I appreciate your excellent accomplishments as a physician. I am truly impressed by your great medical skills and leadership. I was inspired by how you overcame huge odds to become a world-renowned surgeon. I was glad to see you considering running for president as a Republican. Then you absolutely shocked me. I was shocked when you said that the Affordable Care Act, widely known as ObamaCare, “is the worst thing since slavery.” Your words pierced my heart and weighed on my spirit.
Dr. Carson, I resisted addressing you publicly about your terrible words. But now that you are formally a candidate for President of the United States, the most powerful position in the world, I am duty bound to address you openly and honestly. Since your terrible statement was published far and wide, I am making this an open letter for all to see.
Dr. Carson, I write out of a profound disappointment and a searing pain. But I also write out of a deep desire to help you understand that words, like symbols, have real power. Your words sent a horrible message that totally discounted the oppressive reality of African Americans over the last 150 years, commencing at the end of slavery.
Dr. Carson, how could you not know about the Compromise of 1877 where Rutherford B. Hayes, in order to secure the same Presidency of the United States which you now seek, agreed to withdraw the arm of protection from recently freed and newly enfranchised African Americans in the South? This act unleashed rampant terrorism that crushed the rights of and oppressed African Americans for generations. This was just twelve years after slavery officially ended. Dr. Carson, please tell me how the Affordable Care Act, which now provides health insurance to 16 million human beings who were without adequate health care, could be worse than the infamous Compromise of 1877? As a physician, you took an oath to do no harm. However, by your very words, you are doing great harm.
Dr. Carson, how could you not know about the 1896 United States Supreme Court case, Plessy v. Ferguson? This case declared that it was legal to separate the races as long as the separation was equal. “Separate but equal” became the judicial cover for great separation but no equality. You must know that we can never have "separate and equal" when one race determines all the terms of separation and equality. This was just 31 years after slavery officially ended. Dr. Carson, how can the Affordable Care Act, which provides better health care to millions more regardless of race or color, be worse than Plessy v. Ferguson which again enshrined white supremacy as the highest law of the land? You are, by your very words, doing great harm.
Dr. Carson, how could you not know that the Ku Klux Klan waged rampant terror on African Americans for nearly a hundred years from its birth in 1867 to the mid 1960s? How could you not know of the nearly 4,000 known lynchings of African Americans and many more undocumented murders? How could you not know that these lynchings and terroristic murders were sanctioned by federal as well as state and local governments? These lynchings, murders, and acts of terror were state-sanctioned terrorism because nothing was done by the state to stop them and nothing was done by the state to punish them. Dr. Carson, these lynchings started two years after slavery ended and continued for nearly a hundred years. How can the Affordable Care Act, which prevents thousands of deaths each year, be worse than state sanctioned terrorism that took thousands of lives? You are, by your very words, doing great harm.
Dr. Carson, how could you not know that the education of African Americans was stunted for a hundred years by separate and unequal school systems that paid African American teachers as little as half that paid to White teachers, provided substandard facilities for all Black children, and gave them used books and other items that White children no longer wanted? Do you not know that many African American children did not receive any education because of this terrible system and most received a less than adequate education? All this was after slavery ended and has continued into the 21st Century. Dr. Carson, how in the world can the Affordable Care Act, which provides health care for those left out and keeps hospitals open in rural and poor areas, be worse than the stunted education opportunities this separate and unequal system provided to tens of millions of African Americans for so many decades? You are, by your very words, doing great harm.
Dr. Carson, how could you not know that hundreds of thousands of African Americans have ended up in jail and/or prison essentially for being Black? Even today, our prisons are filled with Black men and a growing number of women and other minorities. Do you not know that the United States has about 5% of the world’s population but nearly 25% of incarcerated humans? This situation is rooted in slavery but has intensified since slavery and continues to this day. Dr. Carson, how can the Affordable Care Act, which released millions from prisons of fear created by illnesses without health insurance, be worse than the most destructive prison system in the world? You are, by your very words, doing great harm.
Dr. Carson, millions of Americans live in poverty that dampers their hopes, limits their opportunities and oppresses their lives. All of this is occurring since slavery. How can the Affordable Care Act, which produces hundreds of thousands of good jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars of positive economic activity, be worse than the debilitating poverty that continues to weigh on so many lives? Dr. Carson, by your words, you are doing great harm.
Dr. Carson, our country is the most violent country on earth not engaged in civil war. There are too many individual murders and too many mass murders. The latest such mass murder happened June 17, 2015, in a Charleston, S.C. Church. Mass violence not only takes the lives of those who die, but wrecks the lives of many who live. This violence is rooted in slavery but cultivated by generations of post slavery Jim Crow. Dr. Carson, in light of this rampant violence, please help me to understand how you can say the Affordable Care Act, which protects, enhances and lifts lives, is the worst thing since slavery? You are, by your very words, doing great harm.
Dr. Carson, I could go on pointing out the great wrongs we have experienced since slavery versus the great benefits of the Health Care Act, but I pray the point is well made by now. Please pray about your statement that the Affordable Care Act is the worst thing since slavery. After you make sense of all this for yourself, please withdraw your statement publicly. That way you will stop your words from continuing to do harm.
In deep pain and struggle,
Hank Sanders
EPILOGUE – Words are powerful. Even ridiculous or foolish words are powerful. I am just glad that good words can challenge bad words and prevail over their power.
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