Chicago pastor Corey Brooks has publicly criticized Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, arguing that his appeal to Black voters amounts to old-fashioned liberal condescension. In a Fox News opinion piece, Brooks contends that El-Sayed frames Black Americans as members of an oppressed class owed payment by others, a message he says the left has delivered for decades.
Brooks writes from the South Side of Chicago as the Michigan race approaches its final day of voting on Tuesday, Nov. 3. El-Sayed, who backs a Medicare for All system and the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has the support of Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Brooks argues that the candidate's platform reflects a broader push on the left that treats American principles as the problem rather than the solution.
Brooks points to El-Sayed's ties to the Democratic Socialists of America. El-Sayed says he is not a socialist and calls himself a capitalist, and the DSA has never formally endorsed him. Brooks notes, however, that between 2017 and 2020 El-Sayed spoke at six DSA chapter events and delivered the keynote at a 2019 fundraiser, and that DSA organizers have described him as a longtime friend of the Detroit chapter. The pastor also cites reports that 50 DSA members travelled from New York to canvass for him before the primary.
The dispute centers on El-Sayed's recent effort to court Black voters in the Detroit area after he lost the city in the August primary. According to the piece, he has visited Black churches, appeared alongside Black pastors, and released an agenda for Black communities that includes housing timelines, minority business loans and school repairs. In September, speaking to a room of female faith leaders in Detroit, El-Sayed said that "there are unpaid debts that have long since come due" in Black communities in Michigan and across America.
Brooks seizes on that language. He argues that it casts Black Americans as people who are owed something and whose future depends on others paying up, and says the framing is the same one the White liberal establishment has long used. He says he has heard enough from El-Sayed to find none of the things he would want to hear, including an embrace of America without apology and an emphasis on personal responsibility and accountability.
Brooks also draws on his own experience. He argues that government dependency created by the Great Society, public housing projects and welfare rules that penalized marriage and work trapped many Black families. He cites figures that 23.6 percent of Black children were born to unmarried mothers in 1963, a share he says rose to 69 percent by 2023. He says he founded Project H.O.O.D. to offer job training and character building and to tell young people that dependency need not be their destiny.
The pastor further criticizes positions associated with the DSA, citing its 2026 program, "Workers Deserve More," which calls for abolishing the Senate and the Electoral College and replacing the president and Supreme Court with bodies subordinate to Congress. He also quotes a 2021 DSA convention resolution stating that the United States "has never been and will never be a force for liberation." El-Sayed has not signed on to that program, and his own proposal is to end the filibuster. Brooks argues, nonetheless, that the activists who canvassed for him are likely to expect something in return.
Brooks further contends that some White progressives back candidates like El-Sayed to demonstrate their commitment to racial justice, and that such support validates their own sense of moral standing while leaving problems in Black Detroit unresolved. He also addresses reports that El-Sayed's family may have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a matter the piece raises as part of its critique of how the candidate has responded to scrutiny. Those allegations and El-Sayed's responses are presented in the column as part of a broader argument about his campaign, and the column's claims reflect the author's own opinion.