I have to admit that I’ve always been a big fan of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I consider him to be one of the best basketball players of all time. He is also a very intelligent man who is not shy about expressing his opinion on a variety of topics.
And now he is weighing in on the matter of GOP Presidential candidate Ben Carson. In an editorial he wrote for Time magazine, Abdul-Jabbar writes that a Carson Administration would be an “unmitigated disaster” for America, and even worse for black Americans:
“His repressive, muddled and pious policies and opinions often run against our Constitution—but his questionable proposals will likely, thankfully, be doomed by his lack of political expertise. His presidency would be marked by even worse gridlock while he wastes his time trying to impose his narrow and sometimes ill-informed morality on the other 319 million people in the nation. And it would definitely not be good for African-Americans to have a president who flounders helplessly in office because it would perpetuate the stereotype that blacks can’t be effective CEOs, quarterbacks and leaders.”
I could not agree more. Can you imagine him trying to preach his piety to members of Congress as a way of urging them to pass a piece of legislation?
Kareem also notes that for a doctor, Carson certainly does seem to have a total disregard for science and the scientific process:
“Again, when an elected leader ignores testimony from 97% of the world’s experts, renowned physicists and the CDC, we have to question his decision-making abilities. Carson perpetuates the black stereotype of someone who’s too confused or frightened by all that complicated science so he or she ignores it, clinging to superstitions or religion. Obviously, white politicians have been making the same buffoonish claims, but they aren’t representative of a minority struggling to achieve equality.”
It may shock Republicans to hear a black man criticize a man they all think is such a godsend to their party. But what Abdul-Jabbar says is completely true. And now in light of all the lies Dr. Carson has been caught in recently, it is becoming perfectly clear that while he may be a brilliant neurosurgeon, Ben Carson is not prepared to be President of the United States.
Featured image by Wikimedia, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.
