On CNN Live with Fredricka Whitfield, The Root Politics Editor Jason Johnson discussed accusations by President Donald Trump that he was wiretapped on the orders of President Barack Obama during the 2016 election. Dr. Jason Johnson joined a panel featuring CNN Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter and Ron Brownstein, Senior Editor at The Atlantic.
Barack Obama
Stomp the Yard: Nice Try, but Republicans Still Don’t Get HBCUs
2017 is a strange time for America’s HBCUs. In the rearview mirror is President Barack Obama, whom African-American college students loved and voted for in historic numbers. At the same time, Obama was tone-deaf to the concerns of many HBCUs, and his policies gutted schools across the nation.
In front of them is President Donald Trump and a Republican Party that has created one of the most hostile administrations in American history, while at the same time inviting over 60 HBCU heads to Washington, D.C., for listening sessions and panel discussions and to attend the signing of a new HBCU executive order. The result was 48 hours of bad public relations for some HBCUs, a mixture of praise and skepticism about Trump’s executive orders, and a future that looks as muddled as ever.
Many presidents who came to Washington were attacked by their own students and alumni and political analysts for answering Trump’s call. Howard University students went so far as to put signs around campus expressing displeasure with President Wayne A.I. Frederick.
While this anger is understandable, you have to consider the position of these presidents. HBCUs are heavily dependent on federal funds for support and to pay tuition for many students. The opportunity to meet with POTUS, even one as problematic as this one, is part of the job that any college president has.
“We, as HBCU presidents, are being besieged with communications from students, faculty, staff and alumni that say, ‘We are being used.’ How do we answer this question?”
The Republicans had a wonderful opportunity to address that tension and ease these concerns, but failed to fully take advantage of the opportunity. The biggest problem facing Republicans who want to work with HBCUs is the same problem that Republicans as a whole face when attempting to court the African-American community: Republicans abjectly refuse to acknowledge the conflict between individual intention and institutional hostility.
There are plenty of Republicans, especially black ones, who are dedicated to helping HBCUs, but they fail to confront the reality that the Republican Party as a whole promotes policies that are directly hostile to African-American interests. When the secretary of education thinks that HBCUs are the first wave of school choice, and Kellyanne Conway treats a group of African-American college presidents like a visiting NBA championship team, black skepticism is pretty justified.
Sen. Scott told President Bynum that as the only black Republican in the Senate, he knows what it’s like to have the African-American community question him about working with Trump. He praised the presidents in the room for coming to Washington and encouraged them all to stay committed to their work and ignore the criticism.
Later on, Scott elaborated on his thoughts, noting how unfair it was that African Americans are demanding that HBCU presidents confront the Trump administration in ways that didn’t occur under Obama.
“Why hold us to a different standard [than Obama was held to]?” he said, citing the former president’s many failures with HBCUs.
“That’s a foolish question,” Scott said. “Why should I have to provide a number? [Obama] didn’t. We don’t have numbers yet. But this is just step 1. The budget will come and we’ll see. I’m not working for Republicans, I’m not working for black people; I’m here to work for the Lord and try to give everyone access to education, and people should understand that.”
Rep. Walker and Speaker Ryan both offered comments and anecdotes about HBCUs that ranged from sincerely naive and clueless to somewhat insulting. In an exchange about the ways that HBCU graduates make an impact across the nation, Ryan immediately jumped to Donald Driver, a Super Bowl-winning former wide receiver from the Green Bay Packers.
“Donald Driver went to Alcorn State. Is Alcorn here? That’s an HBCU, right?” said Ryan, attempting to make a little joke.
Walker, a white Republican from North Carolina, talked about how his wife earned a nursing degree at North Carolina A&T, which inspired him to be a champion of HBCUs despite pushback he gets from some constituents.
“I hear things from constituents,” he said during the end-of-day panel. “Somebody told me, ‘We didn’t send you to Congress to go and get money for HBCUs,’ and I pushed back on that.”
The final executive order that Trump signed Tuesday will not substantively change the fate of HBCUs, and the Republican Party is not unified enough to provide any sort of clear path forward for colleges to follow, either. Nevertheless, you can’t fault HBCU presidents for doing their jobs and trying to find whatever avenues they can to improve their institutions. It’s not their fault that the Trump administration is riddled with policymakers who are hostile to the existence of African-American institutions. There could be a dozen HBCU meetings at the White House every year, but no amount of kind words from a few well-meaning members of Congress will change that fact.
This article originally appeared online at The Root.
MSNBC: Jason Johnson on Betsy DeVos, Andy Puzder, Immigration and Kiteboarding
On MSNBC with Stephanie Ruhle, Morgan State professor Jason Johnson discussed the issues of the day with GOP strategist Steve Schmidt.
On the Senate confirmation vote for Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos
On ongoing legal challenges to President Trump’s travel ban executive order
On President Trump’s unfounded accusation that the media has not covered terrorist attacks
On reveleations that Secretary of Labor nominee Andy Puzder employed an undocumented immigrant housekeeper and First Lady Melania Trump’s defamation lawsuits.
On former President Barack Obama kiteboarding on his vacation
The Root: The Woke Guide to the #SuperBowl: If You’re Rooting for the New England Patriots, You’re Rooting for Trump
The two weeks between the NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl are usually incredibly boring. The same interviews, the same analysis for a game that Vegas picked correctly a month ago. But thanks to Donald Trump, this year it’s different.
