Source: Instagram/Umar Johnson / Instagram/Umar Johnson
Dr. Umar Johnson has been at the center of much criticism and many controversies over the years in a trend he continued recently in spectacular fashion during an appearance on a popular podcast.
The same man who once said queer people are a “conspiracy” to control the population has been going viral since this past holiday weekend when snippets of his interview with the Joe Budden Podcast began populating social media timelines.
From declaring that Eminem cannot be considered the best rapper because he’s of the color of his skin to offering his latest views on interracial relationships to suggesting Kobe Bryant’s widow isn’t helping Black people to criticism about the Black church to white supremacy’s influence on capitalism to accusing singer Cassie of “financial exploitation” for a lawsuit alleging Sean “Diddy” Combs sexually abused her and much, much more, Johnson covered a lot of racial ground during the interview – and all of the clips have been widely shared on social media accompanied by a fine blend of derision and applause.
In one clip, Johnson declares that white people invented “genocide” and vehemently defends his views when challenged by the podcast’s co-hosts.
In another clip as the group is debating the role of race when it comes to political power, Johnson labels Asians as “probationary whites” who are recruited by white people to “help keep [Black people] in our place.”
Johnson – whose doctorate has been heavily scrutinized amid repeated delays in opening a school in Delaware for Black boys – also suggested without proof that Vanessa Bryant is not using the wealth she inherited from her late husband “to do any good in the Black community.”
As you can see, pretty much everything Johnson talks about has the common denominator of race.
The full episode of the Joe Budden Podcast featuring Dr.Umar Johnson can be found by clicking here.
Aside from the Joe Budden Podcast, Johnson has previously argued that “single Black mothers” psychologically castrate their sons and that light-skinned Black people aren’t really Black, the latter topic of which he partially addressed in the recent interview.
Often going live on Instagram to engage his more than 900,000 followers, the words Johnson has uttered in the name of Black liberation have straddled the lines of being informative and entertaining to laughable and problematic.
In the tradition of his legendary interview with Roland Martin on NewsOne Now in 2017, the self-proclaimed Prince of Pan-Afrikanism never ceases to amaze ith his quotes.
Keep reading to find some of Dr. Umar Johnson’s more controversial quotes over the years, in no particular order.
On Juneteenth
According to Johnson, there is just one correct choice for Black people deciding whether to celebrate Juneteenth on the Fourth of July:
“There’s nothing worse than a negro who will celebrate his ancestors [sic] freedom on Juneteenth and then turn right around and celebrate the slave masters who owned them on July 4th! Please pick a side and stay on it.”
On Jonathan Majors
Johnson suggested the actor who was recently convicted of assaulting his white ex-girlfriend had been a sellout during that relationship before he began dating actress Meagan Good.
“Welcome back to the Afrikan race family,” Johnson said about Majors, whom the psychologist had previously referred to as being “snowbunnied” — a derisive term he uses to describe the experience of Black men in relationships with white women.
On Kevin Samuels
Johnson doubled down on his criticism of Kevin Samuels following the self-proclaimed relationship guru’s sudden death last year.
Johnson called Samuels’ style “divisive” and said he felt that Black women who supported Samuels didn’t have love for other Black women:
“And the fact that he did have a lot of people [following him] speaks to how decadent and speaks to how self-hating we can be as a people. I’ll be honest with you. I think a lot of the women who supported Kevin Samuels supported him because they don’t like other Black women, and they enjoy sitting back on their couch sipping their tea and watching this Black man tear Black women’s self-esteem to shreds.”
On Deion Sanders
Johnson was angry at Deion Sanders for leaving a head football coaching position at Jackson State University, an HBCU, for the same position at the University of Colorado, where Black students make up a small fraction of the school’s enrollment.
“Deion Sanders used, abused and exploited HBCU Jackson State just to be given an opportunity to show predominately white institutions that he could coach,” Johnson said in an interview on The Breakfast Club last year.
Calling Sanders’ decision to leave Jackson State “an unmanly move,” Johnson suggested there was unfinished business at Jackson State and vis a vis all historically Black colleges and universities.
“That one man could have been a catalyst for a movement that would have revolutionized the survival of HBCUs,” Johnson continued before offering a metaphor to slavery.
