America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great

by Ben Carson, M. D.

  I ran into the bathroom and locked myself in, terrified that I had just tried to kill someone — and over something so trivial. If his belt buckle had not been there, I would have seriously injured or killed him, and I would have been on my way to reform school or jail, following the path of so many around me.

  All of my life I had attended church services, and I knew — at least in theory — that God could radically change a person’s life for the better. I also knew that I had tried to gain control of my temper time after time with repeated failure. Although I was only fourteen years old, I was familiar with behavioral modification therapy from reading Psychology Today — but I was also acutely aware that we had no money for behavioral modification therapy. By that time I was a straight-A student, yet I recognized that I would never achieve my dreams of becoming a physician as long as I harbored an uncontrollable temper.

  So I fell to my knees there on the bathroom floor, pleading with God to remove my temper. There was a Bible in the bathroom, and I opened it to the book of Proverbs. Verses about anger and the folly of a fool’s actions all seemed written to me and about me. Other verses encouraged me, such as Proverbs 16:32, which says that mightier is the man who can control his temper than the man who can conquer a city. I stayed in that bathroom for three hours, reading, contemplating, and praying. My selfishness had made me so angry inside, and it dawned on me that if I could just step outside myself and look at things from someone else’s point of view, I might see the world differently and not feel so persecuted.

  My new, God-given perspective worked like a charm. He became very real to me that day, and I have never had another angry outburst of uncontrollable temper since then. There would be other tests, of course, and I would make my share of mistakes. But that, after all, is how we learn and grow.

  My high school, Southwestern High School in Detroit, was not particularly well known for its academics, but it was a football and basketball powerhouse. It won several state basketball championships, and you reached the pinnacle of respect among your peers if you were a starter on one of the varsity sports teams. The only other way to gain recognition was to join a successful singing group. Since we were located in Motown,1 students always expected one of the groups to make it big.

  I was definitely not one of the cool guys, however. They always wore the latest fashions, knew the latest “jams” on the radio, sported a nice car, and had three “chicks” on each arm. They also had a distinctive walk known as “the Detroit strut” and an ever-changing lingo that denoted how “hip” they were.

  I, on the other hand, was a total nerd, complete with stacks of books, thick glasses, a slide rule, and clean but dated clothing. I had neither a car nor a girlfriend. Nevertheless, I was certain I would make my mark in the world, because I was going to be so smart that everyone was going to have to take notice of me. But all I really got during my freshman year was ridicule, and I began to feel very out of place. By the time my sophomore year rolled around, I was ready to abandon my nerdy appearance and become one of the cool guys. I began to play basketball late into the night, and more disturbingly, I began grumbling constantly to my mother about my “uncool” clothing. My mother was very disappointed that I had lost my way and was heading in the same direction as all the people she characterized as losers. Despite her arguments, I complained incessantly.

  One day, during one of our arguments, she thrust at me all the money she had made scrubbing floors and cleaning toilets and said in frustration, “You pay the bills, you buy the food, you pay the rent and take care of all the other necessities. With all the money you have left over, feel free to buy all the cool clothes you want.”

  I was thrilled, because I figured I was finally going to have my way and become one of the cool guys. As I started allocating money for all the expenses, however, I quickly ran out. I soon realized that my mother was a financial genius to somehow keep us fed and sheltered. I felt like a total fool and sheepishly returned the money to her. I never complained about my clothing again.

  Fortunately, having read the Bible over the preceding years, I quickly recognized that my desire to be part of the “in crowd” was more characteristic of a fool than a person of accomplishment. During my slide into foolishness, my grades had slipped precipitously, and I was horrified as I looked in the mirror and realized what I was becoming. I immediately corrected my course, abandoning any desire to be one of the cool guys. I once again became a diligent student, and my grades dramatically improved. From that day forward I was never again tempted to abandon my long-term goals for the sake of momentary acceptance.

  The excitement I had experienced as a freshman in high school was nothing compared to the exhilaration I felt at becoming a “Yale man.” Going from inner-city Detroit to the ivy-covered walls of Yale was certainly a culture shock; rich wood paneling covered the dining hall walls, the plates were real china, and the eating utensils were real silver. Works of art adorned the walls, and Oriental rugs covered the hardwood floors. I had gone from dire poverty to the lap of luxury overnight — and I intended to enjoy every minute of it.

  Obtaining top grades in high school had been a snap. The material was so easy I could study for half an hour before an exam and still get an A. I naturally assumed I could do the same thing at Yale, so I took judo classes, played ping-pong and table soccer, watched television, attended live entertainment events, and generally had fun. I thought I had corrected my academic flaws in high school, but academic success in a high-powered university obviously required significantly more correction than I had accomplished. By midterm, I began to worry a bit because I wasn’t doing well in some classes, including freshman chemistry, which was a prerequisite for those planning to go to medical school. My concern wasn’t enough to stop me from having fun, but it did dampen my enthusiasm.

