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Chapter 47
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For those who attempt to escape the vicious circle of dependence and underclass pathology, the alternatives do not look bright. They
are easily forced into a criminal existence like my friend Alphonso in
Baltimore.
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Alphonso's wife had a job in a coffee shop which
brought the family less than $50 a week, far below minimum wage.
There is in America an entire underworld of millions of hotel and
hospital workers, servants and hamburger sellers who are exploited
mercilessly as Congress (pressed by a strong lobby) Will not
legislate decent minimum wages for them. The U.S.A. thus has more
menial service jobs than any other developed country. |
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Alphonso and his wife loved each other and their
six children dearly, and it hurt him immensely that he was unable
to find a job to support his family. It was my first year in
America and I remember how shocked I was to learn that there was
no aid to get in such a situation. |
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In my country everybody can get at least a couple
of hundred dollars monthly plus rent as soon as they are out of
school in order not to be forced into crime until they are able to
find a job. Families get full support. I was therefore very moved
that in order to survive Alphonso simply had to rob in the street.
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I went with him to steal shoes for the children
and he introduced me to Baltimore's criminal underworld. In this
way he was capable of maintaining a nice home and could even rent
a car a couple of times a year to drive his children on a picnic.
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However, when I returned a year later his children
looked very sad, but they wouldn't tell me why. I found out that
Alphonso was in prison and sentenced to more than six years'
confinement. |
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When I arrived at the penitentiary I discovered
that his oldest son also was in prison with him. When the family
had suddenly lost the income of the father, the son had attempted
a bank robbery to help out the family. Here is Alphonso's wife
seen on a visit to the prison. |
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For the next six years she will not be able to
touch her husband and can only hear him through noisy monitored
telephones. Thousands of black marriages have been dissolved this
way. Thus modern society has institutionalized the legacy from
chattel slavery of destroying the black family. |
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In the years after I saw Alphonso's family
undergoing severe hardships; the children were left to their own
devices and everything was decaying in the house. Their marriage fell apart and for some years Alphonso survived
in the streets from selling my book and went with me to colleges to entertain my
many sheltered students about his life in a ghetto, a life they have never
known. He turned out to be a great entertainer and usually got long standing
ovations from the hundreds of students when told them about the time
he and his gangster friends had first plotted to rob me in
the streets. |
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Here I am delivering my book to Alphonso's and his sons between my
university lectures in 1986. The son, Nathaniel, receiving my
books on the right photo was later shot to death. |
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For some years I lost touch with him and both I
and his children thought Alphonso was dead from AIDS
since he had used drugs most of his life. However, when I wanted
him to appear in a Danish TV-program, we managed to track him down
in a nursing home, very sick:
- I've been thinking of you this whole month. How are you?
- All right. I came to get you to speak to an audience tonight.
But when I asked for you in the street, they said you were sick.
- Yeah, I've been here more than a year now, but it is good to
see you, man.
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Here he is today living in the worst projects of the ghetto. With
the help of his daughter's - both now ministers - he has found the
Lord today and managed to get away from drugs and crime. |
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On the left I am spending my birthday with
Alphonso in 2003. On the right he is entertaining my wife in 2004
with stories about the approximately 40 times he was in prison and
the two people he shot before he found God.
See
updates on his
life story and family here. |
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