Christie – America needs to ‘be more tolerant’

Just days after Gov. Chris Christie spoke to a packed church of worshippers at St. Matthew African Methodist Episcopal Church in Orange about the deadly shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, the governor said Americans need to be "more tolerant" of different races.

Speaking on the June edition of Townsquare Media's "Ask The Governor" program on NJ 101.5 Thursday, Christie said that even though this is a "very uncomfortable" subject to discuss, it's necessary.

"We've gotta stop avoiding calling these things what they are," Christie said of racially-fueled incidents. "This is racism. It's a very uncomfortable thing to talk about but we better start talking about it."

The governor said it's important for community leaders "to have these discussions."

"We can't ignore it, we can't make excuses for it, we have to call it out," Christies said Thursday. "I don't think we should be cleaning this up."

Addressing the recent discussion regarding Confederate flag, Christie said that although the flag itself symbolizes incidents in our nation's history that "we're not proud of," people should be focused more on the actions and less on the symbol.

"If we spend all of our time talking about a symbol and not the actions, we're wasting our time," he said.

The governor said that although our country has made great strides in recent decades where race relations are concerned, we still need for community leaders of all races to continue discussing tolerance.

"Let's not forget that we have made a lot of progress in this country, but its not enough. America has to be a country that continues to evolve and to grow and to become more tolerant," he said, adding that what seems to fuel incidents involving violence and racism is fear. "I think what fuels the emotion is fear - fear on both sides of violence...of rejection..of the differences. We need to break down that fear."