  By the time final exams rolled around, however, my grade in chemistry was so low I would have failed the course even if I had gotten an A on the final exam. In an act of great compassion (or sadism, I’m not sure which), the chemistry professor offered to give anyone who was failing the course double credit for the final exam — which gave me one last glimmer of hope. I suspect he believed that people like me had no chance of passing the final exam if they had done so poorly throughout the course of the semester; therefore, there was little or no risk in making such an offer.

  The night before the final exam I sat in my room with my thick chemistry textbook, a barrier to all my hopes and dreams. I poured out my heart to God, asking forgiveness for squandering such a wonderful educational opportunity. I asked him to show me what he really wanted me to do with my life, since I obviously wasn’t going to get into medical school. Preferably, I asked him to work a miracle. As I tried futilely to memorize my entire chemistry textbook, I fell asleep and entered a dream.

  During that dream I was the only student in a large auditorium, and a nebulous figure was writing out chemistry problems on the chalkboard. I awakened early that morning with the dream so vivid in my mind that I quickly consulted my chemistry textbook to corroborate what I had seen in the dream. When I opened the test booklet the next day during the chemistry final exam, I was flabbergasted when I recognized each of the problems in the booklet as one of the problems that the nebulous figure was working out on the chalkboard in my dream. It felt like I was in the twilight zone as I hurriedly scribbled down the answers, afraid that I would forget them if I waited too long.

  I knew the moment I finished the exam that God had granted me my miracle. I promised God that he would never have to do such a thing for me again and that I would become a diligent student and make him proud of me. It was a scary lesson to learn, but it profoundly changed my attitude about my purpose in college.

  The rest of my time at Yale was relatively smooth sailing, but medical school was another matter. The amount of new material that must be mastered in medical school is equivalent to learning several foreign languages simultaneously, and many students flunked out before the first year was ov
er. I had learned my lesson in college and was very diligent about studying and attending all my lectures, but I still did horribly on the first set of comprehensive examinations. As a result, I was required to see my counselor who had been assigned by the university to help me get through medical school. He told me that I should simply drop out of medical school since I obviously wasn’t cut out for medicine. Of course I was crushed, because the only career I had aspired to since I was eight years old was that of a physician.

  Following that meeting, I returned to my apartment and again poured out my heart to God, begging for wisdom. As I prayed, a thought occurred to me. What kind of courses have you always struggled with, I asked myself, and what kind of courses have given you no difficulty? It dawned on me that I did very well in courses that required a lot of reading, and I struggled in courses in which the material was communicated through boring lectures. Unfortunately, I was being subjected to six to eight hours of boring lectures every day in medical school. Right there and then, I made an executive decision to skip the boring lectures and to spend that time reading. It was a risky move, but if it didn’t yield results, I would have been in no worse shape than I was in already. It turned out to be a fabulously successful strategy, and the rest of medical school was a snap.

  That traumatic episode taught me how important it was to learn your own strengths and weaknesses from your mistakes. Over the subsequent years, I have saved enormous time and effort by understanding that I gain nothing from listening to boring lectures. I did learn that I respond well to visual input, such as reading books, viewing images, and using flashcards. I’m convinced that much of the success I have experienced in life is a result of learning from my failures.

  LESSONS FROM OUR MISTAKE

  OF ALLOWING SLAVERY

  Of all the mistakes our nation has engaged in, allowing the practice of slavery was obviously one of our most egregious. I have found that when I extol the virtues of our nation, particularly on college campuses, the question of slavery frequently comes up — and this, of course, casts a huge shadow on many of the outstanding accomplishments of our leaders over the course of our nation’s history. I doubt that there are many people today who would try to justify slavery, and it’s safe to say there is general agreement that it was an abomination. But what did we learn from this mistake?

  I hope we learned that all men are indeed created equal, and that given proper opportunities, not only can they improve their personal lot in life, but through the development of their intellect they can make substantial contributions to society at large. In the case of African-Americans, all you have to do is open your eyes to see the many contributions they have made to the welfare of our nation.

  When you see a light, for instance, you may think of Thomas Edison, but it was his right-hand man, Louis Latimer, an African-American, who developed the filament for the lightbulb, allowing it to function for more than two or three days. He also invented the electric lamp, did pioneering work in incandescent lighting, and diagrammed the telephone for Alexander Graham Bell, among other things. The traffic signal was invented by Garrett Morgan, an African-American who also invented the gas mask, which saved many lives during wars. From the potato chip to the ironing board, from refrigeration systems to sound equipment such as the microphone chip, many items that we use on a regular basis were invented by African-American individuals,2 who were once relegated simply to the role of slave.

