Ben Carson, a 2016 GOP presidential candidate and retired neurosurgeon, refused to back down Sunday after describing as “silly” the debate over “black lives matter” versus “all lives matter.”
“What I called ’silly’ is political correctness going amok. That’s what’s silly,” Mr. Carson said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“I guess it was [former Maryland Gov.] Martin O’Malley who said, ’Black lives matter, white lives matter,’ and he got in trouble for that? And had to apologize? That’s what I’m talking about is silly,” Mr. Carson said.
At a rally to defund Planned Parenthood last week, Mr. Carson told the crowd, “Of course black lives matter. I don’t want to get into it, it’s so silly,” according to ThinkProgress, prompting criticism from the left.
“Ben Carson Doesn’t Understand Black Lives Matter,” declared the liberal Huffington Post in a Sunday headline.
Mr. Carson said Sunday that, “Of course all lives matter, and of course we should be very concerned about what’s going on, particularly in our inner cities.
“It’s a crime [that] for a young black man, the most likely cause of death is homicide. That is a huge problem that we need to address in a very serious way,” he said.
NBC host Chuck Todd told Mr. Carson that, “That is what the Black Lives Matter movement is doing and why they criticize politicians for saying, ’All lives matter,’ because their point is, that there is inequality here.”
Mr. Carson replied that, “I think we need to look at the whole picture.”
“One of the things that I always like to point out to people is, how about we just remove the police for 24 hours? Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue? And the vast majority of police are very good people. Are there bad apples? Of course,” he said.
“But if you hire a plumber and he does a bad job, do you say, ’All plumbers are bad? Let’s go out and kill them?’ I don’t think we do that,” Mr. Carson said. “We need to be a little more mature, but certainly in cases where police are doing things that are inappropriate, I think we ought to investigate those promptly, and justice should be swift.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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