Now that Ben Carson is the leading GOP candidate, the doctor is under a lot more pressure, not just as a candidate, but as a representative of African Americans. The lifelong burden of a minority is that they feel as if everything they do or say reflects not just on their own character, but also on how the rest of their group will be judged by the ruling majority. Jon Stewart satirized this truth on The Daily Show with “Is This Good for the Jews?” in which he assessed how news about prominent Jewish people reflected on all Jews.

Would President Ben Carson be good for African Americans?

Ben Carson is good for African Americans in that he is a deeply moral man who has done much good as a physician and now wants to upsize his good-doing on a national and global scale. His success story is the stuff the American Dream is made of and is motivation for others to follow his path. His accomplishments as a medical doctor are admirable and serve as an inspiration for young black men and women seeking a career in science. His measured, even groggy demeanor, commands attention and respect. Had he decided to dedicate his post-retirement life to promoting STEM education across the country, he would have been a model for the American ideal that anything is possible.

However, he chose to run for president of the U.S., and that’s bad for African-Americans. His repressive, muddled and pious policies and opinions often run against our Constitution—but his questionable proposals will likely, thankfully, be doomed by his lack of political expertise. His presidency would be marked by even worse gridlock while he wastes his time trying to impose his narrow and sometimes ill-informed morality on the other 319 million people in the nation.