DHS official resigns after report on racist radio commentary

A reverend who headed the Center for Faith-Based & Neighborhood Partnerships at the Department of Homeland Security left his position Thursday after reporting by CNN that he routinely made racist comments about black, Muslim, and Jewish people during his time as a radio host.
DHS confirmed Rev. Jamie Johnson resigned Thursday.
Johnson was appointed in April by General John Kelly during his tenure as Secretary of Homeland Security. CNN released audio of Johnson's comments between 2008 and 2016 on a radio show called "The Right Balance."
According the the DHS website, the center Johnson led was tasked with coordinating "a broader cross-section of faith and community-based organizations in all stages of" emergency management and the "disaster sequence."
During one 2008 radio spot, Johnson was prompted to answer a question as to why "a lot of blacks are anti-semitic." Johnson went on to say "it's in indictment of America's black community that has turned America's major cities into slums because of laziness, drug use, and sexual promiscuity."
The radio hosts compared black people to Jewish people, saying black people "resent the Jewish community because they came from the same oppression and prove that you don't have to keep blaming someone else for your past, you can be a success."
"That is a great point, Frank," Johnson said.
In that spot, the radio hosts continue to theorize as to why individuals who came to America from places like Jamaica, Nevis and Haiti "who had black skin, and were often much blacker, darker, and certainly more inarticulate than blacks who had been raised in the United States all their lives…[who] come from a slave background" were able to, within one generation, get "advanced college degrees" and "making six figures by something like a twenty to one ratio" compared "to American blacks."
In other shows, Johnson says that people grouped into "militant or radical Islam, they're simply being obedient," arguing that Islam inherently calls its followers to violence. Johnson later says that if Islam continues to "out-birth the English people, the British people, as they are in Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Germany…they will own Europe. They will own and control our mother country, Great Britain."
After CNN reported Thursday on Johnson's comments, he issued an apology to the network, saying he "regret[s] the manner in which those thoughts were expressed in the past, but can say unequivocally that they do not represent my views personally or professionally."
According to the Washington Post, Johnson was, in the past, a fixture in Republican politics in Iowa, working with figures like Rick Perry and Rick Santorum.


Original Post: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/16/dhs-official-resigns-racist-commentary-james-johnson-246535

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