The post BET founder Robert Johnson says Dems taking black voters ‘for granted,’ calls for BLM to form party appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>BET founder Robert Johnson says the Democratic Party has taken black voters in America for granted, and he urges the ascendant Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement to form a new third party to fight for their interests.
In a wide-ranging interview with Fox News that touched on 2020 politics, civil unrest and more, Johnson delivered an unvarnished assessment on the current relationship between black voters and the Democratic Party. And he had choice words for the party’s presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden, who recently told a radio host “you ain’t black” if you don’t support him — citing the incident as he made the case for a new party.
“Vice President Biden said to an African-American, a black American host on his show, even if you think about voting for Donald Trump, you’re not black,” Johnson told Fox News. “To have that mindset, you must have the attitude that we, black Americans, we own you. We can take you for granted … That, to me, shows you that black Americans are an appendage of a party.”
BET CO-FOUNDER BLASTS BIDEN OVER COMMENTS ON BLACK VOTERS: ‘ARROGANT AND OUT-OF-TOUCH ATTITUDE’
He later added: “That’s the biggest turnoff I’ve heard from a politician in a long time.”
Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, said his comments in a May interview with Charlamagne tha God were a “mistake” and chalked up the remark to the host being a “wise guy” and him responding in kind.
But Johnson said the former vice president gives him “a lot of pause” and questioned whether Biden believes African-Americans should have an “equal seat at the table in the Democratic Party.”
A recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll, however, shows that Biden currently holds a commanding lead over President Trump among black registered voters, 92 percent to 5 percent. The voters polled say racism and police conduct are the most important issues in their choice of candidates for president and were very critical of Trump, The Washington Post reported. Biden’s strong support among African-Americans also was evident earlier this year when he pulled off a resounding victory in South Carolina that revived his then-struggling candidacy.
Johnson, the first black billionaire in the United States, underscored the significance at this moment of the Black Lives Matter movement that has swept the nation in the wake of George Floyd’s death on May 25 in Minneapolis, Minn. He said he’s “never seen a group this strong since the civil rights movement.”
Johnson disagrees with some of the efforts by BLM and its allies, calling defunding the police a “silly idea” and mocking “borderline anarchists” who want to topple statues of Confederate and historical figures. But he sees the need for a group to stand up with the sole purpose of fighting for African-Americans because he said the Democratic Party hasn’t delivered on mending the systemic wealth gap between white and black Americans. Johnson is a major proponent of $14 trillion in slavery reparations payments to African-Americans.
“No minority group has ever achieved significant power in a two-party system when they are locked into one party and considered unreachable by the other party,” Johnson said.
Johnson said the permanent interests of African-Americans have diverged in many ways with the Democratic Party; now, with the nation behind the Black Lives Matter movement and racial injustice at the forefront, it’s time to act.
“I propose that an independent party formed by Black Lives Matter should echo the founding principles of the original Congressional Black Caucus members in 1971 who … said black Americans should have no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interests,” Johnson said.
Johnson suggested that Black Lives Matter run candidates for various offices and leverage their power in battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where black voters staying home or breaking with Democrats can determine the outcome of the presidential election. He recently publicized this idea in an open letter to the BLM movement.
BET FOUNDER ROBERT JOHNSON MOCKS CROWDS PULLING DOWN STATUES, CALLS THEM ‘BORDERLINE ANARCHISTS’
“It is very possible a black vote at 12 percent going one way toward Donald Trump could make Donald Trump president,” Johnson said. “That’s leverage, and black Americans ought to recognize the leverage.”
Johnson considers himself a lifelong Democrat and was a Hillary Clinton backer, but he’s undecided in the 2020 race between Biden and Trump. He’s given Trump high praise for his handling of the economy and boosting black employment.
File Photo: President-elect Donald Trump greets Robert Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, at Trump International Golf Club, November 20, 2016 in Bedminster Township, New Jersey. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
“He took on one of the biggest issues facing African-Americans — unemployment, and therefore lack of income and therefore the wealth gap,” said Johnson, who met Trump at his Bedminster, N.J., golf club in 2016. “He addressed that and put a lot of African-Americans to work and in a way that was more historic than it’s ever been. And I applauded him.”
Johnson said he’ll determine his vote in November based on which candidate will do the best for African-Americans, adding: “I have not made up my mind.”
CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP
He said Latinos and white voters are routinely split among the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, so Johnson challenges the idea that black voters should continually vote in a bloc for Democrats. He said he’s “not intimidated” by any pressure that he needs to vote with Democrats.
“To do that is absolute total cowardice,” Johnson said of buying into that thinking. “And you’re giving in to somebody controlling your mind and controlling your vote, which is not something I will ever bow to.”
The post BET founder Robert Johnson says Dems taking black voters ‘for granted,’ calls for BLM to form party appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The post BET founder Robert Johnson mocks crowds pulling down statues, calls them ‘borderline anarchists’ appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>BET founder Robert Johnson, in an interview Wednesday with Fox News, blasted those who are toppling Confederate and other statues across the nation as “borderline anarchists” — while challenging the notion that black Americans support this.
People tearing down statues “have the mistaken assumption that black people are sitting around cheering for them saying ‘Oh, my God, look at these white people. They’re doing something so important to us. They’re taking down the statue of a Civil War general who fought for the South,” Johnson said. “You know, black people, in my opinion, black people laugh at white people who do this the same way we laugh at white people who say we got to take off the TV shows.”
TRUMP TO SIGN EXECUTIVE ORDER PROTECTING FEDERAL STATUES, MONUMENTS
Johnson, who became the country’s first black billionaire in 2001, has made a $14 trillion pitch for reparations to descendants of slavery. But he said the movement to take down statues, cancel TV shows and fire professors does nothing to close the wealth gap that has persisted since slavery.
It’s “tantamount to rearranging the deck chairs on a racial titanic,” Johnson told Fox News. “It absolutely means nothing.”
Johnson argued that the statue destruction that has swept the nation is meaningless to black Americans who could benefit much more from structural changes like economic equality.
“Look, the people who are basically tearing down statues, trying to make a statement are basically borderline anarchists, the way I look at it. They really have no agenda other than the idea we’re going to topple a statue,” Johnson said. “It’s not going to give a kid whose parents can’t afford college money to go to college. It’s not going to close the labor gap between what white workers are paid and what black workers are paid. And it’s not going to take people off welfare or food stamps.”
FROM GEORGE WASHINGTON TO ULYSSES S. GRANT: STATUES, MONUMENTS VANDALIZED EXTEND BEYOND CONFEDERATES
Johnson rejected the backlash against public figures who say “all lives matter” instead of “black lives matter,” and the cancel craze targeting TV shows like “Dukes of Hazzard” and movie classics such as “Gone with the Wind.”
He also mocked white celebrities for apologizing for their race in emotional social media speeches.
“You know, that to me is the silliest expression of white privilege that exists in this country. The notion that a celebrity could get on a Twitter feed and say, ‘oh, my God, I am so sorry that I am white.’ I don’t find any black people getting on Twitter and saying, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry I’m black.’ And we got the worst problems. … My thing is: embrace being white and do the right thing.”
Johnson suggested white Americans need to ask black Americans what they really want.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“White Americans seem to think that if they just do sort of emotionally or drastic things that black people are going to say, ‘Oh my God, white people love us because they took down a statue of Stonewall Jackson.’ Frankly, black people don’t give a damn,” Johnson added.
The post BET founder Robert Johnson mocks crowds pulling down statues, calls them ‘borderline anarchists’ appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>