You Ain't Black Enough

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   Sharlee01posted 2 years ago

   My title is meant to be sarcastic and does reflect my sentiment, my view in regard to cancel culture.
   Cancel culture can be so non-sensical, and oh so ugly.
   
   Before commenting, please get to know Ben Carson. It is only fair to get to know the man that we are discussing. 
   https://achievement.org/achiever/benjamin-s-carson/
   
   Who is Ben Carson ---  Carson’s education started in the Detroit Public School system. Born into poverty and raised in a single-mother household, Carson went from inner-city Detroit to Yale University becoming one of the most influential neurosurgeons of a generation. He then became secretary of Housing and Urban Development under the Trump administration.
   
   The Benjamin Carson High School of Science and Medicine is one of the schools that will be assigned another name, it was named for Carson BEFORE he joined President Donald Trump’s administration.
   
   " Ben Carson chalked up the removal of his name from a high school in Detroit to “wokeness spreading throughout our community” and society reaching “the point where political ideology trumps the whole purpose of an educational institution.”
   
   “How does it do any good for us to demonize people with whom we disagree and to teach that to our children at a time when the math scores are down, the reading scores are down, academic performance is down?" Carson
   
   The Detroit School Board voted to change the name of Ben Carson High School of Science and Medicine, removing its connection to the retired neurosurgeon who was the secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the Trump administration.
   
   Carson's team confirms they don't have plans to challenge the name change. Carson released a statement on Facebook saying while the move saddens him he wants the focus to be on the students.
   
   Thoughts

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      Credence2posted 2 years agoin reply to this

      I don't agree with Dr. Carson or his politics but that does detract from his accomplishments and scholarship. Removing his name was not an action that I would approve of.

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         Sharlee01posted 2 years agoin reply to this

         Me either, living in Michigan, I can share this man came from about the very worst neighborhood that we have to offer in Detroit, he was always a man many of us looked up to.  He is part of Detroit's history.  How sad that some few could seek to diminish his name. The Children in the academy by a large percentage do not want his name removed. Hopefully, they will have the courage to step forward.

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            Credence2posted 2 years agoin reply to this

            Correction " but that does NOT detract from his accomplishments and scholarship"

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      KC McGeeposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      I would bet my last dollar biden lays awake at night wondering what more he can do to totally ruin this country as fast as possible.

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         Sharlee01posted 2 years agoin reply to this

         Most likely...  But he might sleep like a baby because he knows he will be told what to say and do. And if he does it --- he gets ice cream.

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   Stephen Tomkinsonposted 2 years ago

   Kids should have models that they can look up to. Whether you agree with Carson's politics or not, it can't be denied that he has been a high achiever who should stand as an example to the young people of Detroit (and everywhere else).
   Removing his name sends a message of intolerance, it's a mean act.

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      Sharlee01posted 2 years agoin reply to this

      It is a mean act. However, Ben handled this hurt with grace and tolerance. As you can see I very much respect this man.
      
      He has no plans to challenge the name change. He posted on Facebook saying that this action saddens him, but he wants the focus to be directed toward the students.

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   Stephen Tomkinsonposted 2 years ago

   An admirable response.

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   Readmikenowposted 2 years ago

   This is common treatment of conservative blacks by everyone.  Here is a good article written by Shelby Steele
   
   "The Loneliness of the “Black Conservative”
   
   Today a public “black conservative” will surely meet a stunning amount of animus, demonization, misunderstanding, and flat-out, undifferentiated contempt. And there is a kind of licensing process involved here in which the black leadership—normally protective even of people like Marion Barry and O. J. Simpson—licenses blacks and whites to have contempt for the black conservative. It is a part of the group’s manipulation of shame to let certain of its members languish outside the perimeter of group protection where even politically correct whites (who normally repress criticism of blacks) can show contempt for them.
   
   Not long ago I heard a white female professional at a racially mixed dinner table call Clarence Thomas an incompetent beneficiary of affirmative action—the same woman whom I had heard on another occasion sneer at the idea that affirmative action stigmatized women and minorities as incompetent. Feminists who happily vote for Bill Clinton are free to loathe Clarence Thomas. In a sense Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Ward Connerly, Stanley Crouch, myself, and many, many others represent a new class of “unprotected” blacks. By my lights there is something a little avant-garde in this. But, as with any avant-garde, the greater freedom is paid for in a greater exposure to contempt and shame.
   
   The Czech writer Milan Kundera—a man whose experience under the hegemony of the Communist Party taught him much about the shaming power of groups over the individual—says that shame transforms a person “from a subject to an object,” causes shamed persons to lose their “status as individuals.” And to suffer this fate means that the group—at least symbolically—has determined to annihilate you. Of course we have no gulags in black America, but black group authority—like any group authority—defines itself as much by whom it annihilates as by whom it celebrates. Thus it not only defines group, it also defines grouplessness. And here, on this negative terrain, where his or her exclusion sharpens the group identity, the black conservative lingers as a kind of antithesis.
   
   The problem for the black conservative is more his separation from the authority of his racial group than from the actual group. He stands outside a group authority so sharply defined and monolithic that it routinely delivers more than 90 percent of the black vote to whatever Democrat runs for president. The black conservative may console himself with the idea that he is on the side of truth, but even truth is cold comfort against group authority (which very often has no special regard for truth). White supremacy focused white America’s group authority for three centuries before truth could even begin to catch up. Group authority is just as likely to be an expression of collective ignorance as of truth; but it is always, in a given era, more powerful than truth.
   
   https://www.hoover.org/research/lonelin … nservative

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      Sharlee01posted 2 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you for adding this article.
      
      Very poignant article. It very much depicts the problem. But, I ask, does it not appear the conservative of today is not as willing to buy into the Democrat's ploys, which clearly are hell-bent on annihilating any person they deem fit to cancel? 
      
      Times are changing... Yes, we still have many fence sitters, but some are getting sore butts, are claiming down off those fences, and are becoming loud, and being heard.  We can't let ignorance win out, just due to the size of their group. Truth needs to be brought to the forefront, and any that perpetrates in canceling out others need to be outed.

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         Fayetteville Fayeposted 2 years agoin reply to this

         If the term "fence sitters" means Independents. I will proudly claim the label and remain sitting until a politician or group of politicians meets me where I am.   I'll use my own judgment rather than automatically subscribing to a party.
         Americans are partly to blame for the partisanship. Far too many make it far to easy for politicians. They are excused from or let off the hook of real work simply because they brand themselves as a Democrat or Republican.
         We will never see thoughtful bipartisan legislation if people continue to think in a  basic tribal manner.
         I have not been the biggest fan of Senator Sinema but she hits the nail on the head, for me with this one:
         
         Americans are told that we have only two choices – Democrat or Republican – and that we must subscribe wholesale to policy views the parties hold, views that have been pulled further and further toward the extremes.
         
         Well that's how I feel out here on the fence, I'm not going hook line and sinker for anyone's load of rhetoric. I'm hoping more will hop up on the fence. Only then will we see politicians actually start working.

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            Sharlee01posted 2 years agoin reply to this

            "If the term "fence sitters" means Independents. I will proudly claim the label and remain sitting until a politician or group of politicians meets me where I am.   I'll use my own judgment rather than automatically subscribing to a party."
            
            All admirable.   I envy fence sitters... For many reasons, although at times they can irritate me.
            
            I have always sort of admired Senator Sinema. I always considered her independent.
            
            I think your sentiments are positive... And wise. I respect this form of common sense.

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