Ben Carson: Black Lives Matter ‘anger’ is misdirected

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said Monday that the Black Lives Matter movement is focusing on “the wrong targets,” citing protests at events for Democratic contender Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

“The notion that some lives might matter less than others is meant to enrage. That anger is distracting us from what matters most. We’re right to be angry, but we have to stay smart,” Carson, the only African-American in the presidential field, wrote in an op-ed in USA Today.

Activists have urged presidential candidates to adopt tougher positions to reform the nation’s criminal justice system, meeting privately with Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton and also protesting events by Sanders and former Gov. Martin O’Malley (D-Md.) in recent weeks.

{mosads}Carson acknowledged that “protesters are right that racial policing issues exist and some rotten policemen took actions that killed innocent people,” but pushed back on the challenges facing people in urban areas, suggesting instead that they stemmed from a lack of jobs.

The retired neurosurgeon listed areas where Black Lives Matter activists could focus instead, including targeting teachers unions and confronting the entertainment industry for “glamorizing a life where black men are thugs and our women are trash.”

Carson also suggested tearing down “the crack house,” blasted efforts in Washington to combat the “War on Poverty” and scrutinized minority outreach efforts on the part of both Democrats and Republicans.

“Let’s tell them, we don’t want to be clothed, fed and housed. We want honor and dignity,” Carson wrote of the Democratic Party.

“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,” Carson added, referring to the Republican Party.

Carson has weighed in on the movement before, earlier this month defending saying that “of course all lives matter” and that the controversy is “political correctness going amok.”

On Monday, the Detroit native recalled — as he does often on the campaign trail — the influence of his mother. “My mother knew what the problems were and she shielded me and my brother from them. I can tell you she wasn’t worried about Socialist senators from tiny rural states.”