If You’re Black, Lead the Pack

By: American Decency Staff

Here’s something you may not know: Dr. Ben Carson is black.

Of course, I’m being a little cute here. The only way you wouldn’t know he’s black is if you were blind and only listened to the news.

For instance, Tuesday on MSNBC’sMorning Joe — a program that often serves as a kind of artisanal boutique of inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom — host Joe Scarborough expressed his consternation over Carson’s popularity. “I just don’t get it,” Scarborough said more than once.

Remarking on some Carson ad he didn’t like, Scarborough said, “This guy is up 20 points in Iowa? . . . It’s baffling.”

Co-host Mika Brzezinski kept saying, “I just don’t get the Ben Carson . . . ” before trailing off into in articulate exasperation.

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson took a plausible stab at why Carson is popular. “They like him, they like him,” he repeated, referring to conservatives in Iowa and elsewhere who admire Carson’s dignified and soft-spoken demeanor.

True enough; Carson has the highest favorables of any candidate in the GOP field.

But what’s remarkable is that at no point in this conversation did anyone call attention to the fact that Carson is an African-American. Indeed, most analysis of Carson’s popularity from pundits focuses on his likable personality and his sincere Christian faith. But it’s intriguingly rare to hear people talk about the fact that he’s black.

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