Ben Carson, the African-American retired neurosurgeon who is running for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, has tried to be a healing voice in the aftermath of the Charleston church shootings.
Carson doesn’t think political leaders should shy away from the fact that the murder of nine black churchgoers was racially motivated.
“Not everything is about race in this country. But when it is about race, then it just is,” Carson wrote in an op-ed published in USA Today. He compared racism to a deep sickness and told his GOP rivals “you can’t lead if you can’t face the facts.”
“We know what’s at stake here, so let’s stop all the interpretive dance around the obvious,” Carson later added.
Carson, the only major black candidate for president, is seeking the nomination of a party that has struggled to win minority voters. Will this help him appeal beyond the Republican base?
“It is a principle thing that needs to be done and it’s required leadership,” Carson’s business manager and close adviser, Armstrong Williams said. “This is not about his voting base, this is a principle thing that is the right thing to do. People need to see a leader who stands up and is courageous. Again there was no consideration of the votes.”
“Sometimes the times define the leaders, not the leaders defining the times, and this is a time for real leadership,” Williams added.
Unlike many Democrats who have reacted to the Charleston shootings by calling for gun control, Carson is a Second Amendment supporter. He has said that law-abiding citizens should have the right to guns without registration, but non-law abiding citizens should be barred from doing such. Furthermore, he believes that semi-automatic weapons are permitted in rural areas, but not in cities.
But some progressives have taken notice of Carson’s willingness to focus on the racial aspect of the Charleston attacks.
“The fact that he is giving voice to this I hope will encourage other candidates to call out justice as they see it,” said Center for American Progress legal expert Michele Jawando. “Ideologically, I think a lot of voters would have a lot of issues with the platform he’s presented, but just because someone disagrees ideologically with someone on an issue does not mean that you can’t applaud what somebody is saying on this.”
Other Republicans have followed Carson’s lead in condemning the attacks as being racist. Carson is a strong conservative on most issues.
“More and more of the country are moving away from labels and looking at individuals, and I think for some sectors of the population this will cause people to take a second look at him,” Jawando said of Carson. “There will be a pause to consider viewpoint, but they’ll also look at issues such as the economy and healthcare and I think that is what government is supposed to be.”
