(ThyBlackMan.com) From the moment he surfaced in 2013 as White conservatives’ latest “Great Black Hope,” Dr. Ben Carson has made any number of offensive remarks typical of the conservative commentary of the Obama years.
But early last week, apparently goaded by a GOP presidential primary that’s set a cesspool-level standard for expressions of bigotry and callousness, Carson released what is undoubtedly his greatest hit: He said a Muslim American should not be president of the United States.
“I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Reminded that Article 6 of the Constitution explicitly demands there be no religious qualification to hold “any office or public trust in the United States,” Carson doubled down that Americans should “not put people at the leadership of our country whose faith might interfere with carrying out the duties of the Constitution.”
Carson apparently didn’t see the irony in the fact that he, a candidate for the nation’s highest office, was declaring he’d put his personal beliefs above the Constitution.
The blowback for that idiocy was so scorching that at week’s end Carson tried to gin up a “new” controversy to push his blatant appeal to bigotry into the background: he resorted to the old Black-conservative stand-by of claiming that the GOP had done a better job ridding American society of racism than the Democratic Party.
But we can’t afford to ignore just how despicable Carson’s gambit was. For one thing, just what kind of Muslim-American individual does Dr. Ben Carson think would surface as a potential candidate for the presidency?
We don’t have to guess. We have plenty of “real” Americans of the past and present to tell us what our future Muslim-American candidate will be like: Like John F. Kennedy, who broke the barrier against Catholic candidates running for the presidency; or like Colin Powell; or Condoleezza Rice; or Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, or her colleague, Ruth Bader Ginsburg; or Barack or Michelle Obama; or, yes, like Ben Carson. In other words, our future Muslim-American candidate will have followed a very traditional route to spectacular high achievement – and have shown along the way he or she is “twice as good” as his or her non-Muslim American peers.
Of course, Dr. Ben Carson knows this. But his despicable comment is perfectly in keeping with his record of pandering to the worst attitudes that infect the GOP electorate, especially those White evangelicals who use his Black face and their shared reactionary attitudes masquerading as religious belief to shield their many prejudices from view.
That noxious combination is the basis of Carson’s appeal. It’s certainly not his policy prescriptions for domestic or foreign-policy matters. Despite having been in the presidency-seeking game for two years, the grasp he’s displayed of those issues is laughable. Dr. Ben Carson, like Donald Trump, can get away with this because a huge number of GOP voters have shown they care far less about the issues than about who can best spout the “politically correct” extremist ideology.
Carson’s trashing of Muslim Americans is, of course, the more despicable because he’s a Black American who, growing up when many White Americans didn’t consider Blacks deserving of citizenship, gained fame by recording several remarkable “the-first-Black-to…” achievements. Now, parroting the racists of the past, he declares an entire American group doesn’t meet his definition of “real” Americans.
That Trump and Carson top the pecking order of the GOP presidential primary is a measure of how advanced the disintegration of the respectability of the Republican Party has become – a fact underscored by last week’s surprise announcement from House Speaker John Boehner that he’ll resign entirely from Congress next month. Boehner’s decision headed off a move to topple him by the most extreme members of the House’s Republican Party majority – Representatives who think as Dr. Ben Carson does.
Finally, Carson’s bigotry also illuminates what that White-created political identity called “Black conservatism” really is: a tinny reflection of their masters’ voices. His words show there’s nothing within so-called Black conservatism that reflects the fundamental lesson Black Americans have drawn from the long, heroic Black freedom struggle: That is that you cannot with any degree of integrity claim liberty for your kind while denying it to others who are different.
His ugly hypocrisy proves that Dr. Ben Carson does truly reflect his White-conservative supporters. But that doesn’t mean he’s an “Oreo.” No, indeed. Ben Carson’s problem is not that he’s “white” on the inside. His problem is that he’s White-racist on the inside.
Written By Lee A. Daniels
I believe Dr. Carson meant that he would support a backsliding Muslim.
A “real” Muslim would have to believe in Sharia law which would
be incompatible to American life and culture.