This is not some tongue-in-cheek rant against the New England Patriots. This is an acknowledgment that sports are political, and rooting for the team this year has political significance. The admonishment from fans and some sports pundits that sports are entertainment and politics is serious business and that the two should be separate is a lie. Sports have always been political in America, especially for black people.
President Trump chose a white supremacist and terrorist sympathizer as his chief of staff and a National Security Council member. He refused to mention Jews on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Last week he instituted a “Muslim ban” written by a white supremacist. Seattle Seahawks quarterback (and Ciara’s “come up” husband) Russell Wilson spoke out against the ban. Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs coaches Steve Kerr and Gregg Popovich, respectively, have spoken out about the ban and other Trump policies.
ESPN’s resident Stacey Dash impersonator, Sage Steele, went concern-trolling on Instagram that Muslim-ban protests at LAX might delay a sick child getting to the hospital. ( I guess sick kids don’t matter during championship parades that clog streets, though, right?) Two of the most influential sports voices, King James and Sir Charles, on the left and right respectively, also went at it this week. Bobby Fischer couldn’t have executed a better king-takes-knight move than LeBron did, but in ethering Charles Barkley, LeBron James also displayed the fault lines between the old and new NBA players’ public roles.
Simmering in the background of all of these stories is New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s unwavering support for President Donald Trump. A story that has been touched upon by great sportswriters like Dave Zirin but that major outlets like ESPN, FS1 and NBC have assiduously tried to avoid.
The fact that so many athletes have spoken out against Trump and his most recent policies, but Brady gets a relative pass for his stance, is telling. It’s a reflection of the false sports-vs.-politics narrative that only exists for white people who can afford, either mentally or financially, to pretend that multibillion-dollar industries that rely almost exclusively on black and brown bodies for profit are somehow a quirk of nature and not a result of hundreds of years of racial politics and policies. Athletes influence and are influenced by policy, so when an athlete or coaching staff advocates for political leaders, it should matter.
From the earliest times in American sports, wonderfully detailed in William C. Rhoden’s Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete, there have been politics surrounding athletics, especially for black people. Immigration laws are twisted to allow athletes in to play sports while refugees from nations we are bombing are blocked. Black parents are arrested for trying to get their kids into better schools, but boundaries are bent to let black high school athletes attend elite prep schools.
The same criminal-justice system that is indifferent to the destruction of innocent black bodies at the hands of police will contort itself to protect black men accused of gun violence, rape and abuse so long as they can catch a football or hit a 3-point shot. Sports journalism itself is a distinctly political enterprise. Does anyone really believe that the “crouching black conservative, hidden white moderate” politics of the Stephen A. Smith-Max Kellerman, Skip Bayless-Shannon Sharpe, Ernie Johnson-Charles Barkley types of shows are an accident?
All of which brings us to this Sunday’s game and the Patriots’ triumvirate of power: Brady, coach Bill Belichick and owner Robert Kraft.
If you root for the Patriots, you’re rooting for Brady and you’re rooting for Trump to brag and take credit for his political ally and friend’s win during his first year as president. Trump is desperate for a win and notorious for taking credit for the accomplishments of anyone associated with him.
Brady isn’t just a Republican; he’s a right-wing reactionary. He skipped meeting President Barack Obama when the Patriots won the Super Bowl in 2015, a move employed by the most right-wing and likely racist athletes across various leagues. He endorsed Trump during the election of 2016. It wasn’t an accident that Brady just happened to have a “Make America Great Again” hat, turned to face the cameras, at his locker for an interview he knew was happening; it was an endorsement. If he disagreed with Trump’s policies as president, he could say so (his wife did). But he won’t because he doesn’t. Belichick and Kraft are on the Trump train, too.
The Patriots’ roster is 66 percent African American (league average is about 70 percent), yet the Patriots have featured the largest number of starting white receivers and running backs of any team in the league in the last decade—Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola, Wes Welker, Danny Woodhead, just to name a few. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but Belichick is a genius—he could win with anybody—so why go out of his way to pick so many white athletes in offensive-skill positions when most other teams have none? Belichick is making a point about team “culture” and composition. He wants a white team, which isn’t a far cry from the Trump administration’s desire to create a mostly white Cabinet and government if they can get away with it.
Don’t pretend for a minute that the whiteness of the New England Patriots isn’t noticed and isn’t a selling point for a select set of fans (the NBA tried it for years). The sports world’s Uncle Ruckus on SlimFast, Jason Whitlock, exhorts teams to “whiten up” like New England to be successful, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that Brady and the Patriots are deemed the “Great White Hope” by white nationalist sports fans.
Sports matter, and sports are political in America. Whether it’s the Miracle on Ice or teams protesting Donald Sterling or hosting veterans at games, who you root for and what they stand for matters. Under a president who brags about bigotry and a team whose leaders openly associate with him, there is no separation of your values from who you root for this Sunday. This weekend, as you sit down to watch the Super Bowl, show that you care about this country, democracy, decency and diversity. Watch the Super Bowl as an American, not as a Patriot.
This article originally appeared online at The Root.
News One Now: Jason Johnson on President Barack Obama’s Legacy
On a special Inauguration Day episode of News One Now with Roland Martin, Morgan State University professor Jason Johnson evaluates the legacy of President Barack Obama with a panel including Democratic strategist Angela Rye, journalist Lauren Victoria Burke and Howard University professor Greg Carr.
On 2009 remarks by Reverend Al Sharpton on how to judge the Obama Administration
On the Legacy and Future of Obamacare
On President Obama’s Handling of Housing and Education Issues
On President Obama’s Legacy on Criminal Justice Reform
On First Lady Michelle Obama’s Legacy