Black Lives Matter Protests Are Misdirected, Says Ben Carson

The Black Lives Matter movement is wasting its time by concentrating on the wrong targets, according to Dr. Ben Carson, who also called it “lunacy” to disrupt campaign speeches of politicians like Bernie Sanders.

Both Carson and Sen. Sanders are both running for president, Carson as a Republican, and Sanders, a socialist, running as a Democrat.

Earlier this month, while touring Harlem in New York City, Carson suggested that Black Lives Matter protesters should stop pointing fingers and try to address the violent crime epidemic in America’s inner cities while focusing more on family and faith.

Carson originally rose to political stardom practically overnight after his famous February, 2013, speech at the National Prayer Breakfast.

The retired pediatric brain surgeon offered a more detailed prescription in a strongly worded USA Today Op-Ed headlined “#BlackLivesMatter misfire” in which he acknowledged that some “rotten” police officers have engaged in misconduct leading to the deaths of the innocent, but that the anger is a distraction from fundamental issues of lack of jobs or skills and crime-ridden communities.

As an adolescent, Carson noted, his mother — who refused to accept the notion of victim status — essentially rescued him from a bad neighborhood where he was raised “with nothing but a library card.”

According to the doctor, moreover, Black Lives Matter protesters — rather than disrupting political campaign rallies — should instead be marching at the following locations/entities.

The local boards of education: “Our public school system has destroyed black lives not in the ones and twos, but in whole generations…Too many public schools are controlled by teachers unions focused more on the convenience and compensation of adults rather than the education of children who started out far behind.”

The entertainment industry: for glorifying thug culture.

City hall: for failing to protect inner cities from crime.

Crack houses: which need to be torn down.

Washington, D.C.: because the $19 trillion federal “war on poverty” has made government dependency a multi-generational phenomenon. “Poverty won. We lost.”

He also assailed Democrats for focusing on social programs rather than job training, and Republicans for ignoring the black community altogether.

Outspoken Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke similarly has criticized Black Lives Matter for what he considers misplaced priorities, i.e., not protesting against high rates of unemployment and failing public schools in America’s urban centers.

Separately, U.S. Senator Rand Paul, also one of 17 GOP presidential hopefuls, indicated last night on FNC that the Black Lives Matter group change its name.

“I think they should change their name maybe… if they were ‘All Lives Matter’ or ‘Innocent Lives Matter.’ I am about justice and, frankly, I think a lot of poor people in our country, and many African-Americans, are trapped in this war on drugs and I want to change it. But commandeering the microphone and bullying people and pushing people out of the way, I think, really isn’t a way to get their message across.”

In an appearance earlier this week with Megyn Kelly on FNC’s The Kelly File, Carson claimed (see video clip below) that in his campaign travels, he meets many black Democrats who agree with him. He also declared that regardless of your ethnic background or income in the U.S., “if you get a good education, you write your own ticket. End of story.”

Do you agree with Dr. Ben Carson’s assessment of the Black Lives Matter movement activists and where they should redirect their energies?

[Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images News]