Republicans love Ben Carson’s views on race. Most voters of color don’t.

By Janell Ross August 11 at 11:41 AM

It comes up early and often (if indirectly) in GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson's 1990 biography, "Gifted Hands." And it generated one of the biggest applause lines in the first GOP presidential primary debate.

The "it" here boils down to this: Carson, a black man and by all accounts a brilliant neurosurgeon, overcame all manner of disadvantage to become one of the nation's leading medical minds and now presidential candidates. He did not let poverty -- or, most of all, a burdensome set of distracting worries and excuses about white America's minimal-to-nonexistent racism -- stand in his way. By sheer will, determination and perseverance, he is the man and now the retired doctor and presidential candidate that he is today. And that, along with moral rectitude, is what the disadvantaged need, according to Carson.

It's a view that the GOP base devours. This view largely rejects the idea that social structures and institutions -- the tax code, schools, health care, jobs, policing, transportation options and even food choices -- have helped some Americans and stand in the way of others. As such, large-scale reforms or fraught discussions about matters like race are not only unhelpful but unnecessary and perhaps even unwise.

The same logic applies to our social welfare programs including cash welfare assistance and food stamps for the poor. They are also ideas that dovetail nicely with a political philosophy that prioritizes low taxes and opposes Obama-era health-care reforms.

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