August 13th 2015

Good morning, CNN's latest poll out of Iowa has Donald Trump with a commanding lead, mostly driven by the strength of his support among white, working class men, regular Joe's who are fed up with politics as usual. 

While Trump's 22% is impressive, showing as it does an 8% lead over his nearest competitor, there are three other candidates who appear to be surging, Ohio governor John Kasich, businesswoman Carly Fiorina and neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, who I want to talk about today.

Dr. Carson was here in New York City yesterday, touring Harlem, with an obligatory stop at Sylvia's famed restaurant and taking time to address the statistical truth about the real threat to young black men. It is not old white cops. It is other young black men.

New York City suffered its 201st murder last Sunday. For a city of 8.4 million souls, that is not bad and a far cry from the over 2000 murders the Big Apple endured in a typical year back in the bad old days of the 1970's and 1980's. Although our inner city areas endure violence, a highly effective NYPD manages the crisis.

Compare our relatively peaceful town to the predominantly African American city of Baltimore. Just 1/14th the size of New York, with just over 600,000 residents, and a dysfunctional PD, Baltimore has now suffered its 202nd homicide of 2015. It is tied with New York.

This continued chaos and bloodletting there and in predominantly black cities the length and breath of our country is the grim reality that should be the focus of a new civil rights movement. 

Do Black Lives Matter only when they are taken by white cops?

“We need to be talking about how we solve the problem in the black community of murder,” said Dr. Carson yesterday in Harlem. And how would he address this crisis? “...Instill values into people again so they do in fact believe that their brother’s life matters.” He added that those values are “family and faith,” the “principles that got black people through slavery, segregation and Jim Crowism.”

This smart black man has principles, strength and clarity, and our nation could benefit from his wisdom.