BET founder Robert Johnson rolled his eyes at people tearing down statues, even the Confederate ones, along with brands changing their marketing, canceling shows and movies, and firing professors (emphasis mine):
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.”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 described these people as “borderline anarchists.” He pointed out that bringing down statues and those other actions will not put a dent in what really could help the black community (emphasis mine):
“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.”
Johnson also criticized the celebrities who apologized for their race:
He also mocked white celebrities for what he described as 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.”—“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.
He stressed that “white Americans need to ask black Americans what they really want.”
Is Johnson wrong? No. Kemberlee blogged on Wednesday night that people in Wisconsin threw a statue of Hans Christian Heg into a lake.
Heg was anti-slavery. He fought slave catchers. He died of wounds he got from fighting for the Union in the Civil War.
The family of the woman who portrayed Aunt Jemima is ticked Quaker Oats is changing the brand.
Johnson has no problem criticizing people on the left. In July 2019 he told CNBC that the Democratic Party moved “too far to the left” and praised President Donald Trump:
“And for that reason, I don’t have a particular candidate (I’m supporting) in the party at this time,” he said. “I think at the end of the day, if a Democrat is going to beat Trump, then that person, he or she, will have to move to the center and you can’t wait too long to do that.”—“I give the president a lot of credit for moving the economy in a positive direction that’s benefiting a large amount of Americans,” he said. “I think the tax cuts clearly helped stimulate the economy. I think business people have more confidence in the way the economy is going.”
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