Homeland Security Official Resigns After Comments Linking Blacks to ‘Laziness’ and ‘Promiscuity’ Come to Light

Rev. Jamie Johnson was director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Center for Faith-Based & Neighborhood Partnerships. (FEMA/Department of Homeland Security)

A political appointee in the Department of Homeland Security abruptly resigned after the disclosure Thursday he previously made derogatory remarks about black people and Muslims on conservative talk radio.

Rev. Jamie Johnson, who was appointed the head of the DHS’s Center for Faith-Based & Neighborhood Partