Eric Holder or Ben Carson - Who REALLY Is Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown?
Seriously, if you do nothing else, watch the Guillory clip, then go watch the Ben Carson clip. Both to the end.
Do you know Carson's story, really? I first learned of Dr. Ben Carson in "Chicken Soup For The Soul." Can't find it online now, and I may have given the book away, but long ago, one of the series included a story by Carson of how his mom used to make him and his brother do their homework and stay clear of the gangs in his neighborhood, and read all the time. How he resisted it at first, and was a bottom-of-the-class student with a raging temper, known for attacking other kids. But later he realized it was his mom being tough on them and demanding, that led him out of the bad downward spiral that he was on and instead, to becoming a successful neurosurgeon over the years. He grew up in hard times and places--can you get much worse than inner-city Detroit?--a lot like Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin. Carson even dealt with outright racism against himself personally by his own teachers.
The difference, in his own words, was his mom.
Why do you think this man, who's only 8 months younger than Eric Holder, has so much compassion? Because he truly sees himself in Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, more than Eric Holder or anyone else probably ever will. And he. gives. a. damn. about them. He really was Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, at a young age. And he wants to help all those like himself, like he used to be.
Eric Holder's childhood doesn't seem as poor or hopeless as Ben Carson's was. Biography.com doesn't mention a word about his being "poor" or "troubled" or having a "violent and uncontrollable temper." Instead Holder is described as "well-rounded." His father was a real estate broker. They lived in Queens, not the inner-city of New York. Queens, folks, is on Long Island. It isn't the suburbs, but it is still Long Island. Both his parents worked at middle-class, decent jobs. Both his parents stayed married. In the fourth grade, he made it into a program for "intellectually gifted children."
Not exactly hardscrabble. None of that was the same for Ben Carson. And yet, Carson seems more genuinely willing, and able, to help young men who are like he was, by not encouraging them to stay angry or to act like victims, but to work at overcoming and erasing the odds, as he himself did.
I don't know if someone like Carson, who's never governed a city or a state, could govern as President. But for those who think Obama is governing in spite of his similarly-complete lack of ever having governed anything before, consider that perhaps the Trayvon Martins and Michael Browns of this nation just might become better off with Dr. Ben Carson as their role model, even if not also their President.
posted by Annie at 6:00 AM
