During the Student Action Summit on Sunday, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson pushed back against the critical race theory push seen in a growing number of schools across America.
The former neurosurgeon was a speaker at the Sunday installment of the event, which will run through Tuesday, July 20. The event is hosted by Turning Point USA, the Charlie Kirk-founded non-profit organization that seeks to "identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government."
Carson argued during his Student Action Summit speech that critical race theory and the 1619 Project, the journalism project developed by the New York Times that aims to "reframe the country's history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United States' national narrative" is truly "about dividing people," Breitbart reported.
The ex-HUD secretary argued, "It's about dividing people. It's about creating the kind of division and strife that allows control."
Carson said that instead of the critical race theory push, children should instead be taught that slavery happens not only in the United States but elsewhere as well. What sets America apart however, is that the U.S. fought a civil war to put an end to slavery.
He argued that this is what should be highlighted to children in classroom, not the fact that white people enslaved people of color despite it being a "horrible, horrible institution" because he thinks there was nothing "unique" about it.
Carson explained that America had "enough people with the moral rectitude to recognize" that slavery was something the country could not stand for "no matter what the economic gains were," causing people to rise up to put an end to it. Carson further argued that children nowadays are being given too many restrictions, such as mask mandates.
The neurosurgeon said that these "poor children" can't look at their peer's facial expressions, which causes "a big sociological problem." He also argued that children are being taught to wear masks so that they don't accidentally give their grandparents COVID, saying, "Unfortunately, grandmothers do die. But now you got this kid feeling guilty that somehow he's responsible for it."
Carson has long been against the critical race theory push. Last week, he fired back at Ibram X. Kendi, an author who accused Republicans of "[creating] an imagined monster" in the form of critical race theory, Fox News reported. Carson denied the allegations and said "it was obviously the left that did this."
The former HUD secretary added that he was "glad they are doing it" and "pushing it so hard" because the movement is "waking people up" because he believes the argument will "help us as a nation."
The summit also featured a number of Republican leaders, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Senators Rick Scott and Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump Jr., among others.
