Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

“Trump is my brother. You don’t have to agree with Trump but the mob can’t make me not love him. We are both dragon energy. He is my brother. I love everyone. I don’t agree with everything anyone does. That’s what makes us individuals. And we have the right to independent thought.” – Kanye West

The last few weeks has seen far too much honesty for the Democrat Party slave owners in Washington D.C. and the other liberal urban ghetto strongholds, as a couple uppity blacks have dared to question the liberal narrative. It all started when Kim Kardashian’s better half – Kanye West – dared to go off the plantation and speak his mind about Donald Trump, Candace Owens and black people in general. His tweet about Candace Owens started the shitstorm.

“I love the way Candace Owens thinks.”

It seems innocent enough, but Candace Owens happens to be a young black woman who has become a social media Twitter sensation because she promotes conservative values and criticizes the black victim-hood narrative promoted by liberal politicians and their mainstream media mouthpieces. Twitter exploded with outrage from the left and accolades from the right. Never to let an opportunity pass, Trump promptly tweeted:

“Thank you Kanye, very cool!”

The outrage and vitriol only grew more intense as Twitter exploded over the next few days. Trump, who Democrats and the left wing media constantly portray as a racist, again received props from another well known black rap artist – Chance the Rapper—who tweeted:

“Black people don’t have to be democrats.”

You could practically see the heads of Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, Chuckie Schumer, Rachel Maddow, and Chris Cuomo exploding simultaneously as their black victim-hood narrative began to unravel. How dare these rogue black men and woman question the standard orthodoxy of the left, used to elect Democrats for decades in the deteriorating urban shitholes in which blacks overwhelmingly inhabit.

The left’s powerful hold on black voters is dependent upon them believing the welfare state benefits the black community. Any discussion of personal responsibility, jobs, marriage, and real education would loosen the chains enslaving blacks in Democrat controlled districts across the country. Smelling liberal bloodletting, Trump immediately poured gasoline on the growing fire with this tweet:

“Kanye West has performed a great service to the Black Community – Big things are happening and eyes are being opened for the first time in Decades – Legacy Stuff! Thank you also to Chance and Dr. Darrell Scott, they really get it (lowest Black & Hispanic unemployment in history).”

Trump conveniently ignores the fact the number of blacks not in the labor force is also at a record high. It’s amazing how low you can drive the unemployment rate if you pretend tens of millions are not really in the labor force. But why let some facts get in the way of a feel good story about black people. As liberals condemned Kanye and inferred he had lost his mind again, he managed to take the outrage to level 11 with this doozy of a tweet:

“When you hear about slavery for 400 years … For 400 years? That sounds like a choice.”

It was priceless watching left wing nutjob rage, anger and wrath against such an outrageous traitorous statement by this presumptuous black man with 28 million Twitter followers. The faux outrage on MSNBC and CNN revealed them to be as vacuous and weak minded as all critical thinking people know them to be. West was not saying slavery was not a terrible scourge and negative era in our history. He was telling black people slavery was abolished over 150 years ago, so stop blaming your problems on something that hasn’t impacted them in generations. The liberal race baiter politicians use the slavery narrative to keep blacks downtrodden on their urban ghetto plantations.

This is the same Kanye West who shocked the world by declaring Bush didn’t care about black people on national TV during a telethon for Hurricane Katrina victims. Along with his no talent fat assed reality TV star wife Kim Kardashian, Kanye West is an attention whore. It’s good for business. His tweets have elevated his name recognition and will generate more CD sales and concert sellouts. The conservative twitterphere has gone bonkers over Kanye, especially after a minuscule Reuters poll of 200 black men showed a doubling in Trump support from 11% to 22% after Kanye’s tweets.

The slavery and plantation analogy used by Kanye strikes me as appropriate, since I’ve been trekking through the urban ghetto plantation of West Philly for the last twelve years observing the slaves in their natural habitat. With the recent acquisition of a basic cheap smart phone a few months ago, I’ve been unleashed to document the 30 Blocks of Squalor with my camera. Mistimed stop lights and gaping potholes along the route make progress very slow, offering plenty of opportunity to take pictures. I believe the observable reality of West Philly confirms the points of view offered by Kanye West and Candace Owens.

