MLK Encore: David Radlo with Dr. Ben Carson

Sustainable Leadership and Disruptive Growth

We honor Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a special encore discussion on leadership, civil rights, and moving forward together. Acclaimed neurosurgeon and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Dr. Ben Carson joins David to share his unique perspectives on race, community, faith, and equality in America. Dr. Carson reflects on our nation’s progress since the civil rights movement while weighing in on today's challenges. He calls for common-ground solutions to issues like border policy, healthcare, and more. From uplifting personal stories to insightful commentary on respecting our differences, this powerful conversation provides inspiration to carry on Dr. King’s legacy.
TRANSCRIPTION (AI transcription software was sued to convert spoken language into written text)David: I'm honored to be joined this week by Dr. Ben Carson. Ben is a groundbreaking neurosurgeon who served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 2017 to 2021. You might recall he was also a candidate for president in the 2016 Republican primaries. Currently, he's the chairman of the American Cornerstone Institute and an author of several books, including his new and most timely book, Created Equal.Mr. Secretary, Dr. Carson. Welcome to the podcast.Ben: Thank you. I'm delighted to be with you in yourDavid: books gifted hands and created equal. You shared some of your humble beginnings and background arising from poverty in Detroit and Boston, including incidents of clear racism with threats to schooling, playing football and honors received.You also mentioned how you were able to get some surprising, mystical and extraordinary gifts. A note after falling asleep, traveling with your wife, Candy going 90 miles an hour in a car earlier in your life. Our dream helped you through a key test while at Yale. In addition, as well as the difficult surgeries and political tax on faith.Dr. Martin Luther King said, trouble will come upon you. Disappointment will rain on your door. Like a tidal wave. If you don't have a deep and patient faith. It ain't gonna make it. How important has faith been in your life? And how has it navigated you through such as these difficult situations into becoming the expert worldwide neurosurgeon that handled conjoined twins and other extraordinarily difficult situations?Ben: I would dare say that I couldn't do any of that without the incredible faith that has brought me through so many trials. I hearken back to The fact that I had a horrible temper and I would just go fly off the handle and want to seek revenge, harm people, regardless of the consequences. It was after such an incident where I tried to stab another teenager with a camping knife that I was locked in the bathroom and I was thinking about my life.I turned things around academically very significantly, but I knew I would never achieve my dream of becoming a doctor with a temper like that. I would end up in jail, reform school, or the grave, and I just said, Lord, I can't control my temper. And there was a Bible there, and I picked it up, and there were all these verses in the book of Proverbs about anger, and also about fools, and it all seemed like they were written about me.For three hours, I prayed and contemplated and read, and it dawned on me during that time, it was always about me, my, and I. Somebody did this to me, they took my thing, I want this. I said, if you learn how to step out of the center of the equation, let it be about somebody else. You won't be angry. That was the last day I had an angry outburst.And I recognized at that point, God was real. He was more than somebody you learned about in church. And it really changed my life. And I began to really depend on him at that point in time. And it's been something that has gotten me through so many trials. When I was a first year medical student.I did poorly on the first set of comprehensive exams, and I was sent to see my counselor who said, You seem like a very intelligent young man. I bet there's a lot you could do outside of medicine. He tried to convince me to drop out of medical school. He said I wasn't cut out for medicine, and I would just torment myself and everybody else, and they could help me get into another discipline.The only thing I'd wanted to do was be a doctor since I was eight years old. I started thinking, what kind of courses have you always done well in, and what kind of courses have you struggled in? And I realized I did very well in courses where I did a lot of reading, and I struggled in courses where I listened to a lot of boring lectures, because I don't get anything out of boring lectures.Nothing at all. And yet, there I was, six to eight hours a day, sitting in boring lectures. So I made an executive decision to skip the boring lectures and to spend that time reading. And the rest of medical school was a snap after that. And some years later when I was back at my medical school as the commencement speaker, I was looking for that counselor because I was going to tell him he wasn't cut out to be a counselor.Because so many people are just negative. They never seem to be able to figure out a positive thing to say.David: Thanks for sharing that positive, transformative experience due to your great faith. As you mentioned on life, Martin Luther King discussed the three dimensions of a complete life and the onward push for fulfillment, helping others and the upward reach for God.Dr. King preached loving your enemies with agape and finding what's good in your enemies and finding what's wrong with yourself on the road being judged by your content, your character, and not your skin color. He spoke about even in prison, finding out how much white jail guards made, and they should perhaps join his movement.You said that in America, we valued each individual as unique being in someone who can be a special perspective to the table so we can work together to come up with common sense solutions to problems and believe that we've progressed to a point where many African American businesses, political doctors, and other professionals trades.Where people are more open minded about each other and believe that people are indeed created equal Can you kindly comment on certain common sense solutions? That you have been involved with to address underserved communities that improve lives, as well as other key lessons learned from your career.Ben: Yeah, one of the things that has been very important to me is the whole concept of self sufficiency. And that was really the reason that I, Wanted to take the job as the secretary of housing and urban development. There were so many things that were built into the system that kept people dependent. I worked very hard to enhance and improve and expand programs that would lead to self sufficiency so that when people, for instance, made more money on the job.Instead of having to report that, so that your rent could go up, you would record it, but instead of the rent going up, the extra money could go into an escrow. And over the course of a few years, you might be able to accumulate enough for a down payment on your own house. And home ownership is the principal mechanism of wealth accumulation in this country.The average net worth of a renter is 5, 000. The average net worth of a homeowner is 200, 000. That's a 40 fold difference. And in many cases, we're talking about the same money that is used to either be squandered or to go into creating that nest egg. Those are the kinds of things that really make a difference in people's lives.And then we've worked very hard to create The Carson Scholars Fund, in which we recognize students from all backgrounds who achieve at the highest academic levels and also who care about other people. You have to do both. We give them rewards, including scholarships as early as the fourth grade.So that the other kids look at them, and instead of that old nerd, Wow, that kid has a scholarship. He's only in the fourth or the fifth grade. What the heck did he do? And a lot of teachers tell us that other kids start trying harder at that point. And then we also put in reading rooms, and that's absolutely critical.There's over 260 of them now. around the country, primarily in Title I schools, where a lot of kids come from homes with few or no books. They go to schools that don't have a budget of significance for libraries. Most kids are not likely to become readers, but you put these incredible rooms in the school with all kinds of fascinating books.The rooms are decorated frequently in a way that's consistent with the area where they're found. For instance, one that's near a NASA site is Decorate it like a space capsule. You look through one window, you see the Earth. Another one, you see the Moon. Another one, E. T. And the kids just love these places, and they get points for the number of books they read.And they can trade them in for prizes. But, in the beginning, they're interested in the prizes, but it doesn't take long before that begins to affect their academic achievement. And many studies have shown us that if a child is reading at grade level by grade three, it changes the trajectory of their lives.That's what it's really all about. We're made in the image of God. Tremendous potential, but it has to be directed correctly. IDavid: appreciate the thoughtful introspection. Turning to systematic racism, you stated by taking every incident of perceived racial discrimination and magnifying it, repeating it incessantly, the case for systematic racism is made.The guilt and shame is done to manipulate the public. Could you then please explain for our listeners as to why there are calls there for systematic racism? Black and minority victimization and critical race theory and related calls to defund rather than support the police?Ben: It really doesn't make a lot of sense to defund the police under any circumstances.But you take something like the George Floyd incident. It was repeated ince