Dr. Ben Carson being under fire for saying “poverty is a state of mind” during an interview is a prime reason why black Americans should end their insane loyalty to the Democrat Party.

In essence, Dr. Carson compassionately gave his fellow blacks a crucial key to personal success and overcoming poverty. And yet, Democrat and Leftist self-proclaimed advocates for black empowerment rushed to silence him; beating the crap out of him in the media. As a black man, I am so frustrated.

Up until around age 9, I was raised in the Baltimore projects. My mom, dad, four younger siblings and I were so excited moving from our leaky roof ghetto into a brand new 11 story government high-rise.

In a very short time, the new building became a huge ghetto; elevators out-of-order much of the time due to vandalism. The stairwells smelled of urine and were dark due to busted light bulbs, perfect for muggings. After school walking up to our 6B apartment, the sound of me walking on broken wine bottles echoed off the concrete walls. A few residents kept their apartment nice. The majority had no pride in keeping their no-skin-in-the-game free housing nice.

At a very young age, I realized taking the poor out of the ghetto was not enough when their ghetto mindset was alive and well.

Despite free housing, food and health-care, the vibe of the projects was angry and violent. Thank God in 1952, my dad broke the color barrier to become a Baltimore City firefighter. Our family moved out of the projects into a black suburban community in Pumphrey, MD. Sadly, my cousins who lived in fatherless households stayed in the projects, enslaved to government. Government is a poor substitute for real daddies. And yes, I felt my cousin’s daddy envy. Their tragic lives were filled with drug and alcohol abuse, out-of-wedlock births, more poverty and AIDS.

Incredibly, most of my cousins died extremely young; never experiencing the joy of personal achievement or pursuing a dream. Insidiously, government provided just enough to get by and keep them voting for Democrats.

In major cites controlled by Democrats like Chicago, Baltimore and Washington DC, I see the same cycle of government dependency and poverty I witnessed while growing up, but far worse.

Meanwhile, Democrats and Leftists are doing the same thing to Dr. Carson that they do to anyone who dares to compassionately offer real solutions to ending black poverty. Democrats and Leftists seek to silence and destroy this extraordinary black role model and advocate of real black empowerment.

Democrats and Leftists despise blacks who have achieved extraordinary success the old fashion way by earning it; businessman extraordinaire Herman Cain, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, world-renowned retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson and former secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to name a few.

These successful blacks expose the Democrats’ and Leftist’s lying narrative that America will always be a hellhole of racism for blacks in which blacks’ only hope is to continuously vote for Democrats to keep evil white racist Republicans and conservatives at bay. The Democrats’ and Leftist’s scheme is extremely destructive and evil.

Please, please, please, Dr. Carson, continue telling the truth.

Lloyd Marcus, The Unhyphenated American. Author: “Confessions of a Black Conservative: How the Left has shattered the dreams of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Black America.” Singer/Songwriter and Conservative Activist.