What was the real culprit behind the shooting death of unarmed black teen Michael Brown at the hands of Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson? Many activists and scholars have pointed to the systemic racism that continues to plague the American criminal justice system, but conservative pundit and potential 2016 presidential candidate Ben Carson thinks Brown's death is at least partly connected to feminism.
Appearing on American Family Radio (AFR) last week, Carson echoed a right-wing shibboleth, blaming family breakdown for the woes confronting young African-American men and asserting that "a lot of it really got started in the '60s" with the rise of second-wave feminism.
“Certainly in a lot of our inner cities, in particular the black inner cities, where 73 percent of the young people are born out of wedlock, the majority of them have no father figure in their life. Usually the father figure is where you learn how to respond to authority," Carson said. "So now you become a teenager, you’re out there, you have really no idea how to respond to authority, you eventually run into the police or you run into somebody else in the neighborhood who also doesn’t know how to respond but is badder than you are, and you get killed or you end up in the penal system."
AFR host Lauren Kitchens Stewards chimed in that young people needed to be taught to respect authority, lamenting that today's youth carry a "sense of entitlement" -- a sentiment Carson seconded.
“I think a lot of it really got started in the '60s with the 'me generation,'" he replied. "‘What’s in it for me?’ I hate to say it, but a lot of it had to do with the women’s lib movement. You know, ‘I’ve been taking care of my family, I’ve been doing that, what about me?’ You know, it really should be about us."
The retired neurosurgeon's latest bizarre assertion follows a string of incendiary remarks over the course of his career as an author and public speaker. Fifteen years ago, Carson penned a book in which he compared homosexuality to murder; he has also called abortion "human sacrifice" and charged that immigrants come to the U.S. in search of free "goodies."
Carson rose to right-wing stardom after delivering a speech at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast in which he denounced Obamacare, as President Barack Obama sat just feet away.
Listen to Carson's most recent remarks below, courtesy of Right Wing Watch:
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