Housing a Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson speaks to HUD employees in Washington on Monday. CREDIT: AP Photo/Susan Walsh.
Ben Carson’s assertion that slaves were immigrants did not go unnoticed, by anyone.
“This is as offensive a remark as it gets,” said Steven Goldstein, executive director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect.
The remarks sparked outrage on Twitter, including from the actor Samuel L. Jackson. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) also criticized Carson.
OK!! Ben Carson….I can't! Immigrants ? In the bottom of SLAVE SHIPS??!! MUTHAFUKKA PLEASE!!!#dickheadedtom
— Samuel L. Jackson (@SamuelLJackson) March 6, 2017
Samuel L. Jackson: OK!! Ben Carson…I can’t! Immigrants ? In the bottom of SLAVE SHIPS??!! MUTHAFUKKA PLEASE!!! #dickheadedtom.
A HUD spokesman later called the tempest “the most cynical interpretation of the secretary’s remarks to an army of welcoming HUD employees. No one honestly believes he equates voluntary immigration with involuntary servitude.”
“Involuntary servitude.” Even the mealy-mouthed spokesman can’t manage to say the word slavery. Carson probably thinks drapetomania is sound medical theory.
Carson was well received by the hundreds of HUD employees in the room and got a standing ovation at the close of his remarks.
And there are still people soundly denying the boot stomp of white nationalism. Unfortunately, this isn’t the only problem with Carson, who holds a number of seriously problematic views, especially when it comes to civil rights. Carson views a fair amount of rights to be “extras”, and he has no use for those at all, no. Primarily, this has to do with LGBT discrimination, and in his new position, it’s fair to surmise that bigotry will rule the day when it comes to fair housing.
It is common for conservatives to refer to “extras” as assistance for people in poverty, but Carson has used the word “extras” before when referring to LGBTQ protections.
“It’s one of the things that I don’t particularly like about the movement,” Carson said to Fusion’s Jorge Ramos in 2015. “I think everybody has equal rights, but I’m not sure that anybody should have extra rights — extra rights when it comes to redefining everything for everybody else and imposing your view on everybody else.”
Via Raw Story and Think Progress.
Well, he certainly performs well as a circus pony -- trot him out as a faaaaahn example of how friendly and understanding and fucking diverse the letter R can be!!
For a circus pony, he’s a remarkably stupid one. That said, yeah, he’s going to deliver for his masters. Think Progress has two articles up about Carson right now, and one of them mentioned a confidant of Carson’s saying how Carson confided that he doesn’t feel qualified to run a federal agency (no shit, Sherlock), but of course, that isn’t going to stop him.
LOVE IT!! I don’t do twitter, but I can appreciate the hashtag.
Proving how totally fucking clueless he is about people imposing their view on others.
got a standing ovation at the close of his remarks
If anyone was cheering for that non-sarcastically, I hope they remember that moment. Because that’s some kind of low point. Other than that he holds some granted authority, he has nothing worth listening to, let alone cheering.
Funny enough, I just read almost exactly the same article on the German Tagesschau. Complete with Samuel L. Jackson’s tweet
Apparently he clarified his statement:
Dunno about y’all, but I don’t feel like anything has been clarified, since he did exactly what he afterwards said shouldn’t be done. Or else I’m missing something.
rq @ 7:
The Hill covered the so-called clarification. http://thehill.com/homenews/322645-carson-doubles-down-slaves-were-involuntary-immigrants
Please don’t let Van Jones see that clarification.
He really sounds like his boss…
Did they talk about the good things? Or the prolonged standing ovation? All the people standing in line to get pictures,
How many of those were his aides? The current administration has learned a thing or two from Kim Jong Un.