Ben Carson: Republicans should focus on black community they’ve ‘neglected’

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson suggested Sunday that the Black Lives Matter movement has presented a unique opportunity to the Republican Party to get involved with the black community.

“There’s no question that the GOP has a very excellent opportunity by paying attention to some of the communities that they have neglected and informing them about the history of the GOP,” the retired neurosurgeon said on Fox News Channel’s “Media Buzz,” Breitbart reported.

Mr. Carson went on to say that the GOP “was formed as a party that worked hard to get gun rights for freed men. A party that pushed civil rights and voting rights. And many luminary figures in the black community have been members of the Republican party. A party that should push for hard work and self-reliance and mechanisms for removing oneself from a state of dependency to becoming a part of the fabric of America.”

“I believe that black people, just like any other people in our country, are listening and they’re looking for solutions,” he continued. “And they’re not going to just blindly follow someone because they say, ’Do I what tell you to do.’ I believe if we pay attention to them and we actually explain to them the mechanisms whereby we’re going to get business and industry and academia and Wall Street and churches and community groups to invest in people — recognizing that for every person that we can keep from going down the wrong pathway, that’s one more productive member of society who may discover a new energy source or a cure for cancer.”