By the Way, Ben Carson is Black

I was looking at a news clip of last week's Republican candidates' debate, when I happened to notice something about one of the candidates on the main (later) event.  It was astonishing that I hadn't noticed it before, possibly because of that particular gentleman's soft disposition, the one that has you waiting for the next word.

Ben Carson, the pediatric neurosurgeon-turned-presidential-candidate is actually black.  Yes, I had to look twice to see that, but there was no question about it.  The good doctor's ancestry was very clearly from African roots, no doubt about it.

Did you know that and not tell me or anyone else?  I can't believe I didn't notice it, even when Dr. Carson was running higher in the polling and in second place for a while.  Amazing.

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OK, I actually did know it.  My vision is pretty bad, but not that bad.  However, I am now, months into a campaign still only halfway through, looking quietly back at the long time since he announced for the presidency and wondering something.  Where, I ask myself, is the discussion about Dr. Carson actually being black?

You know what I mean, the big deal that was made about Barack Obama running eight years ago, and all the vitriol about how people might not vote for him because of his race, and others declaring that black voters would vote for him only because of his race (the latter of which seemed from the exit polling to have been borne out, but I digress).  Remember all that?  I do.

And that's kind of why I'm sitting here wondering why it was so, so important when Obama was running against Hillary Clinton and then John McCain, but is utterly unimportant in this campaign.  I can only chalk it up to some real hypocrisy on someone's part, but whose?  You know what I mean, if it was a big deal when Obama ran -- and he wasn't even the first major candidate for the nomination who was black, there's always Jesse Jackson -- why is it not an issue with Dr. Carson?

What I'm really getting at is that for practically the entire 2008 campaign, everyone had to tiptoe around criticizing Obama lest their critique be mistranslated as racially driven.  He had essentially no track record to point to, so the commentary on his candidacy simply devolved to what color he was, and therefore how "transformational" his candidacy was, whatever that meant.  If you said something nice, it could only be about his race or his speaking speech-reading ability; if you criticized him it was therefore ... well, how could you criticize him?  He was black; he was transformational.  Chris Matthews got thigh twinges thinking about it.

I remember how utterly befuddling it got for Hillary Clinton.  What could she say?  Even without saying much negative about him, she was the person standing in the way of The First Black President, by wanting to be the first female president.  Race, race, race, that was soooooo important.

All that brings us back to Dr. Benjamin Solomon Carson, Sr., the seeker of the Republican nomination for the presidency.  After some number of debates in prime time, there have been at least a few criticisms of the good doctor, though not that many, and they're fairly mild.

Does anyone -- raise your hand in Comments if you disagree -- believe that the reticence about criticizing Dr. Carson has anything to do with his race?  Do you not agree that if a Caucasian pediatric neurosurgeon who had been a political commentator for the previous few years, with a very calm demeanor and no government experience, took his place, that the critiques would be no greater?

I didn't think so either.  Ben Carson's race is such a non-factor in the campaign that we have to remind ourselves what race he is.  Or, better, simply ignore it, since it doesn't matter.  And here's the thing -- it's so much better that it doesn't.

Barack Obama was elected the first black president, and has spent, so far, over seven years doing nothing for his fellow black Americans.  More are unemployed; more will continue to be, as he brings waves of immigrants in to compete for their jobs and he trashes the businesses that could hire them.  Cities are torn apart with racial animosity stoked by the knee-jerk reaction of  the president to make non-racial conflicts be about race.  Everything is about race with this president, and every criticism of his incompetent leadership is challenged by Democrats as being racially motivated.  Hillary Clinton is moaning "I know, I know!"

Seems to me that the Republicans have it figured out.  Race only matters when race matters, which is not very often.  In the case of Ben Carson, it's almost never.  If you ask him what he will do for black Americans, you can be sure that his answer will center around approaches that will create economic opportunities rather than growth-stifling giveaways and handouts, and that they will be based far more on need -- and not at all on race.  As they should be.

To have gotten to the point that a black candidate can run and have his race be almost invisible is a good thing.

Barack Obama would have been a bit more palatable as president had he been invisible, know what I mean?

Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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