Some black leaders are actually reversing the advances made by African Americans over the years by playing the race card too often, says Ron Christie, who was a member of Vice President Dick Cheney's staff.
"There are so-called black leaders in America, who are really returning us to the days of separate, but equal," Christie said Wednesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
"What I mean by that is they're calling for racial rights. These people want ethnic politics, and ethnic identity."
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He pointed to the recent riots in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray, a young African American man who died of a broken spine while in police custody, and the cries of racism that followed.
"Look at the amount of money we gave Baltimore in the Obama stimulus package — $1.8 billion and $641 million of that was for the Baltimore schools and you had another $25 million which is for crime prevention," Christie said.
"If you have a city that is predominately African-American, has a black mayor, a black prosecutor, has over 40 percent of the people in the police force who are black, how can you come out and say this is some racial incident when it seems to me what you have with those rioters is people who weren't obeying the law, rather than some racial injustice."
Christie, CEO of Christie Strategies, told Steve Malzberg that money is not necessarily the answer when attacking problems of the nation's urban areas.
"It's accountability in our schools, of making sure that our parents are able to choose the school that is best for their child and they should be able to allow that child to have the opportunity to learn," Christie said.
Christie is author of the upcoming book,
"Blackwards: How Black Leadership Is Returning America to the Days of Separate but Equal," to be published in September by Thomas Dunne Books.
In it, he argues that "self-appointed spokesmen for black America" like the Rev. Al Sharpton co-opt the public narrative "merely by being outspoken and charging racism against anyone who would speak against their political agendas and public grandstanding."
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