  If we as a nation learn the inherent value of every citizen, our policies will strive to cultivate that talent to benefit us all. The fact that we have not recognized a high school dropout rate of 30 percent as a national disaster shows that we have yet to fully comprehend the value of each individual. Not only are we failing to reap substantial benefits from these individuals, but in many cases we are actually depleting our coffers by paying for them in the penal system or the welfare system. Any one of these young people with proper encouragement and education could potentially come up with innovative products or helpful services. But because of our history of segregation, Jim Crowism, and racism, generations of African-Americans have grown up with a sense of alienation toward their own country. This has created extreme levels of cynicism and distrust among many citizens who might otherwise have been enthusiastic supporters of the nation.

  I have heard it said that everybody harbors some degree of racism, but my own observations have led me to believe that individuals who are well-educated and who think deeply about matters tend to not base any biases on superficial characteristics. Such people tend to realize that it is the brain that makes the person who they are, not the external covering. People who are less intellectually sophisticated tend to allow their emotions to be affected by very superficial things, such as skin color. Unfortunately, basing one’s ideas and opinions on superficial traits is rather common in places where intellectual development is not highly rewarded or praised. I suspect that if one did an in-depth study of people who arbitrarily engage in racial bias, they would find that such people were also attracted to visually appealing but unhealthy foods. They might be more inclined to go for the flashy red car than the dull gray hybrid that gets fifty miles to a gallon of gasoline. These people come in all sizes, colors, shapes, and socioeconomic categories, and rather than shun and castigate such people, our nation’s goal should be to educate them and fill in the intellectual gaps, which would improve their value both to themselves and to us all.

  As an intern at Johns Hopkins in 1977, I was frequently mistaken for an orderly, phlebotomist, respiratory therapist, or some position other than a doctor. For most, it was an innocent mistake; however, it would have been easy for them to notice that I had a stethoscope around my neck. Or that I was in scrubs, or was wearing a white lab coat, which would have been extremely unusual for an orderly. When I would gently point out that I was a doctor, the majority of people were highly embarrassed and apologetic. I tried to alleviate their discomfort by letting them know that I was in no way offended and that I could easily have made a similar mistake. I never encountered anyone who made that same mistake twice. I helped eliminate their social ignorance, which I’m sure was beneficial to them in the long run.

  STILL SHAKING SHALLOW, RACIST THINKING

  Although much overt racism has been eliminated in America, there are still too many people who make sweeping generalizations about whole groups of people based on a negative encounter with a person of a different race. In order to resolve this problem, we must first admit that it exists even in our own families or ourselves — and African-Americans are just as likely to harbor racist attitudes as white people.

  Just prior to the last presidential election, when the first African-American was elected president of the United States, I saw on television a segment where a reporter was interviewing African-Americans in Harlem, New York, about various policies advocated by candidate Barack Obama. All of the interviewees enthusiastically supported each policy discussed without knowing that they were actually the policies held by candidate John McCain. The most hilarious part of the interviews occurred when the people were asked what they thought about Senator Obama’s choice of his running mate, Sarah Palin. The answers were all quite favorable toward Governor Palin because she was picked, they thought, by Obama. Many African-Americans voted for Obama simply because he was a black man and not because they resonated philosophically with his policies. If the situation were reversed, and white people were obviously voting for their candidate based on race and not political philosophy, shouts of racism would be deafening.

  I do, however, understand the enormous pride African-Americans have because the president of the United States is a black man. I even know staunchly conservative African-Americans who voted for Obama even though they vehemently opposed his political platform. One individual told me that it wasn’t really racism, but rather just a matter of being overwhelmed by emotion upon entering the voting booth. But racism is a subset of hatred, which also is an emotion. I’m sure many white voters were overwhelmed
by emotion several years ago during California’s 1982 race for governor, when they couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Tom Bradley, who was the mayor of Los Angeles at the time and happened to be an African-American. All the pre-election polls showed Bradley far ahead of his white opponent, and it was a foregone conclusion that he was going to win and become California’s first African-American governor — but when it came time to cast votes, sentiment swung radically in the other direction. Voting for Barack Obama simply because he is black is just as irrational and racist as not voting for Tom Bradley because he was black.

  As a nation, we must first admit that we have a problem with racism and shallow thinking, and we need to redouble our efforts to learn from the ugly episodes in our history and move forward — united — to tackle real problems.

  COMPOUNDING OUR MISTAKES FINANCIALLY

  Because President Obama is an African-American who believes in redistributing wealth, white people might wonder if all or most black people are like President Obama and want to redistribute wealth. However, I personally know many African-Americans who vigorously disagree with the concept of government redistribution of wealth. They love this country and have put forth a great deal of physical and intellectual effort to succeed in our nation. They share the same values as the majority of Americans and believe that they should be able to keep or distribute their resources as they see fit.

  When the government becomes large and intrusive and feels that it has the right to as much of the resources owned by the people as it wants, then we have clearly strayed away from some of the foundational principles of this nation. What is truly amazing is how accepting most Americans are of this government intrusion into our lives and bank accounts. It is commonplace today to find large groups of people who believe the government has a responsibility to take care of all the basic necessities of its citizens. Benjamin Franklin, however, wrote: