Detroit (CNN) The mothers of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, two men killed in high-profile shootings, knocked Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday for comments he made on Sunday about "ghettos" and African-American families.

Asked during the CNN debate in Flint, Michigan, about what racial blind spots he had, Sanders said that many white Americans "don't know what it's like to be living in a ghetto" and "don't know what it's like to be poor."

The comment rankled many and the Clinton campaign seized on it as a way to cast Sanders as out of touch on race.

"Sen. Sanders is wrong to suggest that the concept of the ghetto is inextricably connected to Black America, just as he was wrong to yet again defend his NRA-backed position on guns," Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Both mothers have endorsed and campaigned for Hillary Clinton.

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