Presidential candidate and former neurosurgeon Ben Carson said Sunday that the Black Lives Matter controversy is “political correctness going amok.”
“Of course all lives matter,” Carson, an African-American, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Carson on Sunday defended his remarks during a rally last week, when he reportedly said, “Of course all lives matter. I don’t want to get into it, it’s so silly.”
Carson said he does not recall calling the “movement” silly.
“What I called silly is political correctness going amok. That’s what’s silly,” he said.
At the same time, Carson said, “of course we should be very concerned about what’s going on, particularly in our inner cities.”
“It’s a crime, you know, for a young black man, the most likely cause of death is homicide. That is a huge problem that we need to address in a very serious way,” he added.
“The vast majority of police are very good people. Are there bad apples? Of course,” he continued. “But if you hire a plumber and he does a bad job, do you say all plumbers are bad? Let’s go out and kill them? I don’t think we do that,” he said.
“We need to be a little more mature, but certainly in cases where police are doing things that are inappropriate, I think we ought to investigate those promptly and justice should be swift,” he said.
Carson also addressed illegal immigration, calling it “impractical” to round up 11 million illegal immigrants in the country.
He said those who favor that “have no idea what they’re talking about and how much that costs and how impractical that is.”
Carson has come out in favor of giving them a guest worker permits in order to collect back taxes and taxes going forward.
“It does not give them voting rights, it does not make them a citizen, and if they want citizenship, they get in the back of the line and go through the same process as everybody else, because we cannot neglect the people who have done it the right way,” he said.
On whether that was amnesty, Carson said, “They can call it whatever they want to. But we also have to be pragmatic.”
Carson also said he thought a lack of political experience is helping him as a candidate, and the fact that Donald Trump is also not a politician is helping him as well.
“It’s a tremendous help. It’s a tremendous aid because fewer people are talking about my lack of political experience now,” he said. “And that’s good because, you know, experience can come from a variety of different places.”
“And certainly the life that you have led, you know, in my case, you know, solving complex problems, being involved in corporate America, starting a national nonprofit, you get an enormous amount of experience doing these things, particularly in solving problems,” he added.
“It’s an erroneous thought that only political experience is expedient,” he said.