My Mom, My Favorite '90s Historian, Breaks Down The Black Genius Of Dr. Benton From "ER"

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ER premiered when I was in elementary school. I remember the exact Thursday night it aired on NBC, when must-see TV was a very real thing, and you’d need to watch live or be savvy enough to know how to schedule your VCR to record it.

Five people in medical attire look down at the camera, as if from a patient's perspective in an operating room

Mom was excited about this show, deemed to be cutting-edge and a “true to life” view of what it’s like to work in an emergency room setting. Here she is in the '90s looking like Aunt Viv with my Dad. And me, a serious ER-loving kid.

A young girl in a white dress and tiara stands between two adults outside a building with double doors. She holds a bouquet and smiles at the camera

And I was absolutely sold. Every time the EMTs would roll in a gurney and the music got intense, I tried my best to study every single motion of the scalpels and learn all of the lingo, so that I’d be way ahead of schedule by the time I even got to high school.

Doctor and nurse attentively care for a newborn in a hospital setting

Like every ER fan, I had my favorites. I thought Dr. Greene was the County General superhero, and I desperately wanted to be like him when I grew up. I thought Nurse Carol Hathaway was so gentle with the pediatric patients. And the young medical student, John Carter, seemed to portray what my first years of medical school would look like.

one in scrubs, the other in a lab coat, talking near a busy nurse's station

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But the one character I absolutely did not like was Dr. Benton. I thought he was mean (did he seriously have to yell “CARTER!” all the time?), a terrible team player, and ambitious in a way that was not applauded at my Catholic elementary school.

A medical professional in protective gear passionately speaks in a hospital setting, possibly from a scene in a TV drama or film

Thirty years later, I rewatched ER. Candidly, I had just been laid off, and I was grieving my Dad. So I needed something that felt familiar with a ton of seasons so I could bed rot for hours on end.

Group of actors in a medical drama setting, wearing scrubs and stethoscopes, gathered around a surgery table

Every character had layers; there was no "good guy" or "bad guy." I take that back. Dr. Romano was the bad guy, no question about that.

A doctor in a white coat with a stethoscope, standing in a medical setting near a microscope, looks focused

For me back then, Dr. Greene was the truth. As an adult, I watched him stereotype Black patients, and deny treatment to a Black woman because he thought she was on crack. He comes to terms with his blind spots in the series, but still a hard pill to swallow.

Actors in a hospital scene on a TV show, one wearing a lab coat, another in scrubs, attending to a patient on a gurney with medical equipment

I had no idea that Carol almost died from an overdose. I think my mind completely skipped that part because it wasn’t a concept I understood at that time.

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But my perception of Dr. Benton has undergone a complete 180.

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Benton was a Brilliant, with a capital B, young surgeon. He knew that he had to be better than the best to be the attending surgeon, and he’d have to be a surgical god to keep ascending.

Medical team in a hospital drama scene urgently treating a patient. One doctor wears glasses, a stethoscope, and appears focused and intense

Considering that Benton was a Black surgeon during the era of racial profiling in the form of Rodney King and the LA riots, Black people being accused of “playing the race card,” and zero inclusion and belonging support, I can confidently say that young man was tired and needed to isolate to preserve his sanity.

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In my summer watch, I noticed that Benton, as Black and confident as ever, had every right to act as a superb surgeon. He was tapped in for unimaginable saves. And under his tough exterior, he cared about his patients with a ferocity that was truly heroic.

Two people in surgical attire inside a dimly lit hospital room, appearing to discuss or perform a medical procedure

One of my favorite things to do is to watch documentaries and old shows from the '90s, and ask my mom what she thought about them back then. Not only does it fill the blanks for concepts I was processing with a child's limited experience, it also teaches me new things about her.

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So during my recent ER watch, I naturally asked my favorite '90s pop culture historian, Mom, what she thought about Dr. Benton back in the '90s. Immediately, she talked about her pride. "I watched all of it," she said, a true ER long hauler. "It made me feel proud, because I know he had to really work hard. And I think that the fact that he had that poker face throughout portraying Dr. Benton is understood as a Black person."

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"I was proud that ER and the producers were able to put him in, because they didn't have to," Mom shared. "And not only that, he was a surgeon, and that's like you’re royalty in the medical field. But what I liked is they put all the other stuff in there, too, which was real. Because I've seen some shows where they have the Black doctors, but it's not real."

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Working in banking in the '90s, Mom went through some of the stereotyping Dr. Benton experiences in the series. "I can relate to different things he probably encountered with coworkers," she said. "People will still feel that you got there without working hard and not knowing what you know."

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"With Dr. Benton, I could see it automatically, because I've been through it," Mom reflected. "By that time, I was in the workforce for 20 years, so you recognize it right away."

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Mom enjoyed the entire series — all of the storylines and the main leads. "I really liked ER so much, not just for him, but all the other doctors and the patients," she said. "It was realistic. It wasn't dressed up. Carol was a true hero. And I was just so proud, she is an excellent actor. She was on the ball and of course, Clooney, he was good, too. And that role was made for him."

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A period of loss might have lead me back to ER, but I'm really glad that it did. Not only do I see Dr. Benton in the lens he deserved all those years back, his storyline is helping me deal with the anxiety of not feeling as confident and steady as that little girl years ago, after some heavy life experiences. Somewhere deep down, there's that self assured kid who only got one B in her life — in Art.

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Stream every episode of ER on HBO Max.

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