Fox Sports 1’s Jason Whitlock weighed in on the backlash rapper Kanye West had received for his support of President Donald Trump and praised the artist for trying to “open” the minds of black Americans to political ideas other than liberalism.

Whitlock argued Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that liberalism is akin to cigarettes for black people, claiming the philosophy is “hazardous” to families because it differs from the values taught in black homes.

“I think us as African-Americans — we have to examine why are we the only ethnic group that has gone in wholly with one political party,” Whitlock told host Tucker Carlson. “No one has to compete for our vote. We are chained to an ideology that just isn’t working over the last 50-60 years. Liberalism, the swallowing of it whole, our families have been destroyed, our children lost and confused, our black men incarcerated and emasculated, and we’ve moved away from the traditional values that have always defined us. I think we’ve made a mistake.”

He later added, “[N]inety to 95 percent of us are afraid to even admit that we have conservative values, and we’ve moved away from our church upbringing. We’ve been the most religious people in America for hundreds of years, and we’re moving more secular, we’re moving away from the church. Our religion now is liberalism, and the Democratic Party is our church, and it’s just not working for us.”

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