bobtato July 16
The real repellent part is where he’s all, “I’m giving you the positive message that you can simply choose not to be poor, isn’t that kind of me?”
That’s well said.
I think Carson’s comments align with the rags-to-riches personal mythology he has built for himself. I’m not masochistic enough to read his autobiography, but I remember him excerpting impossible to verify pieces of it during his campaign - how he attacked his mother with a hammer; how he tried to stab his friend Bob; how he bludgeoned a classmate with a lock. All of those violent scenes were related as teachable moments from a beneficent God, catastrophic character failures from which young Ben recoiled in horror instantly, and which propelled him along the path to Greatness. When scrutinized, those stories didn’t hold up well- no one remembered him attacking his mother, no one named Bob ever came forward to attest to a narrow escape from disembowelment. Most people remembered Carson as quiet and bookish. He didn’t really claw his way up from the mean streets, his family experienced some difficult periods, but the majority of Carson’s childhood and adolescence appears to have been solidly middle class.
But Carson apparently believes his fictionalized origin story and the redemption arc it traces, and that’s a huge problem for the people he’s supposed to be helping. He forgets, or ignores, or is constitutionally unable to see the advantages he enjoyed that allowed him to overcome the obstacles in his path. He has reified his fever dream of a ghetto gladiator pit escape, and uses it to blame the people still fighting in the arena for not getting out. It’s like watching the story of structural racism ab initio.
Edited for spelling.
