Pick a Better Country [Paperback]

Ken Hamblin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 3, 1997

Calling himself "The Black Avenger, " Ken Hamblin insists that America works for anyone who is willing to seize this country's opportunities, remain diligent, and commit to our traditional values of right and wrong. From Hamblin's perspective, all black Americans today share this opportunity. They are no longer victims, and white people should stop feeling guilty about the past. Raised on welfare in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, Hamblin knows what it's like to grow up poor. And he faced segregation firsthand, as an Army soldier stationed in the South in the days before the civil rights movement. But he refused to settle for poverty, never making it an excuse for failure or assuming it was his lot in life as a black American. And after joining the millions of other Americans who took down "colored" and "white only" signs in the 1960s, today he is demanding to take his place as a fully vested American. Saying things that "a white person wouldn't get away with, " Hamblin criticizes black trash - if there's white trash, then it follows that there can be black trash. The difference is that we've allowed this sick culture of gangsta rap, drugs, gangs, and welfare to be glorified by some as the only "authentic" black American culture; brood mares - what else can you call young black girls who are having babies, more than 90 percent illegitimate, with no means other than welfare to care for them?; black thugs - they go on crime rampages, claiming to be leading a phony social justice crusade on behalf of their race, but the truth is that they have probably snuffed out more of their own than any white racist group; poverty pimps - these black urban politicians devote their entir political careers to delivering nothing but government welfare to their stagnant communities of isolated constituents; quota blacks - they'll always be second-class citizens because emotionally and numerically they fill outmoded affirmative-action minority slots in the workplace

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Ken Hamblin has been called the black Rush Limbaugh, but it might be better to call Limbaugh the white Ken Hamblin. Liberals will find this book hard-going, but it ought to be required reading for anyone concerned about the plight of black America. A former Army newspaper photographer and film producer-turned-newspaper-columnist and talk-radio host, Hamblin is a tough-minded commentator, unafraid to speak his mind about matters of race and class in America. Liberals, in his view, aren't just liberals; they're "egg-sucking dog liberals" whose patronizing concern for blacks has led to a debilitating inability of many blacks to do for themselves. In Pick a Better Country, which is a mix of autobiography and polemic, Hamblin fulminates against a familiar roster of evils--drugs, welfare, unwed mothers--interspersing his commentary with anecdotes from his life that illustrate how he persevered, and succeeded, in America.

From Publishers Weekly

Denver-based syndicated radio talk-show host Ken Hamblin rides Harleys, flies airplanes and has been called "the black Rush Limbaugh." While he has neither provoked the following nor the counterattacks that Limbaugh has, his book?a mix of autobiography and rant?shows both the strengths and weaknesses of conservative talk radio. Citing his personal experience growing up on welfare in Brooklyn, Hamblin offers himself as living proof that poverty need not preclude personal responsibility or be used as an excuse for not seeking advancement. Similarly, he excoriates white liberals and black leaders for extolling rap music and the street argot of underclass culture. He calls that culture "black trash," a term he justifies as a racial counterpart to the more common "white trash." Hamblin's other memorable terms are talk-radio pejoratives: "brood mares" for teen welfare mothers; "egg-sucking dog liberals" for white liberals who ally with black "poverty pimps" to hobble blacks' sense of self-reliance. Unfortunately, Hamblin's political analysis is talk-radio shallow, made up of self-help bromides, pep-rally exhortations about the American dream and mud pies flung at liberals' "socialist" agenda and the alleged personal failings of welfare recipients. Hamblin offers volume?but no serious reflection on the forces creating the underclass. Author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (November 3, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684843188
• ISBN-13: 978-0684843186
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,886,123 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Straight Talk on the American Dream, June 18, 2002

By 

Big Dave (Boise, Idaho) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pick a Better Country (Paperback)

This book, written in a punchy and engaging voice, is part memoir, part political diatribe and all truth.

The American Dream is out there, in reach of every American. You work hard, you take risks, you invest the time, the money, the training, and you make a good life for you and your family. This is the archetypal American Story, it is Ken Hamblin's story, and, as Ken fiercely argues, it is a common story. It can be your story.

Even if you're black, poor, and from a rough neighborhood.

In his explication of the American Dream, Hamblin particularly attacks those that would force black Americans to be victims, from the "black thugs" and the "brood mares" that demand ever-increasing entitlements that can only destroy their own lives and the vitality of their communities, to the "poverty pimps" and the "egg-sucking dog liberals" whose own power depends on telling the black underclass that they are doomed to failure and victimhood, the only salvation lying in voting for the politician who will bring back a bigger bite of the welfare apple.

Hamblin punches hard and talks straight, punctuating each chapter with correspondence -- both supporting and hateful -- he has received in response to his writings and radio show. Entertaining and informative.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This should be a must-read textbook for inner-city schools, October 11, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: PICK A BETTER COUNTRY: An Unassuming Colored Guy Speaks His Mind About America (Hardcover)

Ken Hamblin is a first generation,self-made American. He does not use hyphens or letters to descibe himself. Instead,he calls himself colored or negro. In his book he illustrates the disservice done by liberals to blacks and other minorities in America. He points out the fact that the liberal's patrinization of minorities has done more harm than good because it fails to allow an individual to accept responsibility for their own actions. Ken Hamblin uses examples from his own experiences as a journalist. He also cites personal observations while traveling across America on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle and in his airplane, of what he sees going on around him. Witty and at the same time hardhitting, he exposes the on-going liberal hypocrisy and how it rewards laziness,while simultaneously condemning achievement. He offers simple, easy to adopt solutions to this problem. He also prints comments from listeners of his syndicated radio program. America still works, the dream is still alive. The viewpoints are an American view. Very real, very informative, and very entertaining.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading for anyone living in darktown., June 30, 2000

By 

R. J. Riggs (Plano, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pick a Better Country (Paperback)

Darktown. Black trash. Brood mares. Ken Hamblin speaks the truth, a truth that is bare and bold and harsh. So harsh, in fact, that some reviewers make claims that he uses no facts and two sentences later cite his use of factual events in an attempt to disparage him.

This book has driven the Left mad because a kid from the ghetto has learned that the American Dream is alive and well, whether you are black, brown, or white, if only you would embrace it. I think this book should be in every poor and rural school in the country. It is an outstanding tome on what it means to be an American.