In 59 voting divisions in Philadelphia, mostly in North and West Philadelphia, Mitt Romney received ZERO votes in the 2012 presidential election. The communities I pass through in West Philly are 95% occupied by black folks. In Philadelphia, Obama beat Romney by 486,000 votes in 2012 and Clinton beat Trump by 455,000 in 2016. Every urban ghetto shithole across the land, controlled by the Democrat plantation owners, sees the same result in every election. The black slaves vote overwhelmingly for their continued poverty and enslavement. The welfare mentality has been ingrained in their psyches after 50 years of Great Society programs worked their magic.

Democrats have had complete control of Philadelphia for the last six decades. The downward spiral has been accelerating as the Democrat solutions are always higher taxes, more welfare payments, bowing down to unions, corruption, and awful government run schools. The result has been white flight, business flight, dependency mentality, poverty, unpayable government union pension liabilities, politicians in prison, crime, gaping potholes, exploding water pipes, houses that collapse during a heavy rainstorm, and ever expanding squalor. The implementation of the welfare state has strengthened the chains of black slavery, insuring their subjugation in squalor.

When viewing the dilapidated hovels I’ve photographed on my daily commute through the 30 Blocks of Squalor, remember these were once well built sturdy housing occupied by people who worked for a living and took care of their homes and neighborhood. Of course, that was prior to LBJ’s Great Society promises in 1965. This despicable excuse for a human being is still revered by Democrats and black leaders despite his true thoughts about his Great Society legislation that has destroyed the black community. But, so far, his prediction has been accurate through the first 53 years:

“I’ll have those niggers voting Democrat for the next 200 years.” – Lyndon B. Johnson

This lovely duplex is located on Girard Avenue in West Philly. The city’s response to abandoned properties is to board up the windows and let nature eat away at the structure until it collapses during a heavy rainstorm (I’ve seen it happen). Notice the multiple Direct TV dishes on the building, including the boarded up side. It is baffling to me that in neighborhoods where the average household income is $15,000 (mostly welfare payments) and the average house is worth $25,000, every house has a satellite dish, every person shuffling along the streets has a smartphone, and there are a multitude of $40,000 vehicles parked on the garbage strewn streets.

The hand written sign on the side of this dilapidated crumbling fleapit says “Everything Must Go”. Everything went a long time ago. The orange sticker from the city says it’s condemned, but it looks to be in the same shape as 50% of the occupied buildings along Market Street in West Philly. It’s shocking that an Obama inspired black entrepreneur hasn’t snatched up this prime retail location and started a thriving business.

This picture captures so much of the ambiance of West Philly. You’ve got a couple ramshackle boarded up houses, the required roll down steel security shutters for every business, graffiti applied by some fine upstanding scholars, an abandoned vehicle, and garbage and trash littering the entire scene. The degradation, apathy and descent into societal abyss of this black community all wrapped up in one photograph.

I wonder if the houses in Baghdad require bars across both the downstairs and upstairs windows. It appears the two best businesses to be in along the 30 Blocks of Squalor is selling security gates and plywood. I guess if you feel it is OK to throw your trash on the street, shoveling your sidewalk is probably out of the question.

I can honestly say there are absolutely no retail establishments in my slice of suburbia that feel the need to install roll down steel security shutters or security gates when they close up shop for the evening. This requirement along the 30 Blocks of Squalor reveals an uncivilized, lawless, dangerous community, inhabited by people lacking comprehension of right and wrong. They have no sense of community or morality, as stealing, killing and throwing garbage on their streets is deemed acceptable. The local news, every evening, details the murders, robberies, rapes and assaults in this urban kill zone.

I’ve determined a perfect test for how dangerous and run down a section of West Philly is with my mural index. Democrat politicians and black community leaders seem to believe having white artists painting glorious murals portraying the black people of that community as fearless leaders, academics and heroes will actually inspire the downtrodden, ignorant, welfare dependent residents to rise up in the world. Instead, the irony is lost on these bozos, as the mural index shows – the more murals per square block, the more likely you are to be murdered on that block. With two murals side by side, you should be ducking while driving by. Interpreting the meaning of the murals must require a PhD in ebonics.

I’ve always found this biker bar to be amusing in a warped sort of way. The sign on their entrance says “Death to the KKK”. That’s an interesting message, considering the KKK is not and never has been an organization prominent in any way in Philadelphia or the Northeast United States. I’m guessing they aren’t too welcoming towards white people in that bar. I picture the black bar scene in Animal House with Otis Day singing Shama lama ding dong.

