Note that while we found seven fallacies in this article, two of them are from Ben Carson as quoted in the text. The other five are found in the author's criticism of Ben Carson.

1. Straw man • Summarizing Carson's position on slavery as "slavery was no big thing" and "slavery was not so awful" sets up a weakened version of his view to knock down. Carson did not use those words, and his view is considerably more nuanced than either of these phrases would suggest. Carson refers to slavery as "the evil institution" -- hardly equivalent to saying it is "no big thing."

2. Ad hominem • Saying Carson has not "gained wisdom", that his views "echo those of white conservative racists", and that his comments are "hogwash" and "pure rose-tinted, pie-in-the-sky delusion", are ways of insulting him rather than logically rebutting his claims.

3. Appeal to popularity •  The author implies that it is a negative thing for some of Carson's views to be outside of "mainstream Black thought." However, the popularity or unpopularity of an idea does not necessarily determine its validity.

Cherry-picking • Rightly pointed out by Griffin, later, is that Carson is not adjusting for the vastly greater population size of the world today, when asserting there are currently "more slaves in the world". In proportion to the total population, a much smaller percentage of people are slaves today than in the mid-19th century, and Carson's failure to acknowledge this creates a misleading picture.

4. Two wrongs fallacy • The author is correctly pointing out an apparent fallacy on the part of Ben Carson, who appears to justify American slavery by pointing out that many other societies also had slavery, which is the two wrongs fallacy. However, it is possible that this is an uncharitable interpretation of Ben Carson's intent, which might be to caution his audience against an uncritical presentism with respect to slavery in America in the 18th century.

5. False analogy • The author uses a false analogy in comparing the excusing of American slavery on the grounds that other societies practiced slavery too, to the excusing of Nazi concentration camps on the grounds that FDR interned Japanese-Americans. While both involve oppressed groups and human rights violations, American slavery conditions were comparable to those of other places around the world that had slaves, whereas the conditions and death rates of Nazi camps were very different than those in the Japanese interment camps. The disproportionate genocidal aspect breaks the analogy.

Cherry-picking • After having justifiably criticized Carson's cherry-picking (above), Griffin does some of his own in asserting that the US had "25%" of the slaves in North America, ignoring that the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database indicates the number of African slaves arriving in North America was about 3% of those that reached the Americas (the rest went mainly to the Caribbean and to South America). The author doesn't give a source for the 25% number, but regardless, to not mention that the largest and most complete database available shows a much lower number is an instance of cherry-picking.