BET Founder Robert Johnson on Wednesday called protesters tearing down statues across the U.S. "borderline anarchists" and said that black people "laugh" at white Americans who think ripping down monuments and canceling TV shows is what black people want.
During an interview with Fox News, Johnson, the first black billionaire in U.S. history, said that protesters who destroy monuments and memorials "have the mistaken assumption that black people are sitting around cheering for them saying 'Oh, my God, look at these white people. They're doing something so important to us. They're taking down the statue of a Civil War general who fought for the South.'"
"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," he added.
He then blasted protesters tearing down monuments and said they don't really have an "agenda" and tearing them down doesn't change anything for black people.
"Look, the people who are basically tearing down statues, trying to make a statement are basically borderline anarchists, the way I look at it. They really have no agenda other than the idea we're going to topple a statue," Johnson said. "It's not going to give a kid whose parents can't afford college money to go to college. It's not going to close the labor gap between what white workers are paid and what black workers are paid. And it's not going to take people off welfare or food stamps."
He concluded, it's "tantamount to rearranging the deck chairs on a racial Titanic. It absolutely means nothing."