Dr. Ben Carson: from hero to villain in one easy step
As a brilliant and tremendously successful black man who emerged from humble beginnings in beleaguered Detroit to become an eminent and pioneering neurosurgeon, you’d think Dr. Ben Carson would be a hero to the black community and to liberals.
And he was, he was:
Each February, schoolchildren hear the story of the impoverished African-American boy from Detroit, a struggling student whose mother made him read two books a week until he bloomed into a scholar.
Leaving Detroit for Yale, Carson eventually found his way to John Hopkins, where he became one of the world’s most preeminent neurosurgeons, gaining international acclaim in 1987 for performing the first separation of twins conjoined at the head. He is held as an African-American hero.
That is, until Dr. Carson opened up his yipper and came out as that putative oxymoron, a black conservative. Then the sharp knives came out for Carson, and the all-too-familiar epithets that greet all black conservatives were hurled. You know the drill, if you have ever followed the careers of Clarence Thomas or Condoleezza Rice.
There are so many things I’ve come to detest about the left that it’s hard to choose which one I detest most. But right up there would be this piling on when black people reveal themselves to be conservatives. Those who would otherwise have been heroes become goats, and the charges against them take on the peculiar (although not to the left) form of their being traitors to their race, Uncle-Tom toadies to whitey, with the accusations couched in the vilest of racist terms.
Let’s take a moment to review Clarence Thomas’ beginnings:
Clarence Thomas was born in 1948 in Pin Point, Georgia, a small, predominantly black community founded by freedmen after the American Civil War. When he was a child, the town lacked a sewage system and paved roads. He was the second of three children born to M.C. Thomas, a farm worker, and Leola Williams, a domestic worker. They were descendants of American slaves, and the family spoke Gullah as a first language”¦Having spoken the Gullah language as a child, Thomas realized in college that he still sounded unpolished despite having been drilled in grammar at school, and he chose to major in English literature “to conquer the language”.
A person to be celebrated, not reviled.
But to the left, blacks are not allowed the luxury of intellectual and political freedom. The left’s narrative dictates that the interests of black people lie only with the politics of the left, and therefore anyone on the right cannot have black people’s best interests at heart. Some of this is a sincere belief on the part of some people on the left, but much of it is a cynical pose on the part of others on the left.
The reality is that the left desperately needs the monolithic support of black people to win elections. And someone like Dr. Ben Carson—a well-known and charismatic black man who can state the conservative case in a way that might appeal to other black people as well as white people—is the biggest threat of all.
As a socialogist I’m a functionalist, but it’s clear the conflict theorists are winning.
Justice Thomas and Dr. Carson do not fit the narrative. People of their drive and intelect will succeed under most systems. It is just quicker under freedom.
The Left would have no use of the poor, the minorities, the female, the black, the brown, the yellow, the immigrants, the criminal, the crippled, and the otherwise ‘other’ were it not for their usefulness in promoting Leftist Marxism. The strategy and tactic belongs to Neo-Marxist Herbert Marcuse. The alienated, unsuccessful, different, lazy, asocial, anti-social, along with the minorities, and women were to be used as Archimedean points, levers and screws to demolish capitalist society and bring about Marxism. There exists not one woman, minority, etc. who is protected by their otherness, they’re protected only by their complicity, knowing or gullible, with the revolution. Absent that they are as intolerable as ‘whitey’ and ‘male’.
IMO, such reviling of the Black conservative grows directly from the left’s sanctimonious perception that conservatives are “evil.” Thus, a Black conservative has not simply broken ranks with the powers of progressive “good,” but they have committed a double sin by crossing over to an evil empire.
Furthermore, this treatment of Black conservatives very clearly reveals the fundamental putresence of the progressive soul. As those of us who frequent this site know, progressivism is not about fairness or about building a “better” world. Instead, it’s about power and control in the hands of C.S. Lewis’ omnipotent moral busybodies. For those unfamiliar with the quote:
Could that description of Dr. Carson’s accomplishments be any more passive? The writer really wants us to think that Carson’s impressive career just happened, like dumb luck. He “bloomed” into a scholar (instead of working hard for it), he “found his way” to a competitive Med school (as if he took a wrong exit and stumbled upon it), he “is held” as a hero, etc. I’m amazed the writer could muster up an active description of his separation of conjoined twins.
