People walk around with “their feelings on their shoulders.”
That’s the point Ben Carson is trying to make — (?) — in this commencement address at Lafayette College in 2009, in a speech he gave directly after Holocaust survivor and scholar Nechema Tec received an honorary degree.
Related: Gay Marriage Will Bring ‘Mass Killings,’ Says Actual Doctor Ben Carson
As Right Wing Watch reports, Carson kicked off his speech by criticizing the idea of political correctness, and he thought a joke about concentration camps would be the perfect way to illustrate his point:
How about we take this to the next level?
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I was talking to a group one time about the difference between a human brain and a dog’s brain and a man got offended. He said, ‘You can’t talk about dogs like that.’ I was talking to another group about how the fashion industry has gotten the young ladies to think they’re supposed to be so skinny they look like they’ve escaped from a concentration camp and a Jewish man got offended. He said, ‘You can’t mention concentration camps, that’s too delicate, it would be as if I said something to you about slavery.’ I told him, ‘You can mention slavery all you want, it doesn’t bother me.’
RWW also points out that Carson — currently Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development — often compared the United States under the Obama administration to Germany under Nazi rule, and once claimed Obama was driven by “Mein Kampf.”
But if none of that sits right with you, you’re clearly one of those people who “wears their feelings on their shoulders.”
As Carson says at the end of his commencement speech, “If anyone is offended, too bad.”
Watch:
DCguy
Gee what a shock, somebody from the Trump administration minimizing the holocaust. Guess the anti-lgbt right wing gays will come on here and talk about how the Holocaust was really the Jews fault and Carson is wonderful for the gay community.
Mo Bro
No, the Holocaust was the fault of the socialist Nazi party. Socialists. Promoting socialism. Y’know, like Bernie did.
And Carson’s not wonderful for us, anyone with a brain could tell you that. I don’t know anyone who’s a fan of Carson’s, so why would you make such an irresponsible comment?
Kangol
You see how Mo Bro of course erased the reality that it was right-wing parties in the German Parliament, as well as the conservative president Paul von Hindenburg, who permitted the National Socialist Party, which was hardly socialist and made jailing and killing real Socialists and Communists, one of its first priorities. This is what happens when you hang out on right-wing websites instead of reading real history. There is nothing even remotely similar between Bernie Sanders and the National Socialist Party/Nazis. But if yo are easily misled, you might believe such nonsense. At any rate, just consider that Donald Trump issued a Holocaust denying proclamation on International Holocaust Day, and has white supremacists working in his White House, and you’ll understand why Carson’s stupid comments should hardly be surprising.
jimontp
MoBro really needs a lesson in history, which Kangol tried to point out. But Mo Bro’s deliberate attempt to connect socialism, and ESPECIALLY Bernie with the Nazi’s is so obnoxious and disgusting, I can’t understand whether his comments are willfullly misleading, ill informed or just pitifully hate inspired.
Nazis were not socialists. Hitler and his party were fascists. They sent socialists, communists, Jews and gays to concentration camps and death.
To associate Bernie Sanders with Nazis is really beyond contempt. Mo Bro- have you NO sense of decency? None?
dwes09
Look “mobro”, everyone here is well aware that you are not particularly bright, but please learn a tiny bit of history! Although the National Socialists USE THE WORD socialist in their name, they are as far removed from socialism as you are from reality. They were, and are, fascists (more akin to trump than to sanders, as they were in bed with corporate powers as Trump is). Look it up you fool.
So sick of a white ass like you coming here to harass gay people and make believe you are black. Heterosexual trolls like you are scum.
Mo Bro
@jimontp:
Looks like I’m forced to educate you. The formal name of the Nazi party was . . . wait for it . . . The National Socialist German Worker’s party. But they weren’t socialists, you say?
My my, that’s an ignorance that transcends even liberalism.
Kangol
@Mo Bro, the Nazi Party was NOT Socialist. They persecuted REAL socialists! They were authoritarian racial nationalists, like your hero Steve Bannon. But NOT Socialists nor Communists. This is empirical reality. Look it up! Read testimony from the Socialists and Communists they locked up in Dachau! There are tons of books about this, about the Nazi Party, its history, its politics, and how it gained power, which was through maneuvers by German conservatives under President Paul von Hindenburg, thereby ending Germany democracy and the Weimar Republic. Even conservative scholars, legit ones, have written about this history. Please educate yourself!
ross_levin
Are you lefty IDIOTS braindead!?
Trump is backing Israel (thats the Jews homeland if you didnt know) and is a free market person.
Obama did Not back Jews , gave all power to NSA, hated Snowden, and is a socialist
Who. The. F. is the Nazi. Lmao
Kathy Green
I don’t think that Carson meant this as a joke. And guess what, he’s not the first and only person on the planet who is reminded of concentration camps when seeing super skinny women. I am from Germany and whenever I see these skin-wrapped skeletons of models on TV, I think to myself: “Wow! They look like the Jews in my history book.” A few years ago, a model named Fiona was on some German TV show. And she was so extremely skinny that a Twitter commenter nicknamed her “Auschwitz Fiona”.
ross_levin
Agree. This is more FAKE NEWS that the leftist marxist scum use to divide and obfuscate.
1EqualityUSA
It’s like that scene in Withnail & I when “I” sees the yolk draining out of the toast.
wolfman6
The brain surgeon needs a lobotomy!
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
This is petty AF. Disingenuous petty political point scoring which redounds upon your own political good faith and credibility. There’s virtually no one I know (none of them right wing or fundamentalist Christian nutjobs) who haven’t made the same analogy (or thought it) about someone looking extremely emaciated (I’ve just taken a straw poll). Maybe not at a formal speaking engagement (which is the problem here in keeping with his usual scattergun unhinged style). It was certainly ill advised in the present hair-trigger offence culture — which was his point. Clearly he was taking no glee in the Holocaust — FYI not all concentration camps are associated with the Holocaust or Jews. It was not even a joke really, more descriptive. Please reserve your GENUINE offence and ire for the REAL damage this loon is likely to perpetuate if he gets his way.
mujerado
Maybe every single one of the people you know has mad “the same analogy,” but they didn’t do it on a podium immediately following the appearance of a holocaust survivor. It’s not what he said, it’s his abysmal timing. You don’t get to say what someone else finds offensive.
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
@mujerado: Bizarrely — extremely bizarrely — I don’t recall reading the really rather crucial bit about him following a holocaust survivor (I really don’t know how I could have missed that! I wonder if the story has been reedited???) Yes, you’re correct that makes all the difference in the world.
Kangol
It was horribly offensive. It would be like someone joking about lynching black people after having Emmitt Till’s late mother speak. I mean, come on, man, don’t legitimize, normalize or diminish this kind of hateful ignorance from Carson. He knows better. Or should.
trusgold
he is such an UNCLE TOM!