Like Mr. Carson, I was raised by a single black woman in Detroit who stressed the need for hard work and education. For Mr. Carson, our hometown is useful only for street cred: It is necessary personal background to prove that it’s possible to make it out of poverty and succeed through the power of one’s own will. Mr. Carson said nothing about this — or anything about the legacy of discrimination in housing — during his Senate confirmation hearings. But in another sense, Mr. Carson is a perfect pick for a president-elect who has been sued for housing discrimination himself. There is a body of research that shows that racist urban policy decided my grandmother’s fate — not her own free will.

Source: New York Times January 14, 2017 02:54 UTC