Posted 28 minutes agoSubscribe to Screen Time NewsletterCaret DownMy Mom, My Favorite '90s Historian, Breaks Down The Black Genius Of Dr. Benton From "ER""Let's move!"by Jada GomezBuzzFeed StaffFacebookPinterestLinkHot Topic🔥 Full coverage and conversation on ER 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. Paul Drinkwater / TV Guide / (C)NBC / courtesy Everett Collection 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. Jada Gomez/BuzzFeed Back then, I was absolutely set on being a doctor (I even finished all of my pre-med requirements in college before pursuing journalism), and so Mom allowed me to stay up on Thursday nights to watch. 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. (C)NBC / courtesy Everett Collection I breathed a sigh of relief when the beats of a heart monitor would steady, and felt a pit in my little stomach when the patient coded, right before the theme song started. 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. (C)NBC/Courtesy Everett Collection Except as a kid who'd only gotten a B one time, in Art, I thought quite confidently that I would never make as many mistakes. I was a swaggy grade schooler. BuzzFeed TrendingHot TopicLet's chat about all things ERSee our ER Discussions 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. Alice S. Hall/(C)NBC/Courtesy Everett Collection Outside of Dr. Benton, the only other role I knew Eriq La Salle from was as Lisa's jerk of an ex-boyfriend, Darryl Jenks, in Coming to America. I'm sorry, Mr. La Salle. I was just a kid; I thought you were really your characters! 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. (C)NBC/Courtesy Everett Collection And as I was reintroduced to these characters through adult eyes, I had a completely different perception of them than I did through the binary lens of my childhood. 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. (C)NBC/Courtesy Everett Collection That guy can step on multiple Legos. 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. Chris Haston / TV Guide / (C)NBC / courtesy Everett Collection It stung to see my childhood medical superhero through an adult lens. But at the same time, I'm glad that as a child, I was able to experience the series with the wonder of youth. 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. (C)NBC / courtesy Everett Collection And without the unrivaled confidence of a grade schooler, I realized I'd be barely surviving as a medical student, just like Dr. Carter. But my perception of Dr. Benton has undergone a complete 180. (C)NBC / courtesy Everett Collection In 2025, Dr. Benton is hands down my favorite part of ER. 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. Alice S. Hall/(C)NBC/Courtesy Everett Collection For him, there was no room to joke around with his coworkers during work hours or sing Christmas carols to lighten the mood in a tense clinical setting. And when he was done with work, he wanted to go home and mind his own business. 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. HBO Max In my s