“Yo, you gotta get your sister, man.”
The stranger who’d stopped us was talking to my uncle, and the “sister” in question was my mom. It was morning. Springtime. I had been walking to school with my uncle, who was only five years older than me, when the man saw us and jogged across the street. I was nine.
“What do you mean?” my uncle asked. “What’s going on?”
“She, you know…” The guy looked pained, considering his next words carefully, but eventually he pressed ahead. “She had sex with three or four dudes.” He pointed. “Right inside that building.”
She’d done it for drugs, I thought. He didn’t have to say it. We all knew. Pills, marijuana, crack cocaine…
We stood together, an odd fellowship in this alley along 72nd Street, all of us looking at the vacant building. It loomed over us, a dead and empty thing with shattered windows and yellow skin peeling from the walls. Caught in its long shadow, I adjusted the book bag on my shoulder.
“Thanks,” my uncle said. “Well…okay. Thanks.”
I went to school, but the events of that morning festered all day. The embarrassment that, undeniably, the whole community knew. Multiplication tables and vocabulary quizzes now meant nothing to me. I could no longer pretend that our family was the only one who knew how bad it had gotten.
In high school, my mom had been an honor-roll student with perfect attendance, but in the years that followed, she had become an addict who’d do anything for more drugs. She now ran with the worst sorts of people. She sometimes left her own kids, including my two young sisters, alone with guys she’d just met while she snuck off to get high.
It’s not like my family ever hid this fact, at least among ourselves. For us, everything was always out in the open. I grew up witnessing arguments and declarations of “We’re poor!” or “You’re high!” or “She’s prostituting herself out to some drug dealer!” I grew up enduring this information, comfortable with the faint delusion that our family’s problems were private.
But now I knew for sure. Our neighbors also knew what was going on. Some, it turns out, knew even more than I did. A year or so later, I would learn that my “uncle” was, in truth, my older brother. That my grandmother had adopted him and presented him to the world as hers when my mother got pregnant as a teenager.
After being stopped in the street that morning, things only got worse. Eventually, my grandmother demanded that my mother give over temporary custody of me and my siblings and go into rehab. “You gotta do it,” she pleaded. You gotta do it. You got to do it. I remember going to the currency exchange at 75th Street and Stony Island, next door to Jackson Park Hospital, and watching my mom get the paperwork notarized. “I give custody of my children…”
For the first time in memory, I felt a bit of relief. This was a new chance for all of us. A chance that my mom would get the help she needed and things would be okay again. That my siblings and I would move to a safer environment, one farther away from the epicenter of the gangs and violence, where we wouldn’t have to rely on government housing. A chance that we’d have somebody who’d actually look after us. That I had a future beyond my present.
But real change doesn’t come easy. And that road to a better future would be tougher to walk than I could ever imagine.
the South Side of Chicago. Maybe you know a little, that it can be rough and heartbreaking and oftentimes deadly.
I grew up in a house of addiction, poverty, government assistance, divorce, neglect, abandonment, and violence. This wasn’t a unique experience in my neighborhood, or in neighborhoods like it across the United States. A lot of kids had mothers or friends or family on drugs. People willing to do anything to get more. Many had brothers in gangs or in jail. Sisters addled on crack. Fathers and boyfriends who vanished—or, worse, stuck around with only their fists.
There was a club at my school, and everyone knew who its members were. There was no hiding it. From the stink of your unwashed clothes to kids cracking “jokes” in the lunchroom about your mom or dad being an addict or worse. Some kids came to school with fresh bruises every week.
If you were in this club, other students would rip on you. This was to be expected, I suppose. But the teachers also looked at you differently. Not with empathy or even pity. More like, they looked through you. As if your future was already written on your dirty clothes, in your weary eyes, on your dark skin.
Of course, “inner-city” Chicago could also be quite beautiful. The sound of genuine laughter from front porches and street corners as people told stories or played the dozens—a game in which two people square off in a friendly verbal war of insults. The sound of a choir on Sunday in a church that only held fifty. Kids playing basketball. Playing tag with friends, dashing past an open fire hydrant in July. Riding my bike all day past stores and getting ice cream from the ice cream truck on the rare days we could afford it.
I have genuine love for my hometown and roots. And, despite the hardships we faced, I grew up in a home of faith and hard work and prideful self-reliance.
But it’s also true that the bike from my memories was eventually stolen from me. A gang member plucked me off, set me aside, and pedaled off without a single word. I never saw that dude, or the bike, again. It’s almost funny now. Almost.
Even as an adult, at times, when I passed through the South Side or visited it as part of some news story I was shooting, my whole chest would still clench. My stomach sometimes roiled and turned. It was the same genuine panic I felt as a kid whenever I’d come back to the South Side after staying with my father or grandparents in a better neighborhood. Every time, every time, I was brought back to be with my mom, I was filled with palpable dread. Within inner-city Chicago, I could still fear the same danger and depression as before. Amplified by the fact that I’d gotten out, even more aware. Sure, I can play it off well if I’m on camera. That’s the job. But there’s an echo from what I felt as a child.