I recently read the auto-biography of Clarence Thomas. What a story! He is a man to be admired even if he hadn’t become a Supreme Court Justice. Dr. Carson is cut out of the same cloth. Justice Thomas felt deep personal injury from the liberal attacks on him. He still does. What I see in Dr. Carson is a quiet strength and peace in his soul that seems to allow the attacks to roll off his back like water off a duck. Unlike Justice Thomas, Dr. Carson has already accomplished much of his life’s goals. He is in a much stronger place personally than Justice Thomas was when he went through his trials as head of the EEOC and confirmation to the Supreme Court. We’ll see how it goes as the days roll on.
I admire both men, but Dr. Carson has, in a very short time, become one of my heroes.
“The writer really wants us to think that Carson’s impressive career just happened, like dumb luck.”
Lizzy,
That is the progressive way. If you listen carefully to Obama in his past orations about “fairness” and “redistribution” it’s clear that he thinks some people are better off than others primarily because of luck (it’s a sub-group of the “you didn’t build that” view). That, in itself, is his justification for redistribution. Besides, Dr. Carson was probably one of those doctors who removed healthy appendices and amputated healthy limbs just to collect a fee (/sarc).
This has been going on since the 60s. Selling out, acting white, all this stuff has kept blacks in their ghettos supporting corrrupt and incompetent “leaders.” I am beginning to think that Carson can make his points better from the sidelines than in office. He will have more freedom, and he won’t have the full weight of the DNC and Black Caucus against him.
While we are on the topic of taking out opponents, did you see this (link from Powerline)?
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-03-22/the-secret-gingrich-santorum-unity-ticket-that-nearly-toppled-romney
We didn’t have a circular firing squad, we had one man with a blindfold and an army taking aim. It’s amazing that Gingrich and Santorum entertained the idea that either could win.
An articulate black conservative is a mortal threat to the left’s narrative, they must be discredited at any cost.
T – Obama does think that because that’s how he achieved his success. It had nothing to do with ability or hard work; it was dumb luck in looking as he does and falling in with people eager to exploit it. Throw in his lying, scheming and slandering to win elections, and he probably thinks that’s how all successful people climbed the ladder.
Here’s the Progressive logic, if you want to call it logic.
You’re successful/rich/accomplished because you are lucky. You didn’t earn it, so you don’t get to keep it.
I’m unsuccessful/poor/lacking in abilities because I have bad luck. It’s not my fault. There’s nothing I can do about it and so I can’t be held responsible.
You owe me some of the fruits of your luck (money and the stuff that money can buy) so that I can be made whole. If you don’t give it to me, then you’re just a selfish person who won’t share the stuff that you got through luck.
People like Dr. Carson anger the Left because they prove that you can be born unlucky (i.e poor, fatherless, etc) but you can make your own luck and become successful despite your circumstances.
Have you noticed that the left doesn’t hate inherited wealth nearly as much as it hates self-made wealth? That’s because the former validates their world view. The latter challenges it.
Sangiovese, this is brilliantly astute:
I recently read Condoleeza Rice’s memoir, Extraordinary Ordinary People. Perfect title–her family truly embodied the American success story, from slavery all the way up to her own stellar academic and political career. But, but, she’s a conservative! It’s amazing that she’s been tolerated at all in political circles, given that inescapable fact which surely overshadows (instead of underscoring) her considerable intellectual brilliance.
Neo, I don’t think it will matter to Ben Carson. Nobody that smart and that good would not have considered it before speaking. All the name calling in the world is going to have the least effect on him. He stood 4 feet from the Obama and his sycophants, and didn’t hesitate or equivocate his postion and still hasn’t.
What’s interesting to me is the irony of calling him an and other successful black conservatives “uncle toms” – Democrats have sucessfully packaged slavery to their party and dependence on government as a path to independence and freedom. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Lyndon Johnson vowed that he would have blacks voting democrat for 200 years, and Democrats have done a remarkable job of keeping that promise. A change of masters is the primary difference.
Dr. Carson, you didn’t build yourself!
