There is this black guy, a quite notable politician, who gets up to speak with the belief “we are a nation of immigrants” and he freely tell his audience it was hardly ever an easy journey for anybody. “It wasn’t easy for those of African heritage who had not come here voluntarily and yet in their own way were immigrants themselves. There was discrimination and hardship and poverty,” he told his audience.
“But, like you,” he continued, “they no doubt found inspiration in all those who had come before them … And they were able to muster faith that, here in America, they might build a better life and give their children something more.”
Wait! Oh, my mercy! Please forgive me. It appears I just quoted the wrong guy! What you just read was what the former First Politician, President Barack Obama, told a group of immigrants in a 2015 speech. Obama even said at the time, “Unless you are one of the first Americans, a Native American, we are all descended from folks who came from someplace else — whether they arrived on the Mayflower or on a slave ship, whether they came through Ellis Island or crossed the Rio Grande.”
Only if you have been locked away in some closet this week, you can’t help but have heard more of the zany roar from our twisted media after this other black politician, Ben Carson, said much the same thing on Monday. Because of the similarities in the rhetoric it is so easy to get confused but, in his initial address to his staff, Carson sounded just like Obama.
On his first day at Housing and Urban Development all Carson wanted was to say hello but now every liberal in the country is gnawing at thin air over Carson’s innocuous comments. How so very odd it is that nary a voice was raised just two years ago when Obama first referred to the same slaves in the very same way that Ben did? And, brother, I am talking almost to the letter.
Here is what Ben Carson has been widely and severely mauled on the op-ed pages this week for saying in his speech: "There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder for less," Carson said on Monday. "But they, too, had a dream, that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great grandsons, great granddaughters might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land."
Why is it that when Barack said it, the liberals nodded just so and sipped some more of their dry white wine. But when Carson said quite literally the same thing less than 20 months later, the liberals got all bouncy and yelled like they are crazy and said things that are nuts to begin with? Chattanooga native Samuel L. Jackson, now of Hollyweird fame, actually used “MF word” as he tweeted, “OK!! Ben Carson… I can’t! Immigrants? In the bottom of SLAVE SHIPS??!!”
And why is it, after we learn Obama actually used the theme as slaves being immigrants numerous other times, does the liberals’ strange behavior and mystifying responses get funnier and funnier?
In yesterday’s New York Times op-ed Frank Bruni offered this, which actually makes some people wonder if news is fake. He wrote, “On ABC’s talk show “The View,” Whoopi Goldberg recalled previous odd statements by Carson, noting that “the man who thought the pyramids were built for grain silos” and who “called the Big Bang theory ridiculous” was back with a brand-new epic. “Were the slaves really thinking about the American dream?” she asked. “No, because they were thinking, ‘What the hell just happened?’” It’s a thought I myself have had after listening to Carson,” Bruni opined. This was just yesterday!
Damon Young, a columnist for GQ.com and Ebony, wrote, “One of ya’ll need to call or text or email ya’lls Uncle Ben Carson and tell him slaves weren’t immigrants.”
Then the NAACP tweeted its own “Immigrants?” Karine Jean-Pierre, the National Spokesperson for MoveOn, and who really once worked in the Obama White House, offered a haughty “He needs to revisit @NMAAHC (National Museum of African American History) & not just stop by his own exhibit but walk through the entire museum. #LearnYourHistory”
Here’s another recipe for “cooking crow,” this from some writer named D. Watkins on Salon: “I’m not sure where the Republican Party found Ben Carson, but I’ll be glad when they send him back, and I’m not alone. His comments on slavery and immigrants have sparked an explosion of social media backlash, from memes to rants. Pundits are also chiming in on how confused Dr. Carson is about the difference. On ‘Anderson Cooper 360’ last night, CNN’s Angela Rye pushed back against Carson’s comments: ‘Ben Carson said black people worked for less. I have breaking news for Ben Carson today,’ she said. ‘We built this joint for free. We didn’t build it for less.’”
But the best-of-the-best was this paralyzing rant as described on the front page of several newspapers: “The remarks were condemned as ‘tragic, shocking and unacceptable’ by the U.S. office of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, a social justice group named after the Dutch Jewish girl whose diary, written before she was killed in the Holocaust, became a globally respected account of discrimination and hope. “No, Secretary Carson. Slaves didn’t immigrate to America,” the group’s executive director Steven Goldstein wrote. “This is as offensive a remark as it gets!”
Again, this from the “Center of Mutual Respect!” Trust me, you can’t make this stuff up.
I think the best part of the now exposed Obama-Carson laugher is the reason the famed neurosurgeon would even bring it to notice. The new HUD secretary was asking his employees on Monday morning to be kind to one another. He asked that they speak to one another in the hallways, that he wanted a warm atmosphere. He talked about opportunities that are still available in a country where we can be proud of what we can all achieve.
None of the liberal media dared to interview the employees who had gathered, all who seemed to enjoy Carson’s remarks in the video tapes. The same news outlets wouldn’t dare mention he got a standing ovation before lingering to talk with his fellow workers, this in an important office of government he will now try to make better for even those who castigate him.
But there is one refreshing bit of good news: There is at least one very liberal black politician who completely and totally agrees with Carson’s immigration stance. After all, “Uncle Ben” took the words right out of his mouth.
Ain’t life a kick in the head?
royexum@aol.com