I remember when I first managed to move out into an apartment of my own. Even then, my childhood was never more than a few blocks away. The empty lots, the people torn down and hopeless. And always knowing that this is where I came from. Yes, I felt great compassion for those still living in those circumstances. But the anxiety remained, maybe even grew during those days, because I never wanted to live like that again.
Today, I appear regularly on the most-watched news channel on earth. I run a successful consulting firm that makes good money and also makes the world a better place. I’ve got apartments in L.A. and D.C. People say I’ve “come far.”
I suppose there’s truth to that. But I wrote this book to focus on an overlooked part of my perceived accomplishments. If I’ve achieved beyond any statistical or cultural expectations, if I’ve managed to play the cards dealt with some manner of success, it’s because:
1. I’ve relied on a core set of “conservative” values to make it happen.
2. I was not alone on this journey.
And the best thing is, I’m just getting started.
Well, it’s in the subtitle of this book. And yes, I eventually figured out that’s exactly where my values lie. That I:
Praise God and support Judeo-Christian values.
Respect and believe in the promise of the American Dream.
Trust the free market and the spirit of the entrepreneur.
Reject the size, scope, and intrusion of government in our lives.
Believe in individual liberty and personal responsibility.
Know that a democratic republic can produce and defend laws that secure equality and social justice for all.
Beyond what these conservative values have done for me personally—which is everything—I’ve also seen these same ideals change other people’s lives and the conditions of communities at the local, state, and federal level. I’ve seen them work for people across the country, people of all life experiences and challenges.
Will half the country not even pick up this book because I’m a conservative? Am I only preaching to the choir? I certainly hope not. If I used the term “traditional” or “small-town” values, would that help? (Then again, “small-town” wouldn’t be right. Three million people live in Chicago.)
I’ve heard all the labels.
The “black Republican.”
The “traditionalist millennial.”
The “Uncle Tom.”
The “Never Trumper.” The “Always Trumper.”
The “talking head” on TV.
Forget the labels. I did. Long ago. Here’s what I know instead.
My core principles, more than anything else, are what saved me from becoming a statistic. The same conservative values that have saved hundreds of millions of people—whether they know it or not—and still draw people from around the world to the United States every day.
In our current political landscape, too many Americans are taken for granted.
From those living in the inner city to the factory workers and owners of small businesses in the one-stoplight towns throughout our country. Liberalism and the Democratic Party have all too often held up the “American Dream” as something to mock and distrust. It’s a myth, they claim. A lie to keep those with power and riches safely entrenched where they are. All of those millions who’d arrived as immigrants (or clawed their way out of government housing) decade after decade to join the middle class or far beyond, sending their own kids off to college, building billion-dollar companies—those were just “anecdotal” tales to perpetuate the lie.
Upward social mobility could not be achieved, the liberals argued, without government assistance; and equal opportunities for prosperity required more regulation, not less. Meanwhile, those most trapped within the system built by these ideals were slipping further and further away from prosperity.
I’m writing this book because I believe the American Dream isn’t a fairy tale—or, worse, some liberal punchline. I believe these values can propel this country, me, and you to the heights we were always meant to reach.
And I believe it, most of all, because that’s how it happened for me.
I wanted to own property.
I’d been inspired by my pastor, Dr. Bill Winston, who’d been pushing members of the church to go out and own something—real estate, a business, stocks—and by the guest speaker he’d brought in to emphasize that message: Farrah Gray.
Gray was a young black businessman and motivational speaker from Chicago. He grew up in the projects, but by the time he was six years old, he had started a business making homemade lotions and painted rocks. Through various endeavors in everything from prepaid phone cards to a food company targeted at teens, he’d become a millionaire by age fourteen. This guy had persevered through the most abysmal of circumstances, making his way out of some of the same projects I’d lived in as a kid and creating wealth for himself and his family. I was inspired by his testimony and his ability to ignore the naysayers along the way.
Less than one year later, I purchased a multiunit apartment building for myself. This happened without any assistance from friends or family. Had they known what I was up to while I was in the process, they probably would have discouraged me. They’d never done anything like that themselves, and nobody around me believed I would be any different. The only people in my family I told about my plans were my Aunt Patricia and my godmother, Barbara, neither of whom ever questioned my “wild” dreams and ideas.
My grandmother, who largely raised me and my siblings, often told me that my older brother was going to be the successful one and I was not. I’ll never know if this was because she’d raised my older brother as her own son or because out of the nine siblings in my family (by seven different fathers), I was the only one with an active father, and this was her way of evening the playing field. Today, she only tells me that she was wrong. But the greater tragedy, far beyond any pain I felt at her early assessment, is that my older brother has been in and out of jail for years. These days, I feel more saddened than angry when I think back on her bleak outlook. But I share my grandmother’s words here to show that this was the bar that had been set for me.
To her, and others, my future was already cast.
The poverty made it so. My parents.
My schooling. My block.
