Ben Carson tells Black Lives Matter to refocus

Activists from the movement met privately with the former secretary of state and Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton earlier this month, after they arrived late to a rally and were barred from entering the venue. Another Democrat, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley was also heckled by Black Lives Matters protesters at a recent event. The former Baltimore mayor previously apologized to members of the movement for responding to a question about Black Lives matter by saying, "All lives matter."

Carson wrote in the op-ed that the protesters' anger over "racial policing issues" is justified, but said he took issue with the movement's targets.

"Unjust treatment from police did not fill our inner cities with people who face growing hopelessness," he said.

Carson instead called on the social justice movement to take on new targets: school boards, the entertainment industry, city halls, crack houses and both the Democratic and Republican parties in Washington.

Of the Democratic Party, Carson said the activists should tell party officials "we don't want to be clothed, fed and housed. We want honor and dignity."

And of Republicans, Carson said, activists should demand to be invited in and listened to because, "They have ignored us for too long."

As he often does on the stump, Carson drew on his background -- his rise from poverty-ridden Detroit to becoming one of the foremost neurosurgeons of his generation -- and credited his mother with saving him and his brother from "being killed on those streets with nothing but a library card."

"There are many things to be angry about when you are consumed by hopelessness. Bernie Sanders isn't one of them," Carson said.