I’m still in a holiday mood, so New Year greetings to everyone. Perhaps you lit candles to celebrate Kwanzaa, Christmas, or Hannukah.
May the Light that guides you be with you and your families in 2023.
I stopped making New Year’s resolutions years ago because, like many of you, by March 1st, they are hard to maintain or almost forgotten. But this year is different. This year, I’m making a resolution sparked by something that caught my attention a few weeks ago and that my pastor even preached about on January 1, 2023. When The Creator places something before me multiple times, it usually means I need to pay at- attention. My resolution is to stay woke. Let me explain.
While scrolling through an online news feed a few weeks ago, a story about the renaming of the Benjamin Carson High School of Science and Medicine in Detroit caught my attention. At the November 15, 2022, Detroit school board meeting, the decision was made to remove Dr. Carson’s name and rename, or re-name, the school Crockett Midtown High School of Science and Medicine. Needless to say, Dr. Carson was unhappy with this decision, and he expressed his thoughts in a Fox2 News interview with Sean Hannity.1
According to Hannity, this decision was entirely political. Dr. Carson was a victim of what he and others call “cancel culture” because of his political ideolo- gy, conservative views, and connections with the twice-impeached former president. As I listened to Carson’s soft-spo- ken yet cloaked, insidious implications about why he thought his name was removed and Hannity’s condescending insinuations about Detroit, I found my- self getting a tad angry and asking lots of questions that I wish I could ask them personally, but realize that you can’t rea- son with unreasonable people.
But I needed to find a way to express my thoughts and feelings in a respect- able way. So, this open letter to Carso
https://wyoutube.com/watch?v=-jWu7C-OVbo0&ab_channel=FoxNews
Dr. Ben Carson and namesake school
started forming, and I started writing. As we enter this New Year, 2023, it seems appropriate to address this na- tionwide aversion by far-right conser- vative talking heads and politicians to “wokeness” as one of my resolutions to stay woke. Every disagreement I have with Dr. Carson’s publicly stated polit- ical views won’t be addressed here, but I will address his statements on cancel culture and wokeness.
First, let’s establish what “wokeness” is and why it puts fear in some people. I’ll quote Charles Blow from the New York Times for a good definition. On Novem- ber 10, 2021, he wrote:
“Perhaps no other word of the moment is so under attack as ‘woke,’ a word born as a simple yet powerful way of saying: ‘Be aware of and alert to how racism is systemic and pervasive and suffuses American life. Wake up from the slumber of ignorance and passive acceptance.’ But because of its petit power, this small word was a prime candidate for co-option, for being turned against the people who used it. The opponents of wokeness — whether they be conser- vatives who believe it injures the ideal of America as inherently good, or moder- ate Democrats worried that it handicaps their electoral prospects — want to kill it…. Being awake to and aware of how our systems of power operate creates enemies across the political spectrum because wokeness indicts … the status quo. … Don’t blame wokeness for the reactions of whiteness.”2
Know that “whiteness” is itself an ideology that continually perpetuates the
Blow, Charles , The War on Wo- keness. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/10/ opinion/wokeness-racism-politics.html?au-th=login-google1tap&login=google1tap&log- in=email&auth=login-email
ideals of white supremacy embraced by many, not only those of European de- scent but also some Black and brown people who have not yet had their minds fully liberated from colonialistic and patriarchal indoctrination. Who knows, maybe this letter will find its way to Dr. Carson.
Dear Dr. Carson.
First, let me recognize your brilliance and accomplishments as a world-re- nowned pediatric neurosurgeon, over- coming odds that would have prevented many from reaching the level of profes- sional recognition you have gained. Sep- arating Siamese twins and transplanting organs are things most of us would never be able to imagine or do. Because of your “Gifted Hands” 3, lives were changed. For many years I held you in high regard, as- tounded at your accomplishments. I’ve read and had my own children read your books to encourage them as young black children growing up in America. You were someone we looked up to.
And until 2015, when you announced your presidential bid, I continued to hold you in high regard. The fact that you even thought it was possible to join the ranks of other African Americans who ran for president of this country, such as Fred- erick Douglass, George Edwin Taylor, Channing E. Phillips, Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson, Allen Keys, and yes even Barack Obama, is historic in itself. As I listened to some of the statements you made during your candidacy, I realized that your brilliance as a surgeon didn’t exactly transfer to your political aspi- rations. Perhaps, and I speculate here, your indoctrination into politics and the
Carson, Gifted Hands 20th Anniversary Edition: The Ben Carson Story. Zondervan, 2011.
social views you have adopted and es- poused has been through the eyes of the dominant culture, the white establish- ment. Even your publicly stated religious views, in my opinion, have been shaped by a colonialistic, patriarchal mindset. I won’t take up your time in this letter to discuss the controversial statements you made about forced enslavement be- ing compared to voluntary immigration, though you did attempt to correct your- self. Nor will I ask you why you think the pyramids of Egypt are not burial grounds of the pharaohs but were built to store grain, or why you thought the Nazis in Germany would have been overthrown if the German people had guns, or why you think most of the racism in this coun- try comes from the progressive left, rather than white supremacy. Or why you think it is okay for Congress to have Muslim members, but you would not “advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this na- tion” as president? Or even why you said that Obamacare was the worst thing since slavery.4 Or that abortion is worse than slavery. And I’m perplexed about why you think removing the names of confederate generals from government properties is hiding or burying rather than correcting American history.5 Nor will I ask about your abysmal record as HUD Secretary, why you chose not to defend low-income families from discriminatory housing practices, especially during the height of
https://wpolitico.com/story/2015/10/ben-carson-controversial-quotes-214614
https://wnewsweek.com/ben-carson-says-it-wouldnt-smart-rename-mili-tary-bases-named-after-confederates-suggest-ing-it-1510768
