Ben Carson, whom award-winning author Kiese Laymon affectionately refers to as “Dad”, whom The Root Senior Editor Stephen Crockett Jr. refers to as “the Godfather of Mumble Rap,” and who I habitually refer to as “ain’t shit,” has a few questions about how this whole reparations thing is supposed to work.
On Monday’s edition of CBS This Morning, correspondent Jericka Duncan asked He Who Habitually Butchers the Electric Slide for his thoughts on how reparations could address our racial wealth gap:
Duncan asked, “When you think about the conversations that have happened regarding reparations, do you think that’s something worth considering when you look at the inequity with African American wealth versus [that of] white Americans?”
“What I would say about reparations is, you know, show me a mechanism that works,” Carson said. “You know, I did my DNA analysis. OK. I’m 77% sub-Saharan African, 20% European, 3% Asian. So how do you proportion that out to everybody?”
“If you can prove you’re a descendant of a slave, though, do you think it’s worth having a conversation?” Duncan asked.
“Yeah, but what percentage of money do you get? What percentage of reparation? No one is ever going to be able to work that out,” Carson said.
“But nobody considered what percentage of what black people looked like in the Civil Rights era,” said Duncan. “They didn’t say, ‘Well, we’re not going to discriminate against you because you might be partially this or partially that.”’
“Proportionately, you’re not going to be able to figure it out. And where do you stop it? It’s unworkable. So, I would much rather concentrate on how do we provide the opportunities for people to get into a better economic situation now.”
“And make it fair now?”
“Yes.”
Carson’s pessimism is par for the course, but it’s pretty damn simple: If you’re a descendant of a slave you should get cashed out. It’s that easy. And considering how rampant sexual abuse, breeding, and rape were during that time period, percentages are just another excuse to refrain from running black people our coins.
Carson also took the time to share his thoughts on Trump’s Christmas gift to us all: Impeachment.
The 68-year-old dismissed the impeachment proceedings as “very immature” and revealed that he’s encouraged the Commander-in-Tweet not to give up.
“Well, I mean, they’re people,” Carson said when asked about the trustworthiness of testimonies from foreign service officers during the hearings. “Do people have various reasons for doing things that are not, uh, fair? Of course, they do. What we really need to be thinking about is the whole concept of fairness.”
What’s not fair is that somehow Trump is still in office. But I’ll keep my fingers crossed that that will be rectified shortly.