Billionaire Robert Johnson, the founder of the BET Network described those toppling statues as “borderline anarchists” and denied that people who engage in those activities enjoy supported in the black community. Instead, he suggested those are people are mocked by most African-Americans.
“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 said, mentioning the show “The Dukes of Hazard,” a television show set in the south that featured a car with the Confederate flag painted on its roof.
Tearing down statues does little to bring about real change according to Johnson. It doesn’t “close the wealth gap,” “give a kid whose parent’s can’t afford a college money to go to college,” “close the labor gap between what white workers are paid and what black workers are paid” or “take people off welfare or food stamps.”
Actions like those the country has witnessed over the last several weeks are simply designed to make black people “feel good,” and are akin to “rearranging the deck chairs on a racial Titanic. It absolutely means nothing,” he said.
Protests have raged across the country for several weeks following the death of George Floyd, an African-American man who was killed by Minneapolis police officers while they were attempting to take him into custody.