Specific Purpose Statement: to provide comprehensive information about the life and times of Griselda Blanco
Thesis Statement: This paper seeks to present Griselda Blanco and life-changing lessons drawn from her life.
Introduction
All protocols observed, ladies and gentlemen. I present to you one of the most outstanding women in Miami; Griselda Blanco. In spite of the enormous might possessed by the U.S. government, Griselda managed to run one of the most sophisticated drug networks in Florida for many years. Her drug distribution is estimated to have earned her about USD 80 million a month. She escaped various assassination attempts staged against her by her rivals. So smart were her operations that she escaped arrest by authorities for many years. When she got arrested and sentenced to over a decade in jail, she continued to run her drug business from behind bars. In 2004, her case collapsed, mainly due to technicalities, and she was released from prison and extradited to Columbia. At the end of this speech, you will understand why two wrongs can never make a right.
In this speech, I will discuss the following key points:
- How the environment in which a child is brought up impacts on who he or she becomes when they grow up
- How defiance, greed and self-centeredness replaces moral and social responsibility in an individual
Ladies and gentlemen, we now shift our focus to the points highlighted above.
Body
I. How the environment in which a child is brought up impacts on whom he or she becomes when they grow up.
Griselda was born in Cartagena, Colombia and at age 3, she moved live in a slum neighborhood in Medellin. At age 11, Blanco is said to have kidnapped, attempted to ransom and later shot a child from an uptown neighborhood of her slum.
At age 14, Blanco ran away from her mother that is said to have been physically abusive. She then resorted to prostitution for a few years. When she turned 20, she got married to her first husband. Her relationship with her mother may have affected her as a child while growing up (Eiden, Lewis, Croff, & Young, 2002).
We now look at the second main point.
II. How defiance, greed and self-centeredness replaces moral and social responsibility in an individual.
Griselda killed several people that stood in her way. She is said to have planned the killing of at least two hundred people. She killed her own husband at short range. Further, she introduced her own children to drug trafficking. Three of her sons, who had been deported to Colombia from the U.S. on prison sentences, were assassinated in Columbia. When Griselda and the father of her son Michael disagreed over custody, she hired assassins to kill him and bring her son back to her in Miami.
Having said that, ladies and gentlemen, here is the conclusion:
Conclusion
In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, Griselda may have succeeded in advancing her agenda; whatever it may have been. She lost three of her children in the cocaine drug network saga. The last born child is under custody for cocaine related offenses (Francisco, 2012). She is said to have planned more than two hundred assassinations.
The statement of the thesis for this speech was to present Griselda Blanco and life-changing lessons drawn from her life. While Griselda tried to survive in the very prohibitive world where she was born, she chose a wrong path. In the process, she ruined many people’s lives – including her own and that of her family.
Blanco’s slum life may have taken a toll on her while growing up. Unfortunately, it brought to her an irreparable damage that saw her lead her entire life in crime. Her defiance, greed and self-centeredness saw her get deep into the world of cocaine trafficking, killing those that stoop in her way- including her own husband. Should Blanco have put her tremendous energy into good use, she could have contributed positively to humanity. Like they say, of what benefit will it be to gain the whole world and lose one’s soul?
Thank you.
References
Eiden, R., Lewis, A., Croff, S., & Young, E. (2002). Maternal cocaine use and infant behavior. Infancy, 3, 79-93
Francisco, A. (2012). Griselda Blanco’s son Michael Corleone still faces cocaine trafficking charge in Miami. Miami New Times. Retrieved from: http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2012/09/michael_corleone_blanco_grisel.php
