Chicago, IL—I was born and raised here, growing up in challenging circumstances with a dysfunctional, single mother who often left me to fend for myself. Whether she abandoned me with friends or sent me off to a boys' home for three years, I was forced to navigate a childhood of extreme poverty and neglect. By age 14, I had no choice but to get a full-time job and find my own apartment, or face being placed into foster care. Survival meant lying about my age, which I did to secure a job at Jake’s Pup in the Ruff in the Uptown neighborhood. By day, I attended Senn High School, and by night, I ran the hotdog stand alone. I found a small apartment and convinced the landlord I was 18. From there, things gradually improved, and I was thrust into adulthood much earlier than most.
The reason I share this background is to highlight my understanding of the realities of poverty, hunger, and parental neglect—issues that plague Chicago’s ghettos. However, despite those hardships, I didn’t grow up surrounded by the rampant drug culture and violence that has now become synonymous with these neighborhoods.
At 19, I lied about my age again and managed to get hired by the Cook County Sheriff’s Police. This was all fine until I received my draft notice from President Lyndon Johnson. Hoping for an occupational deferment, my captain, Packy Walsh, discovered my real age. Instead of firing me, they reassigned me as a civilian until it was time for me to report for duty in the armed forces. I had hoped be sent to the Coast Guard, but the Vietnam War had other plans, and I was trained as an Army infantryman. Although I received orders for Vietnam in 1968, I was rerouted to Germany, where I served as a medical corpsman at a large dispensary, similar to today’s urgent care centers.
After my service, I returned to work for Captain Walsh as if I had never left, this time in the Fugitive Warrants, Transportation Division. I spent my days dealing with the most dangerous criminals in Chicago, transporting them from jail to the various courthouses in the county, and even to County Hospital for medical treatment or the Cook County Morgue for Coroner’s Inquests. This job exposed me to a tragic and broken culture. Later, as a member of the Chicago Police Department, I truly saw the horrors of ghetto life—needless violence, child neglect, abuse, and the worst kinds of cruelty.
President Lyndon Johnson’s "war on poverty" was a socialist disaster. He and other Democrat politicians threw billions of taxpayer dollars at the problem, but instead of helping, they destroyed the black family structure. Overnight, the black community was transformed into a single-mother nightmare, with young women ill-equipped to raise their children properly, left to shoulder impossible responsibilities. With discipline gone from schools controlled by teachers' unions and massive political corruption at the hands of white liberals, black Americans were programmed into a cycle of dependency. They were led to believe that they could only survive by voting for the very people who kept them in misery.
Today, black Americans are trapped in a modern-day plantation, not much different from the days of slavery. They fill our prisons, jails, and death rows, kept ignorant, dependent, and in poverty by white liberals, Communists, and Democrats. The damage is so severe that it will take generations to undo.
Black Americans deserve better—they should be competing for excellence and striving to achieve the American Dream. It all begins with education and training. Affirmative action, DEI hiring, and participation trophies strip people of their dignity. What truly matters is hard work, competitiveness, and the desire to succeed.
We need to provide remedial education so that black Americans can read, balance a checkbook, and manage a budget. We need to train them for real jobs or help them start their own businesses.
Voting for Democrats has done nothing for them but serious harm. It’s time for black Americans to escape the plantation and start competing for their share of the American Dream.
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