I wanted to look at these two discussions together to see if there were any differences between the questions, and the answers.
Let's start with George, who opened with Trump's claim that he's done more for black Americans than any president since Lincoln, and wondered if Carson stood by his boss's claim. Carson said it was better to talk about what's been done than to argue about who's done the most. The accomplishments he pointed to?
- Opportunity Zones, which he said were designed to bring money to neglected areas;
- Prison reform, which is "just the first step. There are other things that need to be done"
- Making funding for the HBCUs regular, and increasing the amount of funding provided.
George agreed that was a fair point, bust still asked if the president should stop making the comparison, given LBJ passing the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Act, Grant sending in troops to take on the KKK, and Eisenhower sending troops to enforce the Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision. Carson said all of that "is a significant part of our history" and that it's important to acknowledge it.
George wondered how Carson has counseled the president about his tweets, his attacking protesters, and his not wanting to rename any confederate bases. Carson said we "should look at things from multiple perspectives" as we're a diverse country with diverse opinions, including the president's.
So, I - I don't have any problem with him expressing his opinion as long as he's willing to listen to other opinions.
And, he said, the US is a "destination country" - a place people want to come to, not a place they want to leave. There's a reason for that, he said.
And we're the only ones who can destroy ourselves. And we have to stop, you know, putting everything into the arena of combat. And let's see if -- if we can find a way to work together because, if we don't, we're doomed.
So, it would seem, Carson hasn't counseled the president?
George, never one to drop a bone, asked again if Trump's talk of dominating the streets, or saying he'll send in the troops - which admittedly seem 'combative' - were "appropriate right now." Carson dodged again, saying there are lots of ways to express things, and then he did what everyone does - explain what the president meant with his inflammatory remarks. Trump was talking about not submitting to anarchy, see? And we all agree with that, right?
We might not all express it the same way, but we would all agree with it. And so we've got to begin to look at the big picture, what is the thing we're aiming to do, not what someone said this day or that day.
So, what is that? What needs to be done right now, George asked. Carson said we need to acknowledge why the protests are happening, we need to "open the discussion" and listen to the police and the protesters; we need to look at the communities where the protests are happening. He's all for peaceful protests, but not the destruction of businesses and livelihoods - "that's very, very bad" - and we have to talk about that, too, when we talk about "what makes sense."
Does it make sense to allow rogue police to move from one precinct to another? Of course it doesn’t. Does it make sense not to use the technology that we have to help us to be able to investigate? No, it doesn’t.
We need to make the good things pervasive through our society, he says.
And, regarding Trump's rally in Tulsa, site of the largest mass murder of blacks in our country, and it originally being scheduled for Juneteenth, Carson said
...I did talk to the president about the Juneteenth event. I was pleasantly surprised at how much he knew about it already -- and knew about the Black Wall Street there and the whole history of it. And was thinking about making some remarks to acknowledge what had happened there and why we don’t want that kind of situation to ever occur in this country again. But, you know, it is what it is. And it’s probably good to have moved it.
Medically, he said the rally's being done in conjunction with the public health experts, and so it's acceptable - but, he added,
We do need to always, all of us, need to do what we can to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but it is very important that we utilize what we have learned about the disease so that we can live with it, rather than allow it to dominate us and determine how we’re going to live.
And, what about Trump's nomination acceptance speech, moved to Jacksonville, taking place on the 60th anniversary of Ax Handle Saturday? Carso said we're at a point where everything is being dissected and we "try to ascribe some nefarious notion to it."
We really need to move away from that. We need to move away from being offended by everything, of going through history and looking at everything, you know, of renaming everything -- I mean, think about the fact that some of our universities, some of our prestigious universities, have a relationship with the slave trade. Should we go and rename those universities? It really gets to a point of being ridiculous after a while. And, you know, we’re going to have to grow up as a society.
I agree, to a point, with him on that.
In the Fox News Sunday classroom, the conversation started with the police killing of Rayshard Brooks.
Wallace wondered if deadly force was appropriate, given the original offense of sleeping in the drive-through lane at Wendy's. Carson said that this situation was not "clear cut, like the murder that occured in Minnesota" and that people who are experts need to review it before making any judgments.
Wallace pressed on Carson's saying this wasn't clear cut.
Because we don't know what was in the mind of the officer once somebody turns around and points a weapon at him. Is he absolutely sure that's a non-lethal weapon? You know, this is not a clear-cut circumstance. Could it have been handled better? Certainly in retrospect there probably are other ways to do things. But again, we don't know.
Interesting. Note that Brooks' death has been ruled a homicide, so I guess someone knows something now.
Wallace talked about the bigger issue, which is whether there's a racial problem with policing in black neighborhoods. He showed stats from Minneapolis (use of force against blacks 7 times higher than against whites) and nationwide that blacks are shot and killed by police at twice the rate of whites. And he asked Carson, a father of three boys, whether he or his wife had ever had 'the talk' with their children.
I had the same talk with them that my mother had with me and my brother, told them we should always respect the positions of authority like the police. I tell my sons the same thing. I've never had a problem, they've never had a problem.
He also said that doesn't mean there are no racist cops, and that we have to get the racist cops out of the system. Reforms are needed, and this is "probably a good time to shine a spotlight on them and get it done." He said just like criminal justice reform, people have talked about it for a long time but didn't get it done.
That's one of the things the president has made very clear, this is an issue, you know, and it will be looked at, it will be dealt with.
Wallace noted that his parents never had that talk with him, and he never had to have it with his kids, and that's part of the problem. And then he moved to some of the things that the Democrats are talking about in their proposal, including a national misconduct registry and limits on liability for police officers, and asked if Carson thought the administration would support those.
Carson said he expects the president will gather the appropriate stakeholders and look at everything,
but obviously we don't want to create a create a situation where the police are under a microscope and that they don't want to do their job because they're afraid. That's not going to be useful... You know, when people make decisions based on anger or emotion, seldom are those good decisions.
So, that would be a non-answer?
Wallace moved on to the cultural shift happening in the country, pointing to the NASCAR ban on the Confederate flag, and the Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee talking about renaming military bases, which Trump opposes. The question? Is Trump at risk of being left behind?
Carson said many of the bases were named after the Confederate generals
as a conciliatory movement after the war and to now change that would be having exactly the opposite effect. We have to recognize that we have a history and to try and hide that history is probably not a smart move. You take the greatest book ever written, the most popular book, the Bible, it doesn't get rid of all the bad things and just talk about roses and flowers.
He said that "smart people, wise people" use their history to improve, while "other kinds of people" try to bury their history. And he told a story about buying a farm in rural Maryland, with one neighbor putting up a Confederate flag in protest, and all the other neighbors put up American flags. The Confederate flag came down, and the Carsons became friendly with that neighbor.
A lot of this has to do with people getting to know each other and relationships, but you know, we should be proud of our country. The American flag is the appropriate emblem, but we shouldn't impose our will on others.
The last question was on Trump's rally, and he echoed the same sentiment as he did with George - we can let it dominate us, or we can learn to live with it.
I was hoping for a little more from Carson that his now famous non-confrontational thing, and I also was hoping he would have been asked questions not just because he's the black guy on Trump's cabinet, but maybe something about what HUD might be doing regarding police interaction in their communities, or what's going to happen with foreclosures and evictions at the end of the month, and so on - you know, policy stuff. Or even a direct question about the Black Lives Matter movement, I don't know.
It is what it is, I guess. If nothing else, I now know about Ax Handle Saturday, which is something I was not familiar with before. Which just proves the point that we're always learning, if we're open to it.
See you around campus.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!