Ben “Mumbles” Carson didn’t want to be secretary of housing and urban development, and when he was offered the job, he should have turned it down. Instead, the highly decorated neurosurgeon is operating in full public view, and he’s a damn mess. He’s worse than a mess; he’s a mess wrapped inside an atrocity that has been dipped in mild scandal sauce.
Since taking the job, Mumbles Carson has basically wandered around the HUD building trying to figure out which office is his. In an attempt to help him with this, Mumbles’ wife decided that she would blow some $31,000 of HUD money on a dining set. Now Mumbles is being accused of conducting a witch hunt to get the person who dropped a dime on the mismanagement of HUD funds.
And for some reason unbeknownst to Black Jesus or the ancestors, Mumbles Carson has decided to remove language in HUD’s mission statement that promises to “build inclusive and sustainable communities free from discrimination,” HuffPost reports.
I don’t know the quality of brains that the Wizard of Oz has on deck, but I assume that they are generic and have basic functions; and at this point, I want the famed neurosurgeon to follow the yellow brick road, get himself one and alter it so that it functions like a black-man-in-America brain.
And the crazy thing is that Mumbles Carson could do it. Well, I don’t know if he could tune a brain to a respectable level of blackness, but he’s one of the world’s most decorated neurosurgeons, and he can’t run a department that shouldn’t be in the news.
Quick, name one other HUD secretary. Former HUD secretaries couldn’t name one other HUD secretary besides themselves and Mumbles Carson. That’s because this job, in truth, is a shadow job—meaning that as long as you aren’t messing up, you will remain in the shadows.
According to HuffPost, a March 5 memo crafted by Amy Thompson, the department’s assistant secretary for public affairs, and addressed to the HUD political staff noted that the mission statement would be updated in an “effort to align HUD’s mission with the Secretary’s priorities and that of the Administration.”
The old mission statement read:
HUD’s mission is to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all. HUD is working to strengthen the housing market to bolster the economy and protect consumers; meet the need for quality affordable rental homes; utilize housing as a platform for improving quality of life; build inclusive and sustainable communities free from discrimination, and transform the way HUD does business.
The new mission statement reads:
HUD’s mission is to ensure Americans have access to fair, affordable housing and opportunities to achieve self-sufficiency, thereby strengthening our communities and nation.
“An organization’s mission is never static,” Thompson wrote in the memo, which was shared with HuffPost by a HUD employee. “A mission statement describes an organization’s purpose, what it intends to do, and whom it intends to serve. Most importantly, an organization’s activities must be embodied in its mission.”
HuffPost notes that “HUD is not the only federal agency changing its mission under President Donald Trump. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director recently informed employees that it was removing the phrase ‘America’s promise as a nation of immigrants’ from its mission statement.” Because that mission is in direct conflict with Trump’s mission to “make America white.”
Carson has served his role as the lone black face in the Trump administration well; he barely talks above an audible level, which covers the “Be seen and not heard” clause in his contract, but at this point he’s actually starting to tear into policy put in place by people much smarter than he is, so it would be nice if he could just go back to working on brains and leave the high-level stuff to smarter folks.