What is interesting to me is how the so-called American black Muslims don’t talk much about racial discrimination in Muslim countries as well as the demeaning treatment of women and the poor.
Why would anyone support a person as president that supports that position?
Dr. Ben Carson will make a great President. He is a brilliant conservative Christian that will owe no one but the people when elected. Having been raised by a poor single mother in Detroit he knows of the racist tendencies of some. Through hard work and dedication he over came his childhood to become a brilliant neurosurgeon. You must do the research to realize he wishes to have harmony between races and is no one’s person. His campaign donations are in small increments from millions of people. His “extra” money goes to the Carson Scholarships for children https://www.carsonscholars.org/ . The current democrat progressive policies are not working in our cities. We must make change through a leader that will base decisions on facts and commonsense. He will make certain our economy provides jobs for the 20% unemployed African Americans and not allow illegal immigrants to take their jobs. Please see where he stands on issues and then decide whether he should be our leader. https://www.bencarson.com/issues
One has to wonder how it must feel to hate so bitterly, so unreasonably,and to need to direct it toward such a good caring person as Dr. Carson. We have to give Daniels the benefit of the doubt and assume he just didn’t do his homework and has no clue who Dr. Carson really is. If he did he would know Dr. Carson embraces the color blind society, King talked of, and cares deeply about his race as well as all races. People who want him as our next president want that kind of country, healed, united and working toward real solutions for everyone, because they want America to survive. That doesn’t fit the false stereotype of conservatives, though, and should cause one to question what they’ve been taught to believe by the dividers and haters. However, it doesn’t explain why is it so difficult for Daniels to deal with the truth of Sharia Law a fully practicing Muslim is bound to. This person could not swear an oath to protect and carry out the Constitution of the United States, as a president must do, unless he disavows Sharia. This is all Dr. Carson was saying, because he loves America and would protect it and put it’s people first, as our president. His honesty and courage in the face of media irresponsibility, gives millions hope for our future.
AFTER the last 7 years of black AMERICANS attacking anyone who criticized their beloved black president as either a uncle tom/ kunta kenta, or if you we’re white a racist who didn’t want to see a black president in the first place, how much more hypocrisy can you people display.
EVEN if the next POTUS is overt white supremacist , we won’t be able to protest because we’ve been playing the race card for the last 7 years.
OF all people we should’ve known better but having the first black president was worth everything we had and now we must live with our decisions !
Mr. Daniels: I agree with you 100% and appreciate the profound truth and eloquence in which you presented your point. Carson is indeed pandering to his base and too naive to realize that when they denigrate and berate African Americans/Blacks, he is among them. He has demonstrated how a traitor can use the master’s tools to dismantle all we have accomplished. Not only an embarrassment, but a colossal disgrace and slap in the face to his ancestors. The candidates make tons of money by keeping all that is left over from the campaign. It’s the law. Nice gig I suppose.
Dr. Mohammad Jasser is the sort of Muslim who would fool Dr. Carson into voting for him: one who pretends to deny the damnable doctrines of Islam including the union of mosque and state.
Opposition to Islam based on knowledge of its doctines & practices is not bigotry. Dr. Carson only read part of the Qur’an, but I read the whole thing and Sahih Bukhari and enough of Reliance Of The Traveller to know that what Dr. Carson said about Islam is true.
Who enslaved his ancestors and sold them to colonists? Who still practices slavery in Africa?
Which political party did the founders of the KKK belong to? Which party struggled to preserve segregation against civil rights laws?
It is not a mere coincidence that Ben Carson is black for he has come out of the same production line as Herman Cain and I suspect with the same financial backers as well since they both are saying pretty much the same things when you boil right down to it.
It is all a ruse by the powers that be to make the Republican party appear less white in the eyes of the electorate.
The GOP has to do this of course in order to respond to the changing demographics in America and when you see who is in their lineup i.e. several Latinos, an Indian and a black man all running for President, then it really is rather difficult not to arrive at this conclusion.