Carson Blasts Black Lives Matter Movement: They Are Focused on the ‘Wrong Targets’
KELLY: “Breaking tonight, Republican candidate Ben Carson unleashes a dramatic new message in the 2016 race for president as he launch as scathing critique of the Black Lives Matter movement. Some of America's big city mayors and the entire Democratic Party. Welcome to ‘The Kelly File, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. It hit just a couple of hours ago. A USA Today editorial from Dr. Ben Carson that specifically speaks to black voters but concerns the entire country. Dr. Carson goes directly after the Black Lives Matter Movement saying, they are distracting people from what matters most. He says the real problem for minority communities is not the police departments. It is young people who cannot find jobs. Parents who don't have the skills to compete. And violence that tears apart these neighborhoods. He writes about growing up with bullets, drugs and death in the places he played tag with friends. How his older cousins died on the streets but his mother made sure it didn't happen to him using little more than a library card. Dr. Carson issues his own call to action. Telling folks if they want to march, they should on local education boards to protests schools that have failed hold generations. On an entertainment industry that glamorizes black men as thugs and women as trash. On City Hall to ask how living behind three dead bolts is living in freedom on crack houses before they tear them down. On Washington to ask about a war on poverty that left poverty winning and black communities losing. On Democrats to tell them, Black Americans don't want to be clothed and fed and housed by their government. They want their honor and dignity. And on the Republican Party, to tell its members, they have ignored black America for far too long. Dr. Ben Carson is a Republican candidate for president. Dr. Carson, thank you for being here. And whoa!
CARSON: “Thank you.”
KELLY: “Way to lay it out. I mean, we have been talking for months on this show about how some believe too few in the black community have turned and said, stop, don't act as victims. And don't look squarely at the police. Start looking inward. It is not that you don't look at the police at all. It's not that there is no police brutality. But there is a major problem plaguing inner city America right now that in too many circles has been ignored.”
CARSON: “Well, it is a big problem. And actually, there are a lot of people in the black community who actually think the way that I do. But it's very risky to actually say it. Because then you'll be called a name. You'll be scorned. And that is what the established progressive party wants. They don't want anybody to speak out against this. And they want to demonize anybody who does so. Because they want to maintain their power. And I think a lot of people are starting to wake up. I'm not sure they'll going to be able to maintain this grasp over the black community going into the future. I'm certainly hoping that's the case.”
KELLY: “You talk about how you believed it was your destiny to wind up dead on the streets. That you also thought like your older cousins, you would not live to see adulthood. But your mother changed everything for you. And you've said similar things in the past and people have dismissed you as oversimplifying the problems in inner city America with the library card.”
CARSON: “Well, I can tell you, if I could multiply my mother and put her in all of those homes with little kids growing up, you would see a very different outcome.”
KELLY: “How? What was about her messaging to you?”
CARSON: “Well, she refused to be a victim. And she refused to let us be victims. And she always said, there is something that you can do. You do not have to sit around and wait for somebody else to do things for you. And that really informed the way that I thought about things. Informed the way that my brother thought about things. And, you know, there were other people that I knew in the neighborhood whose parents were like that. Who also turned out to be shining examples. It is not a fluke by any stretch of the imagination.”
KELLY: “You talk about the schools and how abysmally they have failed inner city America saying the teachers unions, their failures don't kill as quickly as a bullet but they do kill as surely as one.”
CARSON: “Absolutely. Because education is the great divide in this country. It doesn't matter what your ethnic background or your socio economic background is. If you get a good education, you write your own ticket. End of story. No ifs, ands and buts about it. And we need to be emphasizing that. You know, one of the things that I tell people all the time is, during slavery, it was illegal to teach a slave to read. Why do you think that was? Because even those evil masters knew that an educated man is a free man.”
KELLY: What are the -- I know you said you believe the Democrats, they basically want to provide public assistance for these communities as opposed to help them, encourage them to lift themselves out. To change their lives as you did in your own family. But you also cast blame on the Republicans for ignoring these communities. Do you sense a real opportunity? I think the assumption by many is that black voters, in inner city America, are not going to vote for a Republican. Even a black Republican doctor success story like yourself.
CARSON: “Well, you know, I've had many black Democrats come up to me recently and say, you make so much sense. I'm a democrat but I'm voting for you. I get that all the time. And I know that's exactly what the progressives are afraid of and don't want to hear. But at some point people are going to start thinking about their own interests. And myself and a number of my Republican colleagues are very interested in putting together mechanisms that allow people to climb out of dependency and to become strong parts of the fabric of America. That's what we're working on. It doesn't do any good to pat people on the head and give them all the little things that they need so they're satisfied in a state of dependency. That's exactly what we don't need. That's killing us. And I think people are waking up to that.”
KELLY: “You write in your piece, we don't want a plan to give us public housing in nice neighborhoods. We want an end excuses for schools that leave us without the means to buy our own houses, where we chose to live. We want the skills needed to compete. Not a consolation prize with -- food stamps and a lifetime of government paperwork. And to the Republican Party, we need to tell them, they have ignored us for too long. Dr. Carson, great to see you. Thanks for being here.”
CARSON: “Thank you, Megyn.”
