Legendary neurosurgeon Ben Carson couldn’t live up to expectation after he joined the political fold of U.S. President Donald Trump as the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Carson has, among others, made derogatory comments against minorities including black people since he joined politics. During his first speech after his appointment in 2017, he sparked outrage for describing African slaves, who were forcefully shipped to the United States, as “immigrants.”
He also made headlines for cutting the HUD budget at the rate of $6.8 billion dollars while spending $31,000 dollars on a dining set for his office. The most recent displeasure was the surge in health and safety inspection failure affecting families who live in HUD housing despite promises to fix low-income housing.
These displeasures resulted in the stripping of Ben Carson’s name from the Benjamin Carson High School of Science and Medicine after a vote by the Detroit Board of Education, reports the Detroit Metro Times.
“He is doing Trump’s bidding, and he has adversely affected the African American community in Detroit as well as the nation with his housing policies,” Detroit school board member Lamar Lemmons told The Washington Post.
“He’s allied himself with a president that says he is a white nationalist and sends dog whistles that even the deaf can hear … It is synonymous with having Trump’s name on our school in blackface,” he added.
This is a big blow to Carson who is a native of Detroit and studied in the district until he graduated in 1969. However, a black conservative activist group, Project 21, believes the move is politically motivated and Carson deserves the honour.
“The Detroit school board had no problem with the name of the school before Dr. Carson became active in politics. Now that he does not conform to the ideal liberal plantation image of a black man and he plays a prominent role in the Trump Administration, he offends their hypersensitive, self-righteous and morally corrupt sensibilities,” the group said in a press release published by USA Today.
“A purely political act which willfully ignores the accomplishments and charitable acts of the famous Detroit native who now serves as the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development … This is another misguided effort by liberals to erase history,” the group added.
Although the vote did not go in the favour of Ben Carson, the renaming of the school is expected to be done after a series of meetings in the next academic year.
