How Ben Carson Could Undo a Desegregation Effort

Every pick by Trump rings of an old song "the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor"
Wall Street is unaffected. It all stinks

Dr Carson is as he showed in the campaign out of touch with reality. This he fits in with the bigoted group assembling. His own self interest and delusion is driving him. Another Trump mad max choice.

Read the book by Nikole Hannah-Jones, until one deals with the life long bureaucrats (protected civil servants) one will NEVER change the outcomes. It doesn't matter who is the President. We need to change the hearts and minds of the people who have the REAL power. The "lifers", those that have worked there for years.

To Dr. Carson and his fellow segregationists, I must ask:

(1) What is possibly right about the housing segregation that has long been forced upon us by government actions and policies and the real estate industry?

(2) What is possibly right about denying housing to somebody based on their race, national origin, gender, familial status, disability, or religion?

To quote Edwin Starr, "Nothing, absolutely nothing."

I've done extensive published research on how today's housing segregation came about and there is absolutely nothing natural about it. Sadly it has become so common place that people think the apartheid-like levels of housing segregation in America are natural and normal -- when they are anything but. Government played a major role in segregating housing and it necessarily has to play a major role in mitigating the damage it produced along with the real estate industry.

Ben Carson is the most unqualified person ever nominated to head HUD -- the Senate should have the integrity -- even the GOP Senators -- to soundly reject his nomination.

Trump's latest picks have the media excited about his newfound "diversity."

Please.

These people are straight from the same alt-right playbook - they share the same lack of experience in their newly appointed areas - and they show the same fervor to shred the safety net they climbed up themselves.

We can choose to help people less fortunate out of decency OR we could choose to help them so that they gain the skill set to earn a living.

Whatever floats your boat. Just help.

That's what I would give thanks for.

It is a disgrace that Ben was selected for this critical job which makes decisions on housing for the poor and vulnerable. Once a great surgeon, this man lost his brain for the list of power. He became an extremist just to grab the power. It is an irony to watch what happened to this man with great strength in the past and became a pawn of extremist right winger. But the question is about the man who selected him and he has no clue about governing our great nation.

As usual, mention of fair housing brings out the trolls. Let's try to be a bit substantive. Affordable housing programs HAVE worked. There is ample hard evidence that providing housing subsidy improves lives. The problem is NOT that these programs have not worked, the problem is that they have not been adequately funded, with at most one out of four low-income households eligible for subsidy receiving it. Moreover, neighborhoods matter, so that providing housing opportunities to lower income families in a broader set of neighborhoods is shown to increase economic mobility, particularly for kids who had no say in where they were born. (For the best evidence see the work by Raj Chetty, Lawrence Katz and colleagues at Harvard and Stanford.) Where public policy has failed in the past is to exclude lower-income families from stronger neighborhoods and to deny them of what is considered a basic human right in most advanced economies - basic, safe, and secure housing.

Carson has zero background in any of this. The other HUD secretaries with similar backgrounds have ended up with their hands in the till. I can only hope he will pick assistant secretaries that appreciate actual evidence on housing policy and will actually run the agency. And ignore some of the really silly comments posted here.

All that Trump is doing is buying off and silencing his opposition to allay his low self esteem. Carson is out to lunch too.

Carson knows nothing about housing policy,and has no experience of it; De Vos' experience of education is trying to destroy public schools. Anyone else see a trend here?

Well, there's still a slim sliver of hope, the Senate has to confirm Carson and maybe they won't...

Clearly, the viewpoint taken by the article and some of the comments is that the ills of the unemployed "underclass" be they black in the inner cities or whites in Appalachia and in the rust belt is that the government can, and should, pull them out of their plight.

Dr. Carson, in contrast, says that the individual is the only one who can make this happen. He should know. He did it. Another allied voice comes from J.D. Vance in his book "Hillbilly Elegy". He came from an Appalachia beginning to the rust belt to rise to a Harvard Law degree. He also posits that the government is nearly powerless to change the status quo. It has been trying for almost 50 years with no visible success.

Perhaps no one but the people involved can offer solutions. Have we talked with them past promising to be "Uncle giveaway"?

Ah, the intractable problem of black people dwelling in the inner cities and making trouble for everyone...amazing how Obama, our first president of color but only half-black, did not make it a point to address the dysfunction within the black subculture. Why the blacks make up a layer of the underclass may be attributed to some refusal to take personal responsibility, having innumerable children because Uncle Sugar will pay out entitlement dollars, a steady source of income in a world that doesn't value their labor. And the instability of a culture that has no apparent problem with single-parent families, almost always headed by the mother or grandmother by default...no wonder so many of these kids take the quick bucks from slinging caine and smack and then take bullets before they're even 40 years old...what an abysmal failure the past 150 years have been for our citizens of color, who Lincoln wanted to colonize to New Grenada or Africa and which was only prevented by his assassination.

Ms. Badger, because Dr. Carson has neither accepted the post yet, let alone begun to implement policy, your article is unfortunately little more than speculation. There are simply too many possibilities (especially with this administration) for you to presuppose that Dr. Carson will pursue policies that are harmful to poor, inner-city American blacks. Many of these people have been in bad shape for a long time, and if there's some policy that could have improved their situation, why wasn't it put into action during the last 8 years?

Carson has demonstrated a lack of empathy and compassion for his fellow African American citizens. Trump and his father were sued for discriminating against African Americans in their NY rental apartments. It is no surprise that Carson would be the choice for a position that would negatively impact poor blacks. I guess that Carson's strong Christian faith has nothing to do with the "love thy neighbor thing."

