keep those poor niggers from the hood out of here, and stop busing those snotty nosed children up here each Sunday. We need to keep reaching out to the middle class and upper class so we can keep the money rolling in here to take care of all these things. You know those poor niggers ain’t got no money.”