You know you are in a bad neighborhood when the Pest Control business (probably the most profitable business in West Philly) is completely encased in bars to keep the feral neighborhood dogs at bey. They are peerless in exterminating rats, roaches, mice and any other varmints frequenting your dilapidated dump.

Just before reaching the West Philly border in Upper Darby (the nice Darby – lower Darby might be worse than West Philly) a large building filled with crappy furniture pretends to be a retail store. When your main marketing message is OPEN, the quality of your merchandise is probably iffy. The little blue sign says NO CREDIT needed. They know their clientele.

A billboard further down the road for another furniture store also touts NO CREDIT NEEDED. This is the ghetto. The real unemployment rate is north of 50%. The other 50% are working at low paying shit service jobs. Only a fool would lend them money to buy furniture. Unless it’s just the plantation owners keeping the slaves subservient and subdued. The Wall Street cabal has a monopoly on credit through their control of the Federal Reserve. If the Fed provides free money to Wall Street and they charge 29% interest to poverty stricken black people who don’t understand math, they can afford high default rates. Great business plan. And if it all goes to shit, the American taxpayer will bail them out.

There is no way for poor black people in West Philly to escape their chains of debt enslavement when their only options are subprime debt to finance furniture, appliance and auto purchases. They are dependent upon the state for their welfare subsistence and eternally dependent upon the Wall Street cabal to finance their living at loan shark level interest rates and terms. The Great Society programs were supposed to lift minorities up, but they have created generations of bitter, dismayed, ignorant, dependent, poor, Democratic voters. And it all revolves around the engineered destruction of the family unit and purposeful failure to educate the children.

Government programs promoting the destruction of the black family unit have created havoc in West Philly and in urban ghettos across the land. In 1960 22% of black children lived with single parents. By 2006, the 1960 percentage had more than doubled to 56%. Less than 20% of black children were born out of wedlock in 1960. Today, 73% of black children are born out of wedlock. Amazingly, government will always get more of what it incentivizes. When welfare programs pay people more money to have children out of wedlock and not marry, this is the result. The destruction of the black family unit by Democrat policies has wrought destruction, poverty and generations of helpless slaves.

“If you want to see the poor remain poor, generation after generation, just keep the standards low in their schools and make excuses for their academic shortcomings and personal misbehavior. But please don’t congratulate yourself on your compassion.” – Thomas Sowell

Education was the only way for black people to cast off their chains, obtain jobs paying middle class wages, and rising out of poverty. Faux liberal compassion, government run schools with dumbed down standards, unionized teachers matriculating unmotivated, fatherless, ignorant kids through a demented socialization program disguised as education for an average cost of $12,000 per student has destroyed any chance for generations of black children to succeed in life and elevate their community. It’s almost as if corrupt politicians and feckless government bureaucrats want to keep their black constituents ignorant, dependent and helpless.

Despite billions spent on welfare programs to supposedly elevate poor blacks, virtually all businesses along the 30 Blocks of Squalor are owned and operated by whites and Asians. The old building on Market Street that formerly housed Dick Clark’s American Bandstand now houses the government funded Enterprise Center, an organization that counsels minority-owned businesses and disadvantaged entrepreneurs. The counseling hasn’t worked. Without strong two parent households and a good education, black entrepreneurs are more scarce in West Philly than a woman with a wedding ring. It is a wonder the white and Asian owners of steak shops and delis stay. They are robbed and shot on a regular basis.

Another fascinating observation on the 30 Blocks is the presence of H&R Block, among other national tax preparation firms. Why would this be? With average household incomes below $20,000, most of the people in West Philly pay no Federal Income taxes. Chalk it up to another welfare scam designed to help the poor and downtrodden. The Earned Income Tax Credit is available to people who don’t work and earn no income. You, the taxpayer, pay your taxes so they can be handed as tax refunds to people who pay no income taxes. The fine folks at H&R Block fill out all the forms, charge the poor people outrageous fees and then lure them into borrowing against their refunds at Shylock level interest rates.

