Jason Johnson Criticizes Biden for Comments in Tulsa Speech: ‘A Geico Commercial With an Interracial Couple’ Doesn’t Mean ‘We’re Turning the Corner’

Toward the end of his remarks Tuesday to commemorate 100 years since the Tulsa massacre, President Joe Biden said he was optimistic about the future of race relations, and cited television advertisements as an indicator of progress.

“I’ve never been more optimistic about the future than I am today,” Biden said. “I mean that,” adding that young Americans are the “least prejudiced, the most open generation in American history.”

“Although I have no scientific basis for what I’m about to say,” Biden continued, “those of you over 50, how often did you ever see advertisements on television with Black and White couples? Not a joke. I challenge you, find today, when you turn on the stations, sit on one station for two hours, and I don’t know how many commercials you’ll see, probably eight to five, two to three out of five have mixed race couples in them. That’s not by accident.”

Dr. Jason Johnson, a professor, writer, and MSNBC political commentator, wasn’t impressed with Biden’s take.

“I want to be really clear about this,” Johnson told Deadline: White House host Nicolle Wallace. “Yes, it is great that Joe Biden said that this was a massacre and this is terrible, et cetera. But we don’t need programs for disadvantaged people. We don’t need programs for excluded people. This was a Black attack. White people went and massacred Black people. And it happened all around the country during that time. And we need to be able to speak about that specifically.”

“And I have to say this because it’s also something very near and dear to me, and I wrote about this in TheGrio,” Johnson continued. “I know that Joe Biden is a good, decent man, he wanted to recover the soul of this nation and he looks at things in a sort of optimistic way, but please do not tell us, in the face of an insurrection, in the face of what we see in Texas, in the face of rising white nationalism in this country, please don’t tell me that a Geico commercial with an interracial couple means we’re turning the corner, because it doesn’t, and it diminishes what’s actually happening in this country.”

Johnson also posted his thoughts on Twitter, recalling a piece he wrote for TheGrio in February about the same issue.

“I can’t believe #Biden went in front of the descendants of the #TulsaMassacre and repeated that same tired trope about interracial couples on television.” I wrote about it after the FIRST time he said it,” Johnson tweeted.

Watch above, via MSNBC.

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