Rashard Turner, the founder of a Black Lives Matter chapter in St. Paul, Minnesota, who later quit the group, told Fox News on Wednesday morning that the organization was “racist” against black children because they opposed school choice.
Turner said in a viral video late last week that his decision to leave the group was prompted by their stances on education. “I learned they had little concern for rebuilding black families, and they cared even less about improving the quality of education for students in Minneapolis,” he said. “That was made clear when they publicly denounced charter schools alongside the teachers union. … The moratorium on charter schools does not support rebuilding the black family. But it does create barriers to a better education for black children.”
In a Fox News interview, Turner said that the moratorium on charter schools was “a direct attack on black families” and “on black children.”
“They’ve been co-opted by teachers unions, specifically at the national level, the American Federation of Teachers, and here locally in Minnesota, Education Minnesota,” Turner said. “These teachers unions own the Democrats, they own BLM, and teachers unions, in my opinion, they kill our children’s hopes and dreams. So, if we’re thinking about black children doing what’s best for black families, we have to start with education.”
“I mean, there’s no way on earth, after these two past school years, that folks can think that things like education savings accounts, aren’t going to be good for families,” Turner later added. “I’ll tell you, there’s not one black family in my neighborhood here in St. Paul, that has said, ‘Hey, we don’t want that money to follow our child.’ Anyone who’s in opposition to school choice, charter schools, you’re right, I’d say they’re a racist. Because we know that charter schools are creating opportunities, we know that that money that is supposed to be educating our children.”
