Tag: Carson’s

(AP Photo/Chris Gardner, File) The Associated Press BALTIMORE (AP) — The portrait used to hang in the hallway, welcoming children and parents to the Archbishop Borders School in Baltimore: A smiling Dr. Ben Carson in surgical scrubs, rubbing together the careful, steady hands that helped him become the nation's most famous black doctor. "The person who has the most to do with your success is you," it reads. That was before Carson's presidential bid, before he withdrew from the race and endorsed Donald Trump, before he was tapped to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Carson's story of growing up in a single-parent household and climbing out of poverty to become a world-renowned surgeon was once ubiquitous in Baltimore, the overwhelmingly Democratic city where Carson made his name. But his role in the Trump administration has added a complicated epilogue, leaving many who admired him feeling betrayed, unable to separate him from the politics of a president widely rejected by African-Americans here. Carson declined to be interviewed for this story. Instead, he sent a written statement. Shaun Verma, a Ben Carson Scholarship recipient and Johns Hopkins graduate, says Carson's use of his story of hard work and determination to justify scaling back the safety net for the same communities that raised and revered him "is really, really disappointing." Some Maryland conservatives view Carson differently. When assistance is scaled back, those accustomed to the status quo are bound to be disappointed, he said, adding that Carson "is learning" how to sell his policies to skeptics.