Through Mary plays
September 14, 2025
Government Kathy Hochul is under fire for comments made in a Buffalo church, where critics call them offensive while community leaders defend their intention.
Government Kathy Hochul is again on the defense after comments during a visit to a Buffalo church, criticized some who called her comments racially insensitive. “Checks will be released soon. View the mail, okay?” Hochul told the congregation in the True Bethel Baptist Church on 7 September. “Don’t spend it all in one day. Get something you really need, okay? Don’t stop at the liquor store, okay? Buy something for the children – buy some food.”
Bishop Darius Pridgen, the pastor of the church and a former president of Buffalo Common Council, argued that critics incorrectly interpreted her intention. “I was surprised to hear that there were people who took the comments from the governor as racist,” he said.
“Kathy Hochul at True Bethel is like family who comes home. The crowd was very grateful that she was there, of the comments she made because they were in context of the sermon I preached that morning.”
Prevent explained That his sermon, entitled “Before You Crash Out”, focused on avoiding destructive decisions. “She commented on not crashing and not making bad decisions that I had just preached,” he added, according to Politics.
Majority leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, who is a member of the church, also defended Hochul. “I know she is Irish, and if you understand the history of many people who are Irish, they have important problems with alcohol abuse,” she said. “So I don’t think it was meant to be racist at all.”
Nevertheless, the exchange contributes to a series of missteps that Hochul has confronted with black communities. Last year she was criticized after she said: “We have grown up young black children in the Bronx who don’t even know what the word computer is.”
The return was then quickly, with Bronx leaders who called the comment ‘harmful, deeply misinformed and really terrible’.
Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, who challenges Hochul in the Democratic Primary, said her recent statements reflect a disturbing pattern. “That’s a pattern – and it’s racist,” he argued. “It reduces entire communities to harmful stereotypes and strips away the dignity of both parents and children. Words are important, especially if they come from the highest office in our state.”
Hochul apologized during a press conference on 8 September. “I made no generalization at all about a certain community,” she said. “My intention is never to insult anyone in that context, and I regret that for some people that is the collection meals.”
Related content: NY -Governor Kathy Hochul regrets that black children in the Bronx do not know what ‘computer’ means
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