Billionaire BET founder Bob Johnson sent a letter to Majority Whip James Clyburn seeking to lobby the Congressional Black Caucus to support Senator Clinton for VP. If Johnson had any true friends, say some fellow billionaires, they would tell him to sit down somewhere and that he has torn his britches with Black America.
Johnson on CNN's American Morning:
"There's no question that Sen. Clinton will do whatever she's asked to do for the party and she will certainly … entertain the idea if it's offered," Johnson said.
It is too bad that Johnson is unwilling to follow the same directive, to do whatever he is asked to do for the party. If that were the case, the best thing he could do for the party is disappear to some exotic isle for a few months or busy readying himself for the next Bobcats season.
African Americans were angry with Johnson's remarks believed to be alleging drug use by Obama when introducing Senator Clinton at a campaign stop earlier this year. In fact, I believe that we were more angry with him than Ferraro, the Jesse Jackson remark and a couple of others put together. Two cultural ideas, cultural stains that remain within our community is "crabs in a barrel" and "shining." The "crabs in a barrel" syndrome is the idea that you can't do anything good without other black folks (another term is often use) pulling you back down. The second idea, "shining", is when a black person will act or speak in a manner he believes to be pleasing to white people, especially ones in a position of power.
After the campaign incident, I actually heard conversations in which black folk expressed the desire to "whoop his ass" and go to jail for it. It was unprecedented that Obama had moved to front of the pack; Iowa made a generation of older African Americans emote everything from shock to tears of sheer joy. For a community, some of which is quagmired in 50-66% high school dropout rates, poor healthcare and double and triple the national unemployment average, Obama represented a beacon of hope, the ultimate example of potential and possibilities. For Bob Johnson, many still unhappy with his media exploits and what was seen as questionable, even prostituting television programming while at BET, to stand out front and act as if Obama had done for the community when Johnson in fact was viewed as poisoning the community, was insufferable.
Johnson insulted the entire African American community when he said
And to me as an African American I am frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid...
In that one sentence, he had done what those that seek to homogenize our community into one body that can be addressed by a phone call to Al Sharpton to apologize have always done. He insulted us with his feigned offense. He might as well have been Limbaugh or O'Rieilly arguing that how are black kids to have self esteem if you give affirmative action scholarships, how will they know whether they were good enough. And that isn't even addressing the Sidney Poitier line, the movie reference, the race connotations and the "shining" implications he made.
I said all of that to say that Bob Johnson is the last person that African Americans would be listening to these days. Congressional Black Caucus or a college student in Nashville. He reminds me of the Bush administration using Armstrong Williams to propagandize and push its agenda. More blacks listen to Limbaugh than Armstrong Williams. And so it is he and Lanny Davis at Voteboth.com petitioning Obama to put Senator Clinton as VP? For real? In real life?
If I am fortunate, I will get to glimpse the smile and the knowing, one second look, between President Barack Obama and Bob Johnson at some function in the future, the passing glance that says for all your money, you and I know. Of course I see him in the airport, I'm probably going to need bail.