I’m mad, horrified, disgusted, and a lot more. As you regular readers know, my Thursday Thoughts quotes are normally positive in themselves or from well-known people who give suggestions on how to improve our world. Today, though, I just need to vent.
The U.S. (I won’t call him “our”) Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Ben Carson, said this in an interview earlier this week:
“I think poverty to a large extent is also a state of mind. You take somebody that has the right mindset, you can take everything from them and put them on the street, and I guarantee in a little while they’ll be right back up there. And you take somebody with the wrong mindset, you could give them everything in the world, they’ll work their way right back down to the bottom.” He went on to say that poverty is the result of lack of determination and proper parenting.
Mr. Secretary, tell that to the mother on the streets because she had nothing left after her divorce and, as a stay-at-home mom, no job skills or experience. Or to the veteran with PTSD and only minimal access to VA services. Or the mentally or physically disabled person with no insurance and able–maybe–to get only a table-cleaning job at a fast-food place at non-livable wages.
As I said, I’m mad, horrified, disgusted, and a lot more.