In an OP-ED for the hill professor, Jason D. Hill was requesting that Trump send the military to take care of the gangs in Chicago. In this OP-ED he gave one of the best descriptions of the American dream I have ever read.
The Hill:
I am a black college professor who came to this country as a legal immigrant from Jamaica 32 years ago with $120 in my pocket. I worked for a year to save enough money for one semester of college, and for four years worked up to 45 hours per week while going to school full time. I graduated magna cum laude and then earned a scholarship to pursue a doctorate in philosophy. Not once did I believe that the state or America owed me anything except a chance to earn a living and pay my way as I journeyed through life.
When I came to this country I promised that, in the name of the best within me, I would cultivate the American virtues of individualism and personal excellence and take advantage of the opportunities that lay before me. These virtues would guide my actions and serve as the only legitimate currency to purchase a life that would be worthy of an American. And I would extend the American ethos of benevolence and goodwill to others, and expected it to be reciprocated. The America I have come to know and love as an American citizen is a country predicated on mutual exchange.
I am sure that there are countless other black individuals who want to make that covenant with America, who want to see the best within themselves be reflected and achieved in their noblest aspirational identities. This is because America can bring out the best in all persons if one chooses to cultivate one’s highest self. But I am pained when my young student from the South Side tells me that he has to drop out of college and join a gang because that’s the only way he won’t get harassed or killed. I am angry when I hear of the young woman who cannot cross the street to catch the bus to get to her university because she has to make herself sexually available to gang members before she can “cross turf.†Â
Here is a video of Hill talking about his love for America.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts6VXxSmyX0&w=560&h=315]
