Black Entertainment Television (BET) co-founder Robert Johnson condemned former Vice President Joe Biden following comments from the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Friday claiming that if black voters are still undecided, then they aren’t black.
“If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” Biden said on “The Breakfast Club” podcast.
“VP Biden’s statement today represents the arrogant and out-of-touch attitude of a paternalistic white candidate who has the audacity to tell Black people, the descendants of slaves, that they are not Black unless they vote for him,” Johnson said in a statement to Fox News. “This proves unequivocally that the Democratic nominee believes that Black people owe him their vote without question; even though, we as Black people know it is exactly the opposite. He should spend the rest of his campaign apologizing to every Black person he meets.”
Statement by Robert L. Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television & RLJ Companies.
“VP Biden’s statement today represents the, arrogant and out-of-touch attitude of a paternalistic white candidate who has the audacity to tell Black people, the descendants of slaves,1/2— Bret Baier (@BretBaier) May 22, 2020
2/2 Statement by Robert L. Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television “that they are not Black unless they vote for him. This proves unequivocally that the Democratic nominee believes that Black people owe him their vote without question; even though,1/3
— Bret Baier (@BretBaier) May 22, 2020
Statement by Robert L. Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television and The RLJ Companies. “we as Black people know it is exactly the opposite. He should spend the rest of his campaign apologizing to every Black person he meets.”
— Bret Baier (@BretBaier) May 22, 2020
BET is the largest cable network dedicated to a black audience.
Biden’s remarks also drew swift condemnation from conservatives shaming the comments as offensive.
South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott chastised Biden’s words as “the most arrogant, outrageous comment that I’ve heard in a very long time,” but also said he was unsurprised, given Biden’s hand in crafting the 1994 crime bill as a Delaware senator leading the Judiciary Committee.
Biden, Scott said, sponsored the legislation that “jailed more African-American males than any other legislation.”
“And President Trump comes along, and through his criminal justice reform, corrects the absolute mistakes made by Joe Biden; 1.3 million African-Americans voted for Trump. He’s saying to 1.3 million African-Americans that you are not black? Who in the heck does he think he is?”
Former Utah Republican Congresswoman Mia Love, who now works as a CNN political commentator, also issued a sharp rebuke over Biden’s comments, labeling them as “racist.”
“It’s incredibly offensive to hear this kind of rhetoric from anyone, let alone the presumptive nominee of the Democrat party,” Love wrote on Twitter. “Joe Biden’s comments were racist and an affront to the millions of African Americans who voted Republican in 2016.
It’s incredibly offensive to hear this kind of rhetoric from anyone, let alone the presumptive nominee of the Democrat party. Joe Biden’s comments were racist and an affront to the millions of African Americans who voted Republican in 2016. https://t.co/Os43mlXcG2
— Mia Love (@MiaBLove) May 22, 2020
Some Democrats, however, came to Biden’s defense, while others claimed the former vice president was just making a “joke.”
The comments made at the end of the Breakfast Club interview were in jest, but let’s be clear about what the VP was saying: he was making the distinction that he would put his record with the African American community up against Trump’s any day. Period.
— Symone D. Sanders (@SymoneDSanders) May 22, 2020
