Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson blasted those he said were trying to turn the United States into the “divided states” on the basis of race during the firist GOP presidential debate Thursday
When Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly asked about racial divisions in the country, Carson said people are not defined by their skin and hair but rather their mind.
“Dr. Carson, question to you about God and his role, but about one of the issues that the public was very interested in, and we talked about it earlier, is race relations in this country and how divided we seem right now, and what — if anything you can do, you would do as the next president to heal that divide,” Kelly asked Carson.
“Well I think the bully pulpit is a wonderful place to start to healing that divide,” Carson began. “You know, we have those purveyors of hatred who take every single incident between people of two races and try to make a race war out of it and drive wedges into people. And this does not need to be done.”
“I was asked by an NPR reporter once why I don’t talk about race that often. I said ’cause it’s because I’m a neurosurgeon,’ and she thought that was a strange response,” Carson said. “I said when I take someone to the operating room, I’m actually operating on the thing that makes them who they are. The skin doesn’t make them who they are, the hair doesn’t make them who they are, and it’s time for us to move beyond that because — you know, our strength as a nation comes in our unity.
“We are the United States of America, and not the divided states who want to destroy us are trying to divide us, and we shouldn’t let them do it,” Carson concluded.
