Bob Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television and supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, made a bold statement to the Charlotte Observer this past Monday. He stated that if Clinton’s rival Sen. Barack Obama had been white, he would not have had the same success.
Johnson:

“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? And the answer is, probably not.”

Sidenote: Obama did not start off with 90 percent of the black vote. A January CBS poll had Clinton at 52% of black voters, compared to Obama’s 28%.

Johnson was trying to revive statements made by another Clinton supporter, Geraldine Ferraro, that sparked controversy as they were accused of being racist.

“Geraldine Ferraro said it right,” Johnson said. “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.”

Ferraro, who was a Democratic vice presidential candidate in 1984, was forced to step down from her position in Clinton’s campaign for saying that Obama would not not have been in sthe same position if he was white and was “lucky to be who he is.”

The Obama campaign’s response:

“This is just one in a long line of absurd comments by Bob Johnson and other Clinton supporters who will say or do anything to get the nomination,” campaign spokesman Dan Leistikow said. “The American people are tired of this and are ready to turn the page on these kind of attack politics.”

Johnson acknowledged that Obama will likely win the Democratic nomination and blamed “the liberal media”.

“They sort of dislike Hillary for her vote on the war. They don’t want to see Bill and Hillary in power again,” Johnson said.

Johnson himself has been heavily criticized for BET’s programming often described as perpetuating harmful black stereotypes by primarily airing hip-hop videos that often have misogynistic, materialistic, and/or violent themes.

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