Pimps, Whores and Welfare Brats: From Welfare Cheat to Conservative Messenger Book

The former welfare mom turned unlikely darling of the Republican party tells her story.

Publishers Weekly

As a young woman from a middle-class African American family, Parker spent her adolescence and youth running on the wild side, joining a gang, blowing up the car of a teacher who displeased her, sleeping around and taking the welfare system for all it was worth, including undergoing four abortions to get supplemental allotments. Eventually, she transformed herself, started a magazine that became a casualty of the post-Rodney King riots, which took a toll on her advertisers, and married a clergyman active in the anti-abortion movement. Part one of her book, written with People magazine correspondent Benet, is mostly autobiographical; in part two, "The Destruction of Black America," she comes out swinging on behalf of her conservative positions. In her lexicon, the pimps are government socialists (read liberal Democrats), the whores are the black leaders who support them (read Jesse Jackson) and the welfare brats are the children raised on government subsidies. Generally speaking, her agenda is that of the far right: changing the welfare system with a view to ending it, opposing abortion and supporting school prayer, school vouchers and a moral reawakening. As a conservative black woman, Parker has had to fight hard and often but is ready to do just that, although this effort is unlikely to convert many pimps. (Feb.)