The color of my skin.
This is why I feel for individuals who find themselves surrounded by loved ones who don’t think they can do better than those who came before them. Environment plays such an important role in determining your mindset and motivation. In a lot of cases, the concept of what you can be is based on the people around you and what they give you.
This isn’t an issue relegated to any one neighborhood, creed, or tax bracket. Recently, I was in the Fox News makeup room with a successful, white, hyper-educated producer and her sixteen-year-old daughter. We began to chat. “What are your plans for college?” I asked the teen.
“I wanted to go to Brown…” she said excitedly, before looking down. “But I’m not going to apply because I won’t get in.”
“Why would you say that?” I asked, genuinely surprised.
“Because my guidance counselor told me to be realistic,” she said.
Behind her, her mother nodded in agreement.
I was beyond disappointed. This girl was barely sixteen. “Be realistic” is not only unhelpful advice, it is harmful. It is a dream killer.
We have to let go of the fallacy that so many people buy into: “My dad was a truck driver, so I have to become one, too.” “No one in my family ever went to college, so I probably won’t either.” “I can’t get into a school like Brown.” “Moving to New York or Paris or Singapore to pursue a career in X is a one-in-a-million chance, so…”
My own grandfather, a hardworking plumber and small business owner, had his own ideas about my future. He thought I would continue the family business. He was the first to have faith in me, in my abilities, before anyone else in my family, yet that was the full extent of the life he’d imagined for me.
But that did not stop me from pursuing careers in government, lobbying, consulting, and television.
Such possibilities will likely not “reveal” themselves as some cookie-cutter path that you or I can just walk down with ease. We have to create such paths ourselves, with determination and the knowledge that God is right up there creating for us. That’s why I always tell people to aim as high as they can. Don’t look at Oprah Winfrey or Barack Obama or Steve Jobs or anyone who’s achieved great success and think, They’re just exceptional. They are not exceptional. They just refused to succumb to limiting beliefs and found a way to tap into their full potential.
I rose out of poverty and reached professional heights that few people thought possible—including myself—but I, too, am not exceptional or special. I’m certainly not the first kid to make it out of the projects, nor am I the first black conservative you ever saw on TV. I am not the first person on earth to achieve more than was expected of him. Many, in fact, work to overcome even greater obstructions of health or upbringing or financial ruin than me. My desire is not to compete with those who’ve had it worse or better, but only to expose the terrible lie of limitations and share the values that made the next steps possible for me.
All of us have been constrained in one way or another. Limited by societal expectations. By our own families. By words. Limited by where we get our ideas, and whom we’ll work with to solve the big problems and achieve grand dreams. Limited by our own self-doubt. But when I first started following fundamental conservative values, it ended all of that for me. It destroyed all such limitations by giving me faith in God, faith in the process, and, ultimately, faith in myself.
It’s why I walked into an alderman’s office at age fourteen to get my first internship. It’s why I started working part-time for the federal government by sixteen. It’s why I figured out how to earn a college degree. Why I started my own consulting firm in Washington, D.C. Why I became a political analyst, correspondent, and host on television. Why I moved to Los Angeles, where I could pursue those things and others to a greater degree.
The term “crab mentality” comes from the phenomenon that occurs when one crab attempts to escape a bucketful of crabs and the others work together to pull the hopeful escapee back into the bucket. Remind you of anyone you know? Each of us is shaped in an environment that can, if we let it, contain and constrain our truest self and potential.
Look around, though, and you’ll spot people everywhere who’ve transcended that influence. They come in all shapes and colors and industries. Technology, social justice, music, sports, politics. These are the ones who’ve rejected the limitations of dependency and victimhood and expectations of humanity at its lowest.
This book is my attempt to share with you the times I’ve had to break down such walls and to challenge whatever the status quo might be. Each time I’ve done so, it has been with the strength and confidence I’ve discovered as a conservative.
My journey has not come without the loss of friends and family, without missteps and retreats. And my journey is not yet over.
But I’ve lived the other life—the one many find themselves trapped in every day—a life painted by the fears and expectations of others. Community, family, friends. They say: You are this race, gender, age, zip code, education, and so on. Therefore, this is the future you will have. It is the safe way, the known way. The way that is perceived to have worked before. It is the way you, your greatest detractor, often see for yourself.
Forget that way.
In matters of politics, faith, career, relationships, and self-growth.
I am a conservative for two reasons.
First, these values work. They’ve worked for generations before me and for me personally.
And second, I had no other choice.
The alternative—a life of self-doubt and dependence and victimization—was a path that led only to some decrepit building on 72nd Street.
Whether for me personally or for the United States as a country, I knew the better course lay in finding truth and strength in a set of values that were here long before me and would continue long after. I would no longer be taken for granted.
My hope is that in discussing these values in terms of today’s issues, politics, and my own life, I may convey to others that conservatism isn’t some “bitter old man’s” attempt to keep things as they once were in the past. Instead, it is a powerful beacon, a verified force…
…for how things should be in our future.