Dr. Ben Carson on Ferguson: Black community has to be 'honest with ourselves'

close

Video

Dr. Ben Carson provides insight into Ferguson chaos

New Black Panthers led march on Saturday

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," August 18, 2014. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: There is newly released video tonight of the New Black Panther Party leading a march in Ferguson over the weekend. They were heard yelling death chants at Darren Wilson, who is the officer involved in this shooting.

Here with reaction to the chaos is the author of The New York Times best-seller "One Nation," Fox News contributor Dr. Ben Carson. "What do we want?" The name of the officer. "What do we want? We want him dead."  You've heard those chants. Your reaction.

DR. BEN CARSON, FOX CONTRIBUTOR: Well, you know, this is obviously inflaming the situation. And you know, a lot of outside agitators seem to have descended on this situation. And I wish they would use that same energy to help us with what's going on in Chicago and Detroit and New Orleans and Washington, D.C., where just tons of shootings, murder, violence all the time, where we have tons of teenage pregnancy. Women giving birth, it ends their education. It sends their children into poverty. It continues the cycle of poverty and dependence.

These are big problems for our country because we only have 320 or so million people.  We're competing on a global stage against countries that have over a billion people. We need all of our resources to be developed and to be developed well. We can't afford this.

HANNITY: Let me ask you, then, Dr. Carson, we had seven dead in Chicago -- and I'm only picking one city, and Ed Henry brought this up a little earlier -- 29 injured just over this past weekend. Now, as I understand it, you know, Reverend Jackson's from Chicago. The president's from Chicago. Why is it a case like this garners national attention and ongoing violence in a number of cities, many of which you mentioned, don't get the same attention?

CARSON: Because it's politically incorrect to blame the wrong people.  If you have somebody, you know, like a police officer, that's an easy one to blame. But it's very difficult to blame a city council or a mayor that you like or -- you know, this is a problem.

We have -- we've got to start being objective. We've got to stop picking and choosing who the villains are and who the good guys are. And we have to start looking at things objectively. That's the only way that we ever make progress.

And in particular, you know, in the black community, I think we have to be honest with ourselves. And you know, let's go back and think about a time, you know, before the early '60s, tremendous progress that was made by black people in this country when they relied on family and they relied on each other and they had faith.

And then what happened when we started relying on other people to do things for us and to tell us what we're supposed -- how we're supposed to think and who we're supposed to like and who we're supposed to follow? And where has that led? Not to a very good place. And we have to think about what we're talking about. You say, "Death to the police" -- try living for 24 hours with no police. I think you'll really find out what a difficult situation is.

HANNITY: Oh, I think that's the first duty of government, and that's to protect its citizenry.

Let me ask you -- there was a lot of anger Friday over the release of the video of Michael Brown involved in this robbery, intimidating this store clerk. You know, the words that I heard a lot of people say, commentators, "Well, first they assassinated him, now they're assassinating his character."

Wouldn't this be important in terms of the legal aspect of this, that that might give us some insight into his state of mind when confronting an officer right after a robbery that he was involved in?

CARSON: Well, certainly, when it comes to the trial, that would be, obviously, an important piece of information. And I think it probably would be a very good thing for the authorities to try to expedite justice in this situation because the longer it takes, you know, the more deceives (ph) and the more suspicion that people have. So I think it would be possible to get a lot of information out very quickly with a concerted effort. I think that would have a very ameliorating effect on the atmosphere.

HANNITY: The president never called (ph) to try to hold back on the release of the tape. And you heard the president earlier today. What's your reaction to his handling of this in general?

CARSON: Well, you know, I'm proud to see that he has learned not to go in and prejudge the situation, as he has in other racially-charged situations. So that's progress. I just look at it that way. That's a good thing.

HANNITY: Why is there so much anger? You know, we had graffiti, "The only good cop is a dead cop," you know, "Kill the police," then you have, you know, the New Black Panthers, "What do we want," the name of the officer. "What do we want, him dead." Where -- why is -- where is all this anger towards police coming from? Now, I understand that this is a volatile situation. We don't have all the facts. I wasn't there. You weren't there. Most people weren't there.

CARSON: Sure.

HANNITY: And I think it's an ongoing investigation. And I would urge people to withhold their judgment until the facts are in and then they can make an educated -- you know, come to an educated conclusion.

CARSON: Sure.

HANNITY: But there seems to be fairly widespread contempt and anger towards police. Why do you think that is?

CARSON: Well, as far as I can tell, there's not a long history of police shootings in that area that I know of. And maybe someone can correct me on that. But therefore, it seems to me like there's a lot of agitation going on.

And you know, part of the problem -- one of the things that I wrote about, you know, in "One Nation," is hypersensitivity, false hypersensitivity, where people come in and they rev people up about all kinds of issues because, you know, someone said this word or somebody did this or -- and you get people into a frenzy.

It's almost like when you were in the 3rd grade and you had that kid who always ran around to someone saying, "Did you hear what he said about your mama?" And then he goes and says it to the other one so they can start a good fight. You know, why do we allow ourselves to be manipulated like this?

And I would be very much in favor of asking those people who are agitating, "What would you like to see happen?" There's an investigation that's going on. The legal process has been put into motion. What do you want to have happen that's not happening now? And let's hear a logical, cogent response to that.

HANNITY: All right. I'd also think the issues of selective moral outrage, socioeconomic conditions -- we'll talk about as the show goes on.  Dr. Carson, good to see you. Thank you for being with us.

CARSON: You, too. Thank you, Sean.

Content and Programming Copyright 2014 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2014 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.