Nationwide — Dr. Ben Carson, a world-renowned neurosurgeon and one of the Republican candidates for president in 2016, recently wrote a column for USA Today called “#BlackLivesMatter Misfire”. The column criticizes black activists for focusing on the wrong targets, and for not going after the board of education and the entertainment industry.
Here are some snippets below:
The idea that disrupting and protesting Bernie Sanders speeches will change what is wrong in America is lunacy. The “BlackLivesMatter” movement is focused on the wrong targets, to the detriment of blacks who would like to see real change and to the benefit of its powerful white liberal funders using the attacks on Sanders for political purposes that mean nothing for the problems that face our community.
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.
Of course, the protesters are right that racial policing issues exist and some rotten policemen took actions that killed innocent people. Those actions were inexcusable and they should be prosecuted to deter such acts in the future.
But unjust treatment from police did not fill our inner cities with people who face growing hopelessness. Young men and women can’t find jobs. Parents don’t have the skills to compete in a modern job market. Far too many families are torn and tattered by self-inflicted wounds. Violence often walks alongside people who have given up hope….
This is where we should march:
Let’s head down to the board of education. Teaching is a tough job and thank God there was a teacher who convinced me that I was not dumb, but our schools are failing and we have no power to abandon them. The actions of rogue police officers take black lives one at a time. Our public school system has destroyed black lives not in the ones and twos, but in whole generations.
The schools don’t teach and our children don’t learn. 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. Their failures don’t kill as quickly, but they do kill as surely as a bullet.
Let’s confront the entertainment industry that lines its pockets by glamorizing a life where black men are thugs and our women are trash. Let’s tell them we plan to start talking with our wallets.
To read the full column, visit:
www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/08/24/blacklivesmatter-sanders-clinton-anger-column/32055507/