Is he even worth discussing? 0
Bob Johnson is a shining example of unintentional self-parody.
Here’s a man who became a multi-billionaire by peddling black stereotypes, trying to tell the rest of us about the minds of black people.
Here’s a guy who should be calling shots playing foot soldier for a presidential candidate.
Here’s a voice for the Clinton 2008 campaign.
For people who are supposed to know black folks so well, the Clintons sure don’t know how to pick black folks to help them in their outreach to Black America.
Or, could it be that they are trying to marginalize black voters and are looking for a black hired gun to do the job?
I believe the latter to be the case.
Bob Johnson has decided to open his mouth again and make us wonder just how it is that he became so financially successful.
Channeling Geraldine Ferraro, Bob Johnson said that Barack Obama has only been successful in this presidential campaign because he’s black.
“What I believe Geraldine Ferraro meant is that if you take a freshman senator from Illinois called `Jerry Smith’ and he says I’m going to run for president, would he start off with 90 percent of the black vote?” Johnson said. “And the answer is, probably not… .”
“Geraldine Ferraro said it right. The problem is, Geraldine Ferraro is white. This campaign has such a hair-trigger on anything racial … it is almost impossible for anybody to say anything.”
Wow!
Where do I even begin with this. First of all, black people comprise about 13-14% of the population while white people comprise some 70+% of the population. Now, let’s look at the last presidential cycle. There were over five times as many white voters as there are black. So, let’s say that Obama would get 90% of the black vote. That would mean that he would have won many fewer contests because, with the exception of a few places, there simply aren’t enough black people to comprise a majority of voters.
Secondly, Obama didn’t start off with 90% of the black vote. The Clintons, primarily Bill Clinton, managed to drive black voters away in droves. In fact, for much of last year, the conventional wisdom was that Clinton would run away with the black vote (see here, here and here). So, no, the black vote was not a given for Obama.
Finally, as in the case with Ferraro statements, when has it been a given that a black man will attain easy success in the field of politics? In the entire history of the Senate, for example, there has only been 5 black senators (4 men, 1 woman). How many white women are there in the Senate right now? I believe the number is 16. I am not saying this to spark a debate on whether racism or sexism is the greater evil I am just saying that, in the Congress, black men don’t exactly dominate.
However, what Bob Johnson is doing is what you would expect from Republican politicians — painting Obama as some affirmative-action hire in order to scare off working-class white voters.
Well, I’ve given Bob Johnson much more consideration that he deserves…
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