In the wake this week's grand jury decision not to indict the
Ferguson, Missouri, cop who shot and killed an unarmed African-American
teenager, potential Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson claims
that young males living in inner cities need to be taught how to respond
better to authority.
In an interview with Bloomberg Politics Monday
night, the 63-year-old retired neurosurgeon and rising conservative
star was asked to recount his own childhood experience with his run-ins
with inner city Detroit law enforcement.
Although
Carson said that as a kid there was the possibility for many run-ins
with police officers, he said he was largely able to avoid harsh police
confrontations because he was taught at a young age to be "polite" and
how to "appropriately" react to interactions with law enforcement and
other types of authority.
"There were potential run-ins with law
enforcement. But, I was taught as a young person how to respond
appropriately to authority," Carson said. "Therefore, it never really
escalated into anything serious."
Just because Carson said he
learned at an early age to respect authority, that still didn't prevent
him from having some run-ins with law enforcement as a kid.
Carson
recounted one instance when he was stopped by an officer even though he
said he hadn't done anything wrong. However, his well-mannered nature
helped prevent the situation from escalating any further.
"Rather
than being confrontational about it, I just said, 'officer, what am I
doing wrong? What would you suggest?" Carson added. "Actually, I think
[the officer] was put off by the fact that I was so polite and that was
pretty much the end of that situation."
Carson continued by saying
that a major problem that faces many young males living in inner
cities, who grow up without fathers or other authority figures in their
homes, is that they don't learn the right way to respond when confronted
by law enforcement.
"What we need to do though, in situations
like Ferguson, there are a lot of young males, Michael Brown wasn't one
of them, but a lot of young males in inner cities who grew up in homes
with no father figure. They never really learn how to relate to
authority in the proper way and eventually they run into it and aren't
sure how to react," Carson said.
Although Michael Brown had a
father present in his life, it's alleged by Ferguson officer Darren
Wilson that Brown had initiated the physical confrontation that later
led to his death.
Carson further added that youth who grow up in
the inner cities without father figures are also not taught how to
respond when they run into a peer that might be "badder than they are."
"It
turns out to be a disaster. That's why there are dozens of such young
people killed today in America, and yesterday, and tomorrow," Carson
said. "Perhaps we should be thinking about why that is occurring and
maybe we can come up with some solutions."
In response to the
violent protests that erupted as a result of the grand jury's decision
not to indict Wilson over Brown's death, Carson was critical of those
who engaged in the Ferguson riots, and further noted that only 12
percent of the city's residents voted in the last statewide election.
Carson
further asserted that some people are relying on violence to promote
the change they desire instead of going through the civil process.
"That's
not exercising your power in the appropriate way," Carson said.
"Allowing oneself to be manipulated into violence, which then leads to
militarization of the police, which then leads more of the people in
your neighborhood getting hurt or killed, perhaps is not the smartest
way to go about it. There are better ways to remedy an ill in society."
Although
some are claiming that tensions over the Ferguson shooting bring to
life an underlying racial issues in America, Carson said during an
appearance on "Fox News Sunday" in August that the Ferguson shooting "has nothing to do with race."
"If
you take race out of the issue altogether and you take a group of young
men and you raise them with no respect for authority, not learning to
take on personal responsibility, having easy access to drugs and
alcohol, they are very likely to end up as victims of violence and
incarceration," Carson asserted.
I WILL BRING YOU THE OTHER SPEECH FROM AUGUST ON "FOX NEWS SUNDAY " SHORTLY.... THEN YOU CAN TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT IT....
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