The move to create race-based “anti-poverty stipends” and reparations is “un-American,” former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson wrote in a Sunday op-ed.
Blasting “racially charged narratives,” Carson said focus has been shifted to “equity” instead of “equality,” noting that modern racial justice efforts undermine the teachings of MLK.
“That is, instead of pursuing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s ideal of judging people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, equity would reward and punish people because of the color of their skin. Rather than equality of opportunity, equity would mandate equality of outcome,” Carson wrote in the Washington Post on Sunday.
“This goal is not only un-American — it is impossible to attain,” he said.
Carson, who served in the Trump administration from 2017 to 2021, said proponents of equity have no problem treating “people differently based solely on race, as long as it serves their agenda.”
“This is what we used to call racism, and those not blinded by identity politics still recognize it as such,” he continued.
He said today’s social justice movement builds on the foundation that the “White majority is guilty of bigotry and oppression,” and equity advocates believe that “retributive actions” against white people are needed to right past wrongs.
“Reparations for slavery — which a House committee has voted to study — are such an action; so are hiring programs that specifically recruit racial minorities, campaigns to support only Black-owned businesses and firms that require their board of directors to have a certain percentage of minorities,” he said.
“A perfect example of equity is the anti-poverty stipend recently announced by the city of Oakland, Calif., offered only to residents who are ‘BIPOC’ — that is, Black, Indigenous or people of color. The program explicitly excludes poor White families,” Carson said.
The House Judiciary Committee last Wednesday voted 25-17 to establish a commission to study reparations and more than 40 million African Americans eight generations removed from slavery could receive payments if it becomes law.
While Democrats, who control the House and Senate, support reparations, Republicans have raised concerns about such legislation, warning that it could further divide the country and would come with a price tag of about $12 trillion.
In Oakland, Calif., Mayor Libby Schaff announced the poverty initiative last month that would pay low-income families of color $500 a month for 18 months.
“The poverty we all witness today is not a personal failure, it is a systems failure,” Schaaf said. “Guaranteed income is one of the most promising tools for systems change, racial equity, and economic mobility we’ve seen in decades. I’m proud to work with such committed local partners to build a new system that can help undo centuries of economic and racial injustice, and point us all toward a more just society.”
Carson, who was the head of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital before running for president in 2016, encouraged creating programs and policies that provide for equal opportunities rather than “harking back to days of racism as a policy.”
“As a child raised by a single mother in Detroit, I certainly experienced racism. But I took responsibility for my own life and achieved more than what equity advocates would say our current system allows,” he wrote in the Washington Post.
“Rather than teach our children that they are victims of a racist system in which they can only be made whole by making people who have done nothing wrong pay for the past sins of others, we should teach them that they are in charge of their own dignity and their own future,” he said.
He said all people should be treated as individuals and not as members of a larger group.
“Instead of tearing down institutions, let’s work together to make them better. Together we must strive for a more perfect union in which people are judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin,” Carson said.