It’s conceivable that Dr. Carson (a brilliant neurosurgeon, but maybe not a good politician) may serve best as a commentator/critic.
He’s less attackable that way.
And let’s remember, Reagan and Lincoln were politicians. Good politicians.
My longtime best friend is a conservative black man who decades ago parted ways with those on the left who wanted to pigeonhole and patronize him. He holds them in a fine contempt, which he often uses to spice his language when describing those who would confine him to the leftist plantation. That he holds a hard-earned, non-affirmative action Ph.D. from a prestigious, and liberal (in the modern sense), university only confounds and dismays the leftists all the more.
The term Uncle Tom as an epithet is irony in the extreme.
Stowe built Uncle Tom in the absolute image of Jesus Christ.
That’s not opinion — it’s her stated aim.
Today’s Black voters think that Lincoln was a Democrat — I’ve run into too many that do. They’re shocked, shocked, to discover that the entire reason for the Republican Party was to push for abolition.
And, it’s a big news flash that the Democrat Party of 1860 was the party of slavery. Normally, this news is simply not believed.
The KKK’s roots as the military arm of the Democrat Party is also totally repressed/ unacknowledged/ genuinely unknown.
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Which brings us to the bizarre narrative promoted today by the Left and Islamists that Jews = Nazis; Soviets = Saints.
It’s enough to have your brain explode.
“Uncle-Tom toadies to whitey, with the accusations couched in the vilest of racist terms.”
You forgot “Oreo.” Asians get called a “coconut.” Worse too, of course. All utterly disgraceful, but it’s ok to be a racist when you’re a liberal denouncing a minority who’s a conservative.
Eeeeps!
Typo in last paragraph calls Dr. Carson “Dr. Ben Carter”.
= = = = =
Other than that —
Dammit, when the Left pigeonholes you, you NEED to stay pigeonholed. None of this “individuality” stuff.
All whites are racist, all blacks are helpless victims of racism, and THAT is THAT.
Dr. Carson (along with Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Allen West, and so on…) is being denied membership in the “authentic black” fraternity because his success and his lack of antipathy toward the white establishment spoil The Narrative. “Authentic blacks” are (MUST be) either innocent victims of white racism, or else racial-grievance-mongers typified by Jesse Jackson and the Congressional Black Caucus types, who spend their lives “standing up for the rights of our people” (and enriching themselves handsomely while doing so).
Sangiovese, I think you’re spot on in explaining the logic of many of the progs.
Luck/fate does play a part in anyone’s life. In reviewing my life, I have seen many instances when luck played a part. However, some of it was bad. 🙁 I’ve also made good and bad decisions. Many of which were not apparent until many years later. In review of my life, I recognize that a few attributes helped me to achieve modest success: Showing up, being willing to stay late, and not spending more than I earned. All things that I could control.
As far as examples about what the left really is; it is way up there and very clear.
A_Nonny_Mouse: thanks for the heads up on the typo. Will fix.
“But right up there would be this piling on when black people reveal themselves to be conservatives. ”
When a slave escapes the plantation, he must be brought back. Doesn’t matter what the cost in human lives. The property must be brought back from those thieving abolitionist Republicans.
So long as the people do not hate the Left, and despise/fear/hate Republican weakness and hypocrisy, there is not a war so much as a slaughter house.
It reminds me of those jihadists willing to kill others and kill themselves for their self perceived rewards. Irregardless of whether this is sane, logical, or beneficial or not, their willpower was still better than that of many Americans who have yet to find anything worth dying for, let alone killing for.
Who is going to win in that contest… is rather obvious. Only because America is protected by those who have the will, is such a consequence held back. But nothing is holding the Left’s power back. Not any more.
If only white conservatives (and, more especially, male white conservatives) would just kill themselves this problem, like all others, would disappear.
Carson, Obama, McCain, both Clintons, Rubio, …… are all lackeys of the same foreign sect. A sect that controls 95% of “our” news media (for a century now – the “city of london” bankers bought half of “our” newspapers to put us into WWI) and uses that control to keep Americans dumb, divided and easy to rob. The constant black/white racism pushed by their media is one of the game they play to keep Americans from focussing on their corruption.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-federal-reserve-cartel-the-eight-families/25080