Tim Johnson: Biden's 'Chains' Comment Was Calculated Race Baiting

Vice President Joe Biden’s comments that Mitt Romney’s banking policies would “put ya’ll back in chains” was a calculated and intentional example of race baiting that was probably worked out with campaign staff ahead of time, Tim Johnson, founder and chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, tells Newsmax.TV.

 

At a campaign stop in Virginia before a racially mixed crowd, Biden was talking about Romney’s opposition to banking regulations when he said, “Look at their budget and what they’re proposing. Romney wants to let the — he said in the first hundred days, he is going to let the big banks once again write their own rules. Unchain Wall Street. They are going to put y’all back in chains.”

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A spokeswoman for the presumptive Republican nominee called the comments a “new low” and campaign surrogates charged the comments were racially loaded. Douglas said the incident was “typical of this administration.”

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“They really like to base their things on race motivation and it’s really sad that they can’t just make a statement without always trying to imply, indirectly or directly, race baiting and I really believe that that was the intent of that comment yesterday,” he said. “That wasn’t a fluke on the vice president’s part.

 

“That was an intentional statement that he probably had talked over with President Obama in the first place and definitely with his administration and members of his campaign staff to talk about how we can get the black community energized and how can we get them riled up so they’ll really be fearful of Mitt Romney and really want to give President Obama — who has done a terrible job when it comes down to reaching out and being inclusive of the black community — to get them motivated to vote for him, in particular, because of the color of skin,” Johnson said.

 

Johnson — whose Christ-centered education and public policy organization strives to bring the sanctity of free market and limited government ideas to bear on the hardest problems facing the nation — believes that Obama’s policies will ultimately lead to black voters questioning their strong support for the nation’s first African-American president.

 

“While many people may publicly say they’re going to continue to support him, when they go into that ballot box and they really reflect on what has taken place, are they better off today than they were under George Bush? The honest truth is going to be no,” he said.

 

“And Obama has had his opportunity to lead. He’s done a terrible job of leading our country. He’s done a terrible job of bringing the races together. . . .  That’s what the people are going to start really resonating on and they’re tired of hearing the propaganda and really want some substance,” Johnson said. “The economy is in . . . poor shape. Gas prices are going to continue to go up and down. Unemployment is in the high marks, especially among the black community. Dropout rate hasn’t changed.

"So we’ve got so many issues that he’s avoiding that we can talk about with the black community and when people really start taking time to assess and stop getting caught up into emotions, that this speech, in the long run, is going to hurt him — or the comment that was made by Vice President Biden is going to hurt him,” he said.

 

Johnson charged that instead of being a uniter, Obama is actually a divider.

 

“I mean when you think about some of his minions that he has out there doing the work — the Al Sharptons and Jessie Jacksons and people of this nature — you don’t hear anything that is uniting,” he said. “All he wants to do is keep talking about white this and white this and how every time somebody says something negative about President Obama being racist.”

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