Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson said Sunday issues over systemic racism are “very uncommon now,” while acknowledging the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody as a “blatant and callous murder.”
“I grew up in a time when there was real systemic racism,” Carson said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” when asked if he thinks systemic racism is a problem in law enforcement agencies.
“I remember as an 8th grade student, I was the only black student, I got the highest academic achievement and the teacher got up and berated the other students. They weren’t trying hard enough because black kid was number one,” Carson added. “That kind of thing was not uncommon when I was growing up. That kind of thing is very uncommon now.”
Carson said there are “absolutely” still “racists around.”
“There were yesterday, there are today, and there will be tomorrow. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t fight it,” he said.
He said it is an “opportune time” to do so, in wake of nationwide protests over Floyd’s killing.
{mosads}“People are concentrating on this, we can’t let this slip away. We need to deal with some of the issues in the police departments, but this is an easy time to do it,” he said.
He added that the “vast majority of policemen are wonderful” and said there are some who are “rogue.”
“I think like just about everyone else I was horrified to see the videos of that blatant and callous murder taking place, almost as horrified to see the other officer standing there and not stopping [it],” Carson said.
He urged the public to come together to “engage in dialogue” and create a bipartisan solution to move forward.
CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Carson if he thinks Trump is helping to heal the nation after he retweeted a video in which someone attacked Floyd’s character.
Carson responded that he believes “you’re going to be hearing from the president on this topic in some detail” this week, and asked to “reserve judgement until after that time.”