The Reverend Al Sharpton wasn't the only one who found fault
with President Bush for addressing the NAACP convention. Many
conservative bloggers felt he was wasting his time.
"One could see the hate directed toward him when he was
speaking," one poster wrote. "Didn't he know it would
never be enough? They are filled with hate, they have been raised
that way and they have raised their children to hate whites. It
is too late for this particular generation of Blacks to quit the
blame game."
That poster is in grave error if he thinks the NAACP represents
the entire black community, but who can blame him for having that
impression? That organization seems to be the only civil rights
group that gets any significant press.
Here in New York City, the Congress of Racial Equality has been
addressing the real concerns of the needy, yet their press
releases seldom receive the attention they deserve. Therefore,
I'll share the one I received on Friday announcing that its
annual Health Fair will be held Saturday, August 5, between 45th
and 57th streets on Seventh Avenue.
The fair will provide important information on the problems that
plague the black and Hispanic community, such as cardiovascular
and infectious diseases and obesity. The fair also will help with
the navigation of senior citizen prescription plans. It was CORE
that sponsored the high-tech cardiac screenings at Cabrini
Hospital that can diagnose latent heart disease and congenital
abnormalities, which are the cause of sudden death in young
African Americans.
The NAACP is a predominantly political organization that supports
the same liberal agenda as most mainstream publications.
Conservative, nonpartisan civil rights groups tend to struggle to
get the public's attention. That poster may not be aware that
many people in the black community have conservative values that
are completely opposite from that of the Sharptons and Jesse
Jacksons, who monopolize the spotlight. I am willing to bet the
blogger never heard of Ben Carson.
Well, neither had I - until last April, when my daughter escorted
one of the students from Immaculate Conception, an inner-city
elementary school in Staten Island, to Maryland to receive the
Ben Carson Scholarship. Seventh-grader Fatima Baro was the only
student to represent New York. Her academic achievements,
community service, and essay focusing on the local effects of the
September 11, 2001, attacks won her the $1,000 award, to be
invested for her future college expenses.
My daughter was very impressed by the man behind the scholarship
fund, and when I read his life story, I thought, "Why isn't
Hollywood making a movie about his life, instead of the lowlifes
in feature films like 'Hustle and Flow?'"
Mr. Carson was the product of a broken home, raised by a single
mother with only a third-grade education who worked three jobs to
support him and his brother. He was at the bottom of his
fifth-grade class and called "dummy" by his classmates.
His mother turned his life around when she restricted his
television viewing and made him read two library books a week and
demanded written reports on what he had read. In a very short
time, his hunger for knowledge grew at a voracious rate and his
grades soared.
He graduated from Yale, received his medical degree from the
University of Michigan, and at 32 became the director of
pediatric neurology at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. In
1987, he made medical history when his team of surgeons
successfully separated Siamese twins joined at the head. He
established the Ben Carson Scholarship Fund to reward students in
grades four through 11 who strive for academic excellence (GPA
3.75 or higher) and demonstrate a commitment to their community.
While Ben Carson's biography is a stellar example of achievements
attained despite social disadvantages, his story is just one of
many that deserve more attention than the arrests of black
rappers, athletes, and supermodels that capture tabloid
headlines.
Conservative blacks and Hispanics who reject the Democratic Party
line are routinely ridiculed and maligned by members of the same
minority. If we dare to reject multiculturalism, affirmative
action, social welfare programs, and social engineering, we are
said to be pawns of the vast white, right-wing conspiracy. That
we have personally witnessed the folly of these programs and
their negative effects on our communities, and that we have come
to these conclusions without any other influence, isn't
considered a possibility by these critics.
Mr. Bush went to the convention because he wanted to express his
support and concern for the black community in general. The fact
that it was an NAACP event meant that his speech might actually
be heard.