Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson is offering up his own plan for the Black Lives Matter movement after he criticized it for targeting Democratic rival Bernie Sanders.
“The idea that disrupting and protesting Bernie Sanders’ speeches will change what is wrong in America is lunacy,” the retired neurosurgeon wrote in an op-ed for USA Today. “The ’BlackLivesMatter’ movement is focused on the wrong targets, to the detriment of blacks who would like to see real change and to the benefit of its powerful white liberal funders using the attacks on Sanders for political purposes that mean nothing for the problems that face our community.”
“Of course, the protesters are right that racial policing issues exist and some rotten policemen took actions that killed innocent people,” Mr. Carson continued. “But unjust treatment from police did not fill our inner cities with people who face growing hopelessness. Young men and women can’t find jobs. Parents don’t have the skills to compete in a modern job market. Far too many families are torn and tattered by self-inflicted wounds. Violence often walks alongside people who have given up hope.”
Mr. Carson then offered up his own plan on where Black Lives Matter activists should march.
“Let’s head down to the board of education,” he wrote. “Our public school system has destroyed black lives not in the ones and twos, but in whole generations.”
“Let’s confront the entertainment industry that lines its pockets by glamorizing a life where black men are thugs and our women are trash,” he continued. “Demeaning women is not art, and it shouldn’t be profitable. Neither is glorifying violence and equating prison time with authenticity. ’Straight Outta Compton, #1’ in movie theaters, is just the latest example.”
Mr. Carson said activists need to march on city hall and tear down the crack houses that are “selling poison to our children and destroying lives.” He also took on both political parties, arguing that neither has taken the right steps to help black communities.
“We should have a talk with the Democratic Party,” he added. “Let’s tell them, we don’t want to be clothed, fed and housed. We want honor and dignity. We don’t want a plan to give us public housing in nice neighborhoods. We want an end to excuses for schools that leave us without the means to buy our own houses where we choose to live. We want the skills needed to compete, not a consolation prize of Section 8, Food Stamps and a lifetime of government paperwork.”
“Finally, we need to go over to the Republican Party,” Mr. Carson concluded. “We need to tell them they have ignored us for too long. They need to invite us in and listen to us. We need to communicate and find a different way.”
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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