DR. BEN CARSON--CHARMING, DEAD WRONG

BEN CARSON...VICTIM BLAMER

Charming Carson..Unpalatable Message

Ben Carson, charming black man, author, non-politician, avuncular retired neurosurgeon, and hopeful presidential (or more likely vice-presidential) candidate has experienced a meteoric rise in the polls. In many state and national polls Dr. Ben, the brain surgeon, comes in second place, just behind Donald Trump, the GOPs most phenomenally popular recent candidate. In these polls Carson beats out well-heeled, super-connected, deep,pocketed, "presidential looking", bespectacled "JEB" Bush, by twenty or more points. He blows away sitting U.S. Senators Cruz and Rubio, and right wing ideologues and well-seasoned GOP governors like Walker, Christie and Kasich. During the first (August 6) debate Dr. Ben appeared on the Fox stage looking befuddled and out of place. His responses indicated he was poorly informed about most issues. How could he have risen so far and so fast in the polls?

The answer is victim blaming. We have seen this same phenomena of the meteoric rise of the black GOP candidate in past elections. This position of victim blamer has become a veritable cottage industry for Afro-Americans of a certain stripe. Recall the entertaining Mr. Herman Cain, book hawker, radio host, columnist, and Tea Party activist from Georgia of the 2012 election. Mr. Cain and Dr. Carson are of the same ilk. They operate to take advantage of a niche in the Republican Party election circus. The GOP needs one black candidate. These candidates are required to assuage the uncomfortable taint of racism, the total whiteness of the GOP party and its platform. The Carsons and Cains are there to repeat shibboleths the GOP faithful love to hear. In the case of Dr. Carson they suck up his admittedly alluring personal story concerning HIS rise to affluence. Carson takes pains to suggest how HIS case "proves" that America is "post racial". He underscores again and again how he "pulled himself up by his bootstraps". He claims that other African Americans can so too. In his paid speeches he promotes "self reliance" for blacks and opposes social welfarism as an evil "dependency". He claims to oppose government programs which target the poor and downtrodden because they deprive their target population of "choice". He opposes government programs as evils which sap the will of Afro-Americans to succeed. However, Carson's actual target audience is not a black one...his claims are designed to tickle the hearts and minds of rich white folks who abhor government spending because it may mean that for them to live in America they might have to share a tiny fraction of their wealth by paying a slightly higher tax rate.

So Carson, is really directing his message to a white, political fringe GOP audience. These are the Americans who find his "message" appealing and who pump up his poll numbers. He seems personally a pleasant gentleman, it is his message that makes him unpalatable. The Carson message is best described as "victim blaming", the retorical shifting of blame for some crime or social ill from the perpetrator to the victim. The method is as old as politics itself. This form of messaging is used by the right of all stripes, often by those who ascribe to the "just world hypothesis". For these folks the world is safe for the just...and the chosen. They believe that people "get what they deserve". These sorts are apt to claim that the rape victim, was "asking for it" when she dressed so provocatively or walked home alone after dark. They see the unemployed as lazy folk who simply don't want to work. They see the ill as careless about their hygiene. They identify the unarmed, barefoot Palestinians, confined in sandy ghettos, as the violent aggressors...while the Israelis who kill them in droves with U.S. supplied tanks and F16 jet fighters are the victims.

Carson, is good at this argument. His schtick is to the BLAME our Afro-American citizens for the crimes the state committed against THEM. Blame them for the fact that their family structure was shattered by slavery. For him it is the Afro-American women and children's fault that their provider men-folk are imprisoned. He blames the poor living in ghettos for the decay of their communities and the lack of job opportunity. It is their fault that their potential for education or economic advancement is only a small fraction of what a white person would experience. Unfortunately, Carson's sucessful medical career and his ability to successfully separate conjoined twins, has not prepared him for political,office. He lacks insight into social problems and their solutions. Sadly with his message of victim blaming he vacates the key clause of the Hippocratic oath he took as a physician: "to do no harm".

Perhaps Dr. Ben might have an epiphany about racism in America if he were he to spend some time in Fergerson, Missouri. There, he would have to keep his head bowed and wipe that silly smile off his face when he was accosted by a white policeman. He would have to show deference for the so called justice system, or get a steep fine or worse. He might be dragged in to the Precinct for some minor infraction, like a broken auto tail light. He would have to be sure to keep his car parked on the right side of the street to avoid a ticket. And he could not forget his garbage pail out there on the street too long after the dustman passed by....that would be a court fine offense for black folks in Fergerson, MO. Fergerson is one of those places (unlike Detroit, where Carson grew up) where the ideologues that Carson supports have achieved their goal. In that city, the rich folks have shrunk the city government to the point that vital services have been cut or have been extinguished. The affluent who control the government do not want to pay higher taxes for infrastructure and services (that they imagine they do not need). Funds for the absolutely necessary services, like police salaries, must be collected by squeezing fines and court fees out of the poor black citizenry of Fergerson by a corrupt police department. Perhaps a stint for Carson in Fergerson, would give him a different take on how to pull oneself up by one's own bootstraps.