“The abolition wasn’t just about Frederick Douglass, but if Frederick Douglass would have pulled out, he would have hurt it. The underground railroad wasn’t just about Harriet Tubman, but if she would have pulled out, it would have failed,” Johnson continued. “For [Sanders] to pull out of Jackson State the way that he did before making sure the HBCU system survived, to me, was selfish. He chose money over the movement.”
Johnson had much more to say about Deion Sanders:
[Sanders] had a chance to help and he hurt and y’all wanna condone that because you Black celebrities are not committed to the best interest of Black people.
The critical importance of the HBCU is greater than it’s ever been. So for Deion to pull this right now makes it even worse because you’re leaving an HBCU system when you had a chance to save it.
“Stop trying to exempt Black celebrities from accountability to the race.”
Using his preferred loaded language that’s dripping with slavery imagery for people he describes as race traitors, Johnson recommended “50,000 lashes for Deion.”
Blaming Black people’s spending habits for delays in building his school
The good doctor in 2020 placed at least part of the blame for a lack of contributions to expedite the delayed construction of his planned Frederick Douglas Marcus Garvey Academy on the way he says Black people spend their money. For example, he said during an Instagram rant that Black people choose to spend $19 million annually on grits. Specifically, grits made and sold by the Quaker Oats company.
It was in that context that Johnson asked his followers, “can I have your grit money for one year?” Give me your grit money for one year and I will build 10 schools across this country.”
He continued: “Give me your Quaker grits. No more grits for one year. Can we sacrifice our grits for one year?”
“I don’t want your Louis bag money, I don’t want your Mercedes money, I don’t want your weave, perm, haircut, Air Jordan, Timberland money — give me your grits! We spent $19 million on grits and I don’t have enough money to renovate the Garvey building.”
On his Black Singles Convention
That same year, while touting an event he referred to as the Black Singles Convention, Johnson warned that admission would be denied to any Black woman who did not have a natural hairstyle:
“Ladies, I’m not playing — no weave, no perm, no straightening comb, no European hair color. It is a nappy by nature singles convention.”
On reparations
Johnson also has made it clear which Black people he believes should be eligible for reparations for the hundreds of years of systemic oppression in the U.S. During the same Instagram live rant as cited above, Johnson specifically mentioned interracial relationships as being a non-qualifier:
“Before I give Black folks any type of resources for reparations, you cannot get reparations if you’re not with a Black woman. Anybody who’s dating out the race, do not get reparations. I’m being straight serious about that. You do not get any reparations if you do not live in a Black community. You’re not getting reparations if you have a weave or a perm or blonde hair. Any type of European behavior, you don’t get reparations.”
On the prospects of an Oprah Winfrey presidency
In 2018, Johnson said that he believes Oprah Winfrey is about “feminism” and “LGBT-ism” and that her hypothetical presidency “spells out extermination for Black men everywhere.”
On Black women
“At the end of the day, if I’m going to call myself a man, the ultimate responsibility for the reconstruction of the Black community rests with me,” Johnson told the Daily Rap Up Crew podcast earlier this year. “Yes, they [Black women] have a role. Yes, they have responsibility. But as a man — as a leader — to say ‘I can’t fix this shit unless she changes’ — that’s not the definition of a man.”
The Daily Rap Up Crew’s hosts, three Black men, pushed back on Johnson’s assertions and complained that Black men “have to deal with masculine women” within the family structure.
“Why is she masculine? Because she had to raise the kids alone, I’m telling you, mistakes made by Black men systemically gave rise to the conditions that allowed her to be masculine and made her end up with a man that you consider to be less than he should be,” Johnson said. “And I’m telling you, Black men are responsible for her being masculine because we have not helped her raise them children.”
Johnson continued: “The Black woman has been the be-all, end-all in our community for half of a century, and now we want to turn around and say she didn’t do it perfectly enough or remained feminine enough when she had to absorb our responsibilities plus her own.”
He also said Black women were wrongfully being blamed for the actions of Black men.
“And we are complaining about the women who are making babies with the irresponsible men that we [Black men] didn’t raise correctly. That’s bullshit! That’s wimp-ass, weak man shit! Take responsibility for our shit. Stop scapegoating them [Black women].”
SEE ALSO:
Dr. Umar Johnson Addresses ‘Snowbunny’ Viral Video Showing Him With A White Woman
Dr. Umar Johnson, Disgusted With The Illusion Of Inclusion, Says ‘We Must Fight For Ourselves’
