[The View From Washington]
In modern culture, an icon is a symbol; a name, face, picture, or even a person readily recognized as having some well-known significance or embodying certain qualities.
That face or person begins to represent something else of greater significance through literal or figurative meaning. With his speech at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast and his recent CPAC speech, Dr. Ben Carson has become the new Black conservative darling. He’s a great pediatric surgeon but a terrible icon for the political collective.
Here’s part of what he said in his CPAC speech: “Nobody is starving on the streets (of America). We have always taken care of them. We have churches which actually are much better mechanisms for taking care of the poor because they are right there with them. This is one of the reasons we give tax breaks to churches…”
Dr. Carson has an incredibly compelling and motivational story. Born into poverty in Detroit in 1951 and raised by a single mother with a third-grade education, Carson became the first surgeon to separate conjoined twins and the youngest to head a surgical department. His focus, work ethic, and commitment to excellence should be emulated by as many as possible.
One problem with Dr. Carson and others like him – Justice Thomas, Michael Steele, Wardell Connerly and Condoleezza Rice — is how they have lent their voices and their personal narratives to conservatives in ways that allow them to undermine the social safety net in America.
The argument is that these individuals have overachieved in spite of the odds; therefore, the inability of the poor in America to rise into the middle class or beyond is due to personal failure, lack of drive, initiative, and dependence upon the system.
Carson, Rice, and Thomas made it; why can’t you?
Another problem with their “realities” is their failure to recognize or admit how they benefited from “the system” at some point in their struggle. For example, Wardell Connerly grew his business in part with assistance from the 8(a) Program.
Justice Thomas was a beneficiary of Affirmative Action.
I don’t know if Carson’s mother ever received any public assistance during his childhood but if she did not I am certain some of his neighbors did. Is he ready to cast them all as “lazy” and totally dependent upon the government?
We love to hear stories about people overcoming great odds to achieve success. What is ignored when reciting the stories of the Carson’s, Thomas’, and Rice’s of the world is the depth of the chasm that lied between Africans in America and later the African American community and White America.
There have always been personal successes in the midst of the collective or group struggle. During the 18th century while hundreds of thousands and later millions of Africans in America where bound by the shackles of slavery, individuals such as Olaudah Equiano, a.k.a. “Equiano, the African” and James Forten found success on American shores.
Did the success of Equiano, Forten and others negate the suffering and systemic oppression of those enslaved? Obviously not.
Today, in spite of all of the disturbing data documenting the disparity between the African American community and Whites, such as 18% unemployment, African Americans being 53% of those incarcerated and only 13% of the population, the wealth disparity, high school drop-out rates, college graduation rates, home foreclosure rates –and the list goes on– the likes of a Wardell Connerly, Shelby Steele, or Clarence Thomas stand before conservatives and argue that we no longer need Affirmative Action, Head Start, and other social programs.
Individual success should never become the standard of measure of success for the collective. It is only through group success that the African American community will truly become politically and economically empowered.
Dr. Ben Carson made some very inaccurate and dangerous statements during his CPAC speech that cannot go unchallenged. With respect to his flippant remarks about starvation, according to Bread for the World: “14.5 percent of U.S. households struggle to put enough food on the table. More than 48 million Americans—including 16.2 million children—live in these households…Among African-Americans and Latinos, nearly one in three children is at risk of hunger.”
Has the good doctor forgotten that in 1951 he may have been one of those hungry children?
He also said, “Many people don’t know this but socialism started as a reaction to America because people in Europe, they looked at us and said, ‘wait a minute look at those Americans…people like Henry Ford, Kellogg, Vanderbilt…they’ve got so much money..’ it needs to be redistributed.”
Actually, the term socialism is attributed to Pierre Leroux and Robert Owen around 1827. Henry Ford was not born until 1863. Socialist models and ideas espousing common or public ownership have existed since antiquity. Karl Marx, considered by many to be the founder of modern socialism first published Das Kapital in 1847. Henry Ford was then four years old. Socialism was actually a reaction to the Industrial Revolution which started in Britain around 1760.
“People don’t want to talk about God,” Carson also said, “…let’s let everybody believe what they want to believe.” Actually, the basis of the free exercise clause of the First Amendment is the freedom to believe. It is one of the few absolute protections that the Constitution provides. There is a big difference between belief and practice. If Carson understood the Constitution he would know that.
Dr. Ben Carson has a very motivational story but his political analysis and message lack real understanding of the issues necessary to be taken seriously.
It is dangerous to use the success of an individual as the basis of a sociological or economic indictment of an entire class of individuals. A reporter once asked Dr. Carson why he never talked about race to which he responded, “because I’m a neurosurgeon”. Well, Dr. Carson, I’ll make a deal with you, I’ll stay out of the operating room if you leave the political analysis and dialogue to trained professionals.
Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/Host of the nationally broadcast call-in talk radio program “Inside the Issues with Leon,” and a Lecturer e in the Department of Political Science at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email: [email protected]. www.twitter.com/drwleon and Dr. Leon’s Prescription at Faacebook.com
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