Our own Allen West appeared on Hannity last night and took on the gangsta culture that appears to have heavily influenced the murder of Chris Lane in Oklahoma one week ago today. West, who hosts at our sister site Next Generation TV along with John Phillips and Michelle Fields, told substitute host David Webb. “It is a gangster culture out there. It is a culture that is being permeated throughout the media, and throughout the entertainment industry, that we need to start speaking out about. And furthermore, when you think about the fact that 72% of black babies are being born out of wedlock, this is the…second and third order effects that we have seen in the inner city, in the black community, and in other communities where it’s spilling over. So that is the real conversation that we need to start having,” West said. He noted that “when I was 15, when I was 16, my parents ensured that I was not bored.” The teens accused of shooting Chris Lane in the back claim that they killed him out of boredom.

Juan Williams responded, “Let me be blunt, where are the civil rights leaders? Why aren’t we hearing from the civil rights leaders out there leading marches and protests against violence, against the drug dealers, against the bad schools, saying to young women, ‘Hey, this is madness'” before citing out-of-wedlock birth statistics among white, Hispanic and black babies. Williams slammed Jesse Jackson for criticizing President Obama when he tried to speak on the issue of the fractured black family. Williams charged that “I just think that is another sign that these people are all in bed, literally sometimes, with the pornographers, you know, a blind eye to the drug dealers, a blind eye to the people who tell you ‘It’s thug life, or no life.'”

A father in Duncan, OK, where the three teens allegedly killed Chris Lane, has said that the boys had tried to recruit his son into the Crips, and threatened him when he resisted.

Williams continued: “I just think this is a tragedy, and they’re always playing the victimization card.” He also noted that black men are killing other black men in massive numbers, “and that gets almost no attention.”

Webb asked LTC West (USA-ret) what we do about the gangster culture and the fractured black family.

West responded, “I think we have to go into the ‘hood. Look, I was brought up in the inner city of Atlanta, Georgia, the same neighborhood that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born and raised in. Now we’re going to have the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech next week. I wonder how many leaders are going to stand up and challenge and speak, just as Juan just did, and bring up some of the points that I did, to say that we’re not fulfilling that dream? As a matter of fact, we’re going backwards.” West offered to go into inner city neighborhoods and historically black colleges with Williams to talk about issues facing the black community, and Williams praised West, while warning him that even Bill Cosby came under fierce criticism from civil rights leaders when he spoke out on these issues.

West, who served 22 years in the United States Army and served in combat in Iraq before being elected to Congress, isn’t likely to back down in the face of critics. He told Williams: “I’ve really been shot at, and so the words and the barbs, they don’t bother me.”

Watch the exchange here.

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h/t Barracuda Brigade