Condoleeza Rice: Liberals Have 'Preconceived Notions' About Black People

The "problem with the left" is that liberals have "preconceived notions" about how Black people should think, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday while commenting that she does not think the United States will ever be truly colorblind. 

"I don't really care if we're colorblind, but I would like to get to the place that when you see somebody who is Black, you don't have preconceived notions of what they're capable of, who they are — by the way, what they think, which is I think a problem of the left," Rice, a prominent Black Republican, said in a video interview with The New York Times' Peter Baker at the Aspen Security Forum Tuesday, reports Fox News. "You look at somebody who's Black and you think you know what they think, or you at least think you know what they ought to think."

Rice served as national security adviser and then secretary of state under President George W. Bush and also talked about the "birth defect" of slavery that still results in inequality in policing, education, and economic opportunity.

Widespread school choice is necessary, she added, to handle education gaps that place poor students in public schools and wealthy ones in better school systems or in private schools. 

Also on Tuesday, Rice said she supports removing Confederate monuments and the move to rename military bases that were named in honor of Confederate leaders and urged President Donald Trump to sign a defense authorization bill to force the name changes. 

Trump, however, has threatened to veto legislation that called for changing base names.  

However, Rice said that there are times that taking some monuments down goes too far. 

"I actually don't know why anybody wants to defend the Confederacy and Confederate monuments," Rice said. "I also don't know why anybody wants to tear down a statue of Abraham Lincoln and slaves, which was actually funded by freed slaves."

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