Medcalf: Rev. McAfee should practice what he preaches to youth

I tried to talk to Rev. Jerry McAfee about his threatening rant against Minneapolis City Council members last week following a since-scrapped proposal to temporarily move two group violence prevention programs to Hennepin County. I really did.

But you can’t talk to McAfee, the pastor of New Salem Missionary Baptist Church. His expectation is only that you listen. He, like so many of his stature, feigns a desire for dialogue even though he prefers to hear himself speak.

Because McAfee loves to preach to the choir. But Minneapolis is not his congregation.

“You’re acting just like, to me, almost like a white man who don’t know the plight of a Black man in the inner cities anymore,” he told me when I criticized his fiery sermon to the council.

The particulars of who gets funding to address violence in any city is, like the methods often used in these programs, a subjective conversation. It’s not unique to see a community engage its members in an attempt to minimize violence. It’s also not exclusive for those methods to offer varying results because there is no metric to definitively assess the standard for success and failure.

Organizations attached to McAfee — New Salem Missionary Baptist Church and 21 Days of Peace — have received $3.3 million in public funding over the last two years to address the impact of the lack of resources in the poorest, predominantly Black neighborhoods combined with trauma, scarcity and the proliferation of guns that have been an atomic bomb for 50 years.

And McAfee, who told me that he’d been ignored by the council before he took the mic at a budget meeting, has been combating those issues for decades.

“We are an emotional people because so much happens to us,” he told me. “It ain’t so much that somebody stepped on my shoe and got it dirty [and then] I killed them. It’s all of the other stuff that I carried. There are times when our people have to see those who they deem as their leader to express and be their voice in an articulate way without the violence. Was I vociferous? But I didn’t strike one blow. Did I use a curse word at all?”

I reminded him that he’d used multiple curse words during his lecture to the council.

But McAfee’s tenure is undeniable. During my first run with the Star Tribune 20 years ago, I attended multiple meetings that were led by McAfee and other local clergy as they worked to address the community’s most difficult challenges. His influence is obvious, too. You don’t have to go to his church to understand his reach. Throughout the history of the Black community, pastors have been its most prominent leaders. And McAfee is one of the most powerful Black people in the Twin Cities.

That does not mean, however, he gets to say whatever the hell he wants to say without reproach or reprimand.

During that rant last week, he said Jason Chavez, a gay Hispanic council member, was “acting like a girl.” I called him out for that when he asked if I thought it was a homophobic remark because, of course, it was. Imagine if a prominent white leader in this community accused a Black council member of acting like a thug. We’d march in the streets. McAfee then made a “promise” that sounded as if he was looking for a fight.

“And the way you looking at me is [that] you want to come behind that podium. … You do it,” he appeared to tell Chavez. “I guarantee you. I guarantee you’ll regret it.” And then, with an opportunity to temper the moment, he instead expanded on the threats via Facebook Live that night when he said he’d be willing to hit someone “if I have to.”

From which page of the violence interruption brochure is this tactic?

In our conversation, he called his delivery to the council — members said they’d received death threats and contacted police — “righteous indignation.” He refused to accept any correlation between his demeanor with the council and the very issues in the community he claims he wants to solve.

But I’m certain I’m aligned with McAfee on one idea: that the young people in the Black community deserve the chance to fulfill their dreams. Every day, our teenagers and 20-somethings with easier access to firearms than therapy make split-second, life-altering decisions that end lives. McAfee’s presentation to the council seemed to embody the same explosive tone that — in the community he loves — can lead to tragedy.

Listen, I hate the idea that sometimes when a Black man gets upset, he’s then bombarded with unfair stereotypes. I also know that sometimes people choose to act like jerks, which warrants a rebuke.

As a result, I hope McAfee and I aspire to set an example that even in the most heated moments of our lives, we can find a more mature approach to address conflicts. Because our young folks often lack those tools and the consequences are monumental.

But we all make mistakes. That’s why I asked McAfee if he had any regrets about his conversation with the council. First, he told me he was “insulted at your line of questioning.” And then, he offered a predictable response.

“I’m burying these people and you’re asking me if I would have done something different?” he said. “Not at all, Myron. Not at all. Nothing different.”