This is how corporate America extracts their crops from the plantation. H&R Block utilizes the rampant ignorance in West Philly to generate profits. They capitalize on their lack of impulse control and delayed gratification abilities to offer them their refunds before the IRS sends the check. Meanwhile, H&R Block extracts a “fee” that equates to north of 50% interest. It’s the same story with the $70 billion food stamp program. JP Morgan administers the program and extracts hundreds of millions in fees. Wal-Mart and the other corporate mega-retailers reap the windfall of the spending. Corporate America loves the welfare state.

I have far more respect for the Muslim dude selling baby turtles next to the Phila Zoo at 34th and Girard than I do for Wall Street bankers and mega-corporations raping the poor. On hot days you will find young black guys selling cold water bottles in the stopped traffic. Given some skills and opportunity, these guys might succeed in this world. But on most days they are usually outnumbered by the lazy beggars.

As you motor around these days you might notice most of the newly constructed buildings are either banks or government offices. That should tell you everything you need to know about the winners and losers in the economy today. The newest building on the 30 Blocks of Squalor is a Social Security Administration Building. Why in the ghetto of West Philly? My guess is that after the Obama extended unemployment scam ended, deadbeats needed to fake disabilities in order to get onto the SSDI gravy train. So they made it easy for the “not in the labor force” West Philly patrons to shuffle on over to the Social Security office and pretend they have a soft tissue disability or depression or diabetes because they weigh 350 pounds. The victim-hood mentality is ingrained in this community.

I found it amusing a couple weeks ago when liberals screamed in outrage at Ben Carson’s proposal to increase the amount residents must pay towards their public housing rent from 30% to 35% of their household income. Carson, who grew up in extreme poverty in Detroit and became a neurosurgeon, captured the essence of what these welfare programs should do:

“Government should not keep people in a dependent state. It should be used as a springboard, and not as a hammock.”

The formula for public housing subsidies is warped. Just like all these programs, they encourage people not to work and not to generate “too much” income. The history of public housing has been a disaster. The picture below represents the old and the new of public housing. Both buildings are located at 45th and Market. The rat and drug infested tenement on the left is a 20 story crime scene built in the 1970s. Cops are afraid to enter this building. It will eventually be imploded, like many before it.

The new and improved public housing is of the townhouse variety. Some even have gated parking and retail storefronts built within them. Democrat politicians are sure if they build retail storefronts, retailers will come. The 8 storefront shops in the Mantua Square low income housing mecca are 100% unoccupied four years after being built with your tax dollars. Notice the gate around the low income housing townhouses. There are deadly spikes on the top of the gate. Seems like a great neighborhood where you can safely raise your fatherless children. These townhouses will deteriorate and crumble, as the residents feel entitled to free housing and will not take care of them. The spiked gate should remind them, they are still on the government plantation.

In 2014 Obama designated the 2 square miles of Mantua, in West Philly, as one of his Promise Zones, promising to redevelop the neighborhood, create jobs, and make it safe again. I drive through this neighborhood every day. Absolutely nothing has changed since 2014. A few dilapidated buildings have been bulldozed, but nothing replaced them. No new businesses. No jobs. The schools are as pathetic as ever. The murders and robberies haven’t ceased. And drug dealing is still the top job in the community. Thomas Sowell had Obama pegged:

“One of the reasons it has taken so long for some people to finally see through Barack Obama is that people do not like to admit, even to themselves, that they have been played for fools by a slick-talking politician.”

Black people have been played by Obama and other race baiting liberal politicians for decades. After spending over $10 trillion on welfare programs since 1965, the poverty rate has barely budged. The dependency mentality has been passed down though multiple generations. Liberal politicians, in conspiracy with Wall Street, the liberal media, and corporate America, have enslaved urban blacks in chains of ignorance, welfare addiction, blaming white people, immorality, and criminal mentality.

Highly educated conservative minded black men like Thomas Sowell, Walter E. Williams, and Ben Carson are scorned and ridiculed by the left. But when a rapper like Kanye, hero to millions of young black people, breaks with the plantation owners and speaks the truth, panic ensues. The liberals will circle the wagons to protect their black voting block. They will likely succeed, as it will be tough to break 50 years of trained dependency. If Trump can pull off convincing 20% of black people to vote for him and the Republican party, he will become a legend.

George Carlin’s American Dream tirade captures the essence of our predicament, and it particularly applies to the inhabitants of West Philly and all the other urban ghettos in Democrat strongholds around the country.