Ben Carson’s Appeal

SIMI VALLEY, California, U.S. — Is there a doctor in the building?

Actually, there are two in the Republican Race for the 2016 U.S. Presidency.

Few really know or care that Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, an optometrist, is in the race. Instead, the dominant physician front runner is Dr. Ben Carson.

Mr. Carson is not only a neurosurgeon, he is the world leader in his profession and perhaps the most gifted human that the world has ever seen at this craft, which makes people wonder why he would pause such a revered profession to enter the sleaziest ring of them all: politics.

More puzzling than his desire to run for president–because where is the man who doesn’t secretly wish to be the world’s most powerful figure–is his stay atop the polls, racking in just fewer numbers than outspoken reality television businessman (and also non-politician) Donald J. Trump.

It’s worth asking: What draws potential voters to Mr. Carson early on in the campaign trail? Precisely what is Ben Carson’s appeal?

Some might say that his gifted hands hold the allure. He is, after all, the first surgeon to separate craniopagus (conjoined) twins, who were joined at the back of the head. He also refined a procedure for hemispherectomy to control severe pediatric epilepsy, long before any of us could spell hemispherectomy, much less understand its meaning.

Keep in mind that the majority of Americans are jacks-of-one-trade, if they’re lucky, and master of none. Most Americans struggled miserably throughout math and science courses, if not avoided them altogether. The understanding that Mr. Carson must have excelled at both automatically places him in the smart side of the room.

In the CNN Republican presidential debate, Mr. Carson mused that while not all problems can be resolved using muscles, many problems could be solved using intelligence. The reference quietly signaled his background, one that even among a field of highly-degreed men stood most decorated.

Mr. Carson’s achievements also fit snug into the narrative of the American dream. Work hard. Study harder. And you shall achieve great heights.

For Mr. Carson, the glorious horizons of worldly success came into view as he escaped poverty in Detroit to Yale University in the pint-sized town of New Haven, became a pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland; arose to the hospital’s youngest major division director in history at age 33; and meanwhile taught as professor of neurosurgery, pediatrics, plastic surgery, and oncology.

To Boot, Mr. Carson was also awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, from the White House and the highest honor for outstanding achievement, the Spingarn Medal, from the NAACP.

All the while, Mr. Carson attributes his success to a doctrine of hard work, resilient Christian faith, and a persistent single mother who motivated him to pursue his talents, in spite of the obstacles.

In all seriousness, what’s not to like about his rags-to-riches biography?

For the most part, Mr. Carson has managed to stay above the fray of mudslinging that is common among political pundits. Nonetheless, he spares no such dirt for his African American brethren.

Perhaps a symptom of being raised by a single mother, Mr. Carson’s telling of his story takes on a brash tough-on-African Americans rhetoric that assumes if he could rise from being a poor kid in Detroit to becoming the world’s premiere neurosurgeon, then all African Americans in the U.S., if only they work as hard, should be able to do the same.

Mr. Carson recalls his mother telling him never to be a victim, an urging which he has committed to dogmatic execution. Though it appears that Mr. Carson need be reminded that African American men and women in the U.S. actually are victims: victims of the transatlantic slave trade and chattel slavery; victims of Jim Crow segregation; victims of the War on Blacks (Drugs); victims of mass incarceration, housing discrimination, employment discrimination, racism, church shootings, and the like.

The avenue where Mr. Carson’s professional expertise as a neurosurgeon would be most useful in federal legislation is on the matter of marijuana. While the subject came up during the CNN debate, Mr. Carson was the only doctor on stage to fail to weigh in.

Although he was not silent on his professional opinion about vaccinations–he thought medical clinics do, in fact, institute too many at too close intervals–he was completely silent on marijuana.

Mr. Carson did not desire to inform his Republican friends that marijuana is not addictive. Also Mr. Carson did not desire to inform his Republican friends that marijuana is less harmful than beer.

In his book America the Beautiful, Mr. Carson wrote: “I believe it is a very good idea for physicians, scientists, engineers, and others trained to make decisions based on facts and empirical data to get involved in the political arena.”

Yet, in the same breath, the very evasion of facts and empirical data from medical research forms the basis of Mr. Carson’s draconian platform against marijuana.

Through no short measure of irony, a primary facet of Ben Carson’s appeal, his remarkable medical genius, is undermined by his unwillingness to exercise his expertise in the very area where American legal policy currently needs it the most: in the fiery and life-changing debate on the War on Drugs.

Possibly Mr. Carson’s most glaring offense is his firm stance against the legalization, or at the very least decriminalization, of marijuana–an herb that the U.S. government has used for decades to brutalize millions of Black men and women in local, state, and federal prisons and to marginalize them further, if they are able to re-enter society.

To support the legalization or decriminalization of marijuana, Mr. Carson would have to change his view of all those men and women he grew up with in inner city Detroit, those who were not able to make it out. He would have to remove his label which calls them “failures” and reassign the label which names them “victims” to acknowledge policies that for decades ruthlessly targeted African American communities.

It would be no stretch to suggest that Mr. Carson’s specialty research most likely does not delve into the parts of the brain that control empathy. Though his position on illegal immigration, that they should register as guest workers on an eventual path to citizenship, appears to be more humane than his views that affect the lives of the majority of Black folks.

There is much to like and respect about Dr. Ben Carson. There is also much to dislike.

Republicans and Democrats alike should push Mr. Carson for answers on political issues and especially on medical issues, like marijuana.

And if it turns out the doctor doesn’t have the right answers, we can always get a second opinion.