Ben Carson is weird. Ok, I know that is not news since he keeps adding to that impression, like his ‘fruit salad’ comment at the last debate. But he outdid himself by claiming that president Obama cannot speak to the black experience because his life growing up was not genuinely black, whatever the hell that means.
Trevor Noah lets him have it for setting himself up as some kind of arbiter of blackness.
(This clip aired on February 24, 2016. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Nightly Show outside the US, please see this earlier post. If the videos autoplay, please see here for a diagnosis and possible solutions.)
Meanwhile, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog has been on the campaign trail and got comedian Tim Meadows to take part in an experiment just before the caucuses in Iowa to see how well people in that state knew Carson.
That ringing sound you hear? That’s the alarm that’s saying Ben Carson’s 15 minutes are ending.
Some white people try to make a distinction between those who ancestors came from Africa a long time ago and those who came to the United States more recently, as if those who arrived recently are somehow better. Divide and conquer.
Some white people try to make a distinction between those who ancestors came from Africa a long time ago and those who came to the United States more recently, as if those who arrived recently are somehow better
Yet paradoxically white people who came over on the earliest invasion-ships are the bluebloods. It’s all so confusing! You can understand why Carson gets it all mixed up.
That “fake Carson” sketch was really stupid. Is that what passes for funny on TV now?
Marcus Ranum #4
Agreed.
Those people were awesomely polite.
It must have been the cameras.
chigau @#5,
Actually, I think most people are polite and I can well imagine that the people in the restaurant, while nonplussed, would have really behaved like that even in the absence of cameras.
The first bit was funny, the second, not so much. The difference simply wasn’t big enough. Those people are operating from memory and situational cues and the actor does seem to look a bit too much like Carson to claim black people all look alike to them. The biggest difference between real and fake is that the impostor seems wide awake and coherent. The real Carson always looks like he just killed a fattie and is struggling to keep his eyes open. The impostor is a livelier and more aware version of Carson than Carson.
What really pisses off Ben Carson is that Obama is existentially both culturally white and black, a trick that relatively few, including Ben Carson can do. It’s what enabled Obama to early and quickly win the support of Kennedy and most of the (mostly white) superdelegates yet also give transformative speeches on race, as well as an authentic black reading of and reaction to, racial flashpoints such as the Gates affair, the Trayvon case, and the South Carolina church shootings. Carson is caught in the same pathetic trap as Clarence Thomas.
I suspect Carson means not typical of most African-Americans which is true to an extent given Obama grew up in Indonesia and comes from
KenyaHawaii* rather than the parts and cities and circumstances in the United States where most African-Americans live. Obama certainly does have a fairly unusual personal history and background -although I don’t think this is point against him or that it means Obama loves his country any less.* Actually he does come from a Kenyan family ancestry too but was NOT born there natch -- despite Trump and other birther claims to the contrary as we all know.