Rudy Giuliani said Sunday that the Black Lives Matter movement is "inherently racist" and explained that the "real danger" African-Americans face comes from other civilians, not police.
The New York Daily News reported that Giuliani's comments came during an appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation," where the former New York City mayor addressed the death of two African-American men who died in police-involved shootings.
The shootings have been protested by people involved in the Black Lives Matter movement and other civil rights organizations, including on Thursday in Dallas where five police officers were shot and killed by a sniper.
"When you say 'black lives matter,' that's inherently racist," Giuliani said, addressing the movement that has voiced concerns about police shootings. "Black lives matter, white lives matter, Asian lives matter, Hispanic lives matter. That's anti-American and it's racist."
It was not the first time Giuliani directed comments toward the Black Lives Matter movement.
On "Fox & Friends Weekend" this past Saturday, he said he saved more lives of blacks while mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001 than Black Lives Matter.
"I calculate that I saved about 7,000 or 8,000 black lives," Giuliani said Saturday, according to Fox News. "Bloomberg and I together, maybe 12,000. There are no two mayors that ever saved more black lives in any city, any place in the country."
"Black Lives Matter hasn't saved anywhere near as many black lives – if they've saved any at all – (as) I have. … The reality is that we're going to only end this whole issue when we get control of the significant amount of violence in urban America."
On "Face the Nation" Sunday, Giuliani added that blacks must teach their children to respect law enforcement,
according to The Washington Post.
"If I were a black father, and I was concerned with the safety of my child, really concerned about it and not in a politically activist sense, I would say, 'Be very respectful of the police,'" Giuliani said. "Most of them are good. Some can be very bad. And just be very careful."
"I'd also say, be very careful of those kids in the neighborhood and don't get involved with them because, son, there's a 99 percent chance they're going to kill you, not the police. And we've got to hear that from the black community. And what we've got to hear from the black community is how and what they are doing among themselves about the crime problem in the black community."
Rev. Al Sharpton, an MSNBC talk show host and president of the National Action Network,
wrote in the New York Daily News on Sunday that Giuliani's words show "an appalling lack of understanding of the notion that the issue of fighting crime in black and brown neighborhoods must include the fact that police crime embellishes the chaos in those communities and must be dealt with as well."
"It is that repeated and documented pattern of profiling, excessive force and shootings by police that we see in our communities and not in others. If we are to ever solve the issue of crime, we must tackle all crime — including crime committed by those who wear a badge," Sharpton added.
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