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Detroit’s school board has cancelled acclaimed neurosurgeon Dr Ben Carson, based upon claims “his name on a school was synonymous with having Trump in blackface.”

Riding on former board member and career Democrat Lamar Lemmons’ 2018 remarks, the board voted to change Benjamin Carson High School of Science and Medicine to Crockett Midtown High School of Science and Medicine.

Partisan Politics

Filling in some of the bizarre backstory, The Washington Post’s Cleve R. Wooster Jr said that at the time, Detroit’s love for Carson was compromised by its hype-fuelled partisan hatred of Donald Trump.

‘It wasn’t always like this,’ Wooster explained.

‘When Carson came to speak at a Detroit church nearly two decades ago, Lemmons brought his granddaughter and took a photo of the surgeon holding the baby. For Lemmons, it was a cherished family memory.’

The change of heart came about when, on 2 March 2017, Carson was sworn in as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in support of the Trump Presidency.

Once embraced as an ‘honored son,’ Lemmons told WaPo, the famed American neurosurgeon “had disgraced himself” by “doing the bidding” of the “racist” Trump administration.

The Bigger Man

Dr Carson, a Christian, has shrugged off the defamation vis-à-vis woke cancellation, choosing instead to draw attention to his educational kids’ foundation, Little Patriots, an organisation inspired by his late mother.

Sonya Carson compelled Ben to read as a child. Living by the motto: “Learn to do your best and God will do the rest,” Sonya encouraged her sons to “check out and read two library books each week. Write a report, and submit that to her.”

This mum-engaged, homeschooled portion of Ben’s schooling career “changed his life.”

Little Patriots borrows from Sonya’s mentoring as a mother, bringing an objective look at the history of the United States, without the cultural Marxist ideological “us vs. them” lens.

Speaking with Sean Hannity, Dr Carson said the school board’s decision was evidence of the need for programs like Little Patriots, which are designed to be “an inoculation against indoctrination.”

“It’s very sad,” he added, “that we’ve reached a point where political ideology trumps the whole purpose of an educational institution. We see this wokeness spreading through the community to the destruction of our community.”

He then asked,

“How does it do any good for us to demonize people with whom we disagree, and to teach that to our children?”

Totally Nuts

To show just how out of control woke culture, and, to add, drunk-on-power low-level bureaucrats are, the Detroit School Board is also considering cancelling famed former slave and Republican Frederick Douglass. (See here and here.)

Proving Dr Carson right, the board ‘tabled a vote’ to rename Frederick Douglass Academy, then postponed the action.

The reasons for the delay are unclear.

Online education news site ChalkBeat speculated that the name change was due to the school’s “negative stigma” for “associating with at-risk students”.

However, the board has shown its decisions are false-narrative driven and politically motivated.

Sensitive to public opinion, they’re keeping whatever justifications for cancelling the former slave well-guarded.

When the Frederick Douglass Academy’s name change was first proposed by Detroit board members, the president of the parent-teacher association, Monique Bryant, expressed concerns about transparency and inadequate public consultation.

Chalkbeat said that Bryant didn’t “believe the district had done enough to get input from parents about the process.”

On Dr Carson’s cancellation, NBC recalled the change was made after “1,200 of 1,500 people surveyed supported the change.”

Alluding to a conversation with Dr Carson, NBC quoted the retired doctor as saying: “Cancel culture is going to destroy us as a nation if we don’t get a grip on it.”

Calling Them Out

Coming to Dr Carson’s aid, one educator on Twitter slammed the board’s actions, writing,

‘So, the Black American neurosurgeon who performed the FIRST successful separation of conjured twins that were attached at the back of the head… name is removed from a predominantly Black school because… you don’t like his politics??’

Just Thinking podcast host Darrell B. Harrison responded, saying the board’s decision is:

‘Merely a reflection of the ideological tribalism that has imbued urban black communities since the ’70s, and has been invigorated by the ethno-centric (racial) worldview espoused by Barack and Michelle Obama, whom many in those communities loyally idolize and revere.’

An op-ed published online defended Carson, labelling his cancellation a “political stunt” that will leave the United States — particularly students — “worse off”.

Signed by 55 former staffers who worked for Dr Carson, the letter stated,

“We have had the blessing to see his leadership firsthand, and we can attest that his inner virtues match his outward successes.”

“The reason that we adorn our buildings with the names of heroes is to continually remind us of their examples,” the op-ed continued.

Making a case for keeping Dr Carson’s name, the petition noted:

“In today’s culture, plagued by anger, violence and division, Dr. Carson is exactly the sort of man we should highlight for our children.”

Also defending Carson, while linking back to Joe Biden’s “anyone not a Democrat, is a domestic terrorist” speech in September, an understandably fired-up Hannity quipped,

“To the far-left lunatics, only one thing matters: whether or not you have a “D” next to your name.”

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Photo: Wikimedia Commons