Ben Carson Says Calling For Racial Equity Is ‘Another Kind Of Racism’
Ben Carson appeared on Fox News on Wednesday and defended an op-ed he wrote where he labeled calls for racial equity racist.
The former Housing and Urban Development secretary was on “America’s Newsroom” and discussed the April 18 article in The Washington Post. Host Dana Perino asked Carson to expand on what he meant in his piece.
"Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spent a lot of time trying to get people to not look at external characteristics which they cannot change, in which they cannot help, and instead to look at the things that you can change and the things that you can help, such as your character,” Carson responded. “What kind of person are you? Shouldn't we be paying more attention to that than to external characteristics?"
In his op-ed, Carson wrote: "Proponents of equity see no problem with treating groups of people differently based solely on race, as long as it serves their agenda. This is what we used to call racism, and those not blinded by identity politics still recognize it as such."
"You know, that's what animals do, base a lot of what they do on external characteristics because they don't have the mental capacity to dissect further into what's really important," Carson added. "We do. So let's utilize that."
Previously, Carson has spoken out against racial equity. He came out against Domestic Policy Council director Susan Rice’s attempts at pushing for it across all government agencies.
"I grew up in the '50s, and '60s, and I can tell you what real racism was like. It was an everyday event,” he told Fox News host Laura Ingraham in January. “The world is very different here in America right now. And to use race as a mechanism to obtain power and position, I think it's really quite shameful."