Jesus, if ever from housing to education to the military we need help from God.
This feels like we are thrust back to the 1950's and 1960's. What this crazy world needs is love and a lot of smart people to take on this repressive regime.

The hundreds of pages of contradictory, intellectually incoherent gibberish that is HUD's AFFH should be thrown in the nearest rubbish bin.

Yes, there is a sad legacy of discrimination that harmed minority communities. the law addressed this 50 years ago (70 for restrictive covenants). What else harmed these communities? HUD! In the name of helping they destroyed many poor but functioning communities. They told people it was the government's job to provide them free housing, then theough Davis Bacon hired all white union labor to build them. The result was devastated neighborhoods and people deprived of the opportunity to develop marketable skills.

You don't right a historical wrong by committing another wrong. That is the intent of HUDS AFFH- afflict nice neighborhoods with their failure. truly addressing the legacy of discrimination would mean abolishing HUD. Take the $70 billion or so HUD controls and give it to the poor directly.

AFFH is every homeowner's worst nightmare, precisely the kind of federal meddling and overreach that led to Trump winning the election. Yes, you can force the creation of mixed-income neighborhoods, but they usually don't stay that way for long, as those who can afford to move out do so. It rarely hurts the truly wealthy, who can always exercise the nuclear option of moving to a gated community. The people it hurts most are already struggling middle-class whites who are heavily invested in their homes and can't afford to move. These are the people who voted Trump in large numbers.

That is not Mr. Carson, he is Dr. Carson. He is a highly educated brain surgeon. He does not, however, have a degree in Public Administration and would be totally out of his element in HUD. If Trump is going to give Dr. Carson something to do, make that something in medicine. In medicine, he might be somewhat useful, whereas in HUD, he certainly will not be helpful.

Not o be nit-picky, Ms. Badger, but repeatedly referring to Dr. Carson as "Mr. Carson" is more han a simple insult, it's amateurish journalism. Surely you can do better. Secondly, you assume AFFH is a good thing, which is a huge assumption since there are so few examples of successful social engineering by local or federal government. History shows us that the successful programs are investment tax incentives, less regulations on small business, school vouchers which move youth to high performing schools, and many other types of "positive" incentives, not government trying to force widely different socio-economic groups to blend harmoniously in neighborhoods.

The most segregated neighborhoods in Chicago are poor black neighborhoods. For example, Austin and Englewood. They have been ethnically cleansed of whites, due to violence and intimidation. It has been frequently written this year that black residents of these neighborhoods with the means to leave are part of what has been referred to as 'black flight' "There are troubling signs that more well-to-do blacks have forsaken the city. Last fall, a Tribune article detailed how Chicago had fallen out of the top 10, from seventh place to 21st, in the percentage of black households earning at least $100,000. Many of the cities on the list are now in the South, as affluent blacks from northern cities have relocated."
I suggest that Fair Housing advocates are conflating race with poverty. "In practice, the rule provides those communities with detailed data on factors like racial demographics, poverty rates, school quality and housing voucher use to help them determine whether lower-income and minority families are isolated from good schools or segregated from opportunity." What is Nick Kristof's view of his neighborhood of Scarsdale? Does it embrace AFFH? "Scarsdale Mayor Miriam Levitt-Flosser ... acknowledges that there are a few developments on the town’s drawing board, it has no plans to build affordable housing projects in the foreseeable future."

What the black Americans who are still stuck in poverty really lack are the skills and education needed to make money. It can't be that hard; illiterate Mexican peasants come to the US, find jobs, and send money back to Mexico. You don't need a degree from an Ivy-league university, just a few basic things that will get you in the door and start you on the road to a modest living.

The most detrimental aspect of public housing is when it creates an environment dominated by criminals, in particular gangs run by adults yet exploiting young children as their cohorts. Mothers with young children and the elderly suffer when they lack the peaceful enjoyment that "home" should signify. I believe Ben Carson is an inspired choice and I would trust him to quickly adapt and learn; after all, as they say. "it's not brain surgery". Of course Obama could always rely, I suppose, on his pal Jay-Z to enlighten him about growing up in the projects. His songs and biography discuss his past as a crack dealer in the projects and the violent crimes he committed there.

The accompanying photo of the formerly existent Cabrini-Green housing project on Chicago's Gold Coast is highly ironic, since it was torn down by the Democratic politicians who nurtured President Obama's career. Although Cabrini-Green was only a 1.0 mile walk from all the jobs of the Miracle Mile, it was indeed, "synonymous with unrelenting poverty and murderous street gangs." It turns out that the Tragic Dirt under Cabrini-Green has suddenly turned into Magic Dirt once the Cabrini-Green dwellers were driven away by.

What Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, as the history of Cabrini-Green demonstrates, is really about is that Democratic elites want to move poor blacks out of potentially lucrative inner city locations and dump them on suburbs and small towns.

Ms. Badger, my goodness! The man (Dr. Carson) has not accepted the post and yet the libel has begun!

As an American Black, I many not agree with everything with Dr. Carson, but even I know his life story is a miracle and that anybody can rise above their situation and become the best at whatever they choose to do.

Having said that, he grew up in the Detroit inner city and probably knows the conditions of life better than most. The last person who can relate to me is a big shot DC insider who sympathizes with my situation but cannot empathize- and has never experienced that type of livelihood!

I look at how the inner city have been managed and the treatment blacks have received from the majority party ruling in those cities. The most segregated cities- Chicago, Detroit, and even NYC. The deaths and neglect they have experienced in places like Chicago.

Don't criticize the man and you have no idea what he will do. I hold on to hope because at one time, he was in those dire conditions and rose above it to become one of the greatest neurosurgeons in the world.