John Edwards: “[P]retty soon we’re not going to have a young African-American male population in America. They’re all going to be in prison or dead. One of the two.”

At the MTV/MySpace Presidential Dialogue, John Edwards was asked the following question by a member of the audience:

“What would you do to eliminate inner city kids partake in violence?” (sic)

His answer began as follows:

“ The President must say to America: We cannot build enough prisons to solve this problem. And the idea that we can keep incarcerating and keep incarcerating — pretty soon we’re not going to have a young African-American male population in America. They’re all going to be in prison or dead. One of the two,” John Edwards

Here’s the video clip:

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/6142.html

Pretty racist if you ask me.

Jesse and Al, are you out there?

Edited to add:

Is there a subtle racism in John Edwards? One does wonder. Take this comment he made during an interview in Iowa in June”

“It’s not just a question of who you like,” Edwards said. “It’s not just a question of whose vision you are impressed with. It’s also a question of who is most likely to win the general election. It’s a pretty simple thing. Who will be a stronger candidate in the general election here in the State of Iowa? Who can go to other parts of the country when we have swing candidates running for the Congress and the Senate? Is the candidate going to have to say, ‘Don’t come here. Don’t come here and campaign with me. I can’t win if you campaign with me.’”

He added later, “I think it’s just a reality that I can campaign anyplace in America.”

http://www.iowaindependent.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=373

To me this implies that John Edwards believes that he, as a white male, is the only one who can campaign anywhere in the country.

I think as John Edwards speaks more and more one is going to see subtle racists hints. Of course, in a way, his brand of socialized everything does have racist tendencies. He states to minorities that they aren’t able to take care of themselves and government must take care of them from cradle to grave. In my opinion he just sounds like he has taken on the “white man’s burden”, which is so very condescending to a segment of the American population, and is dismissive of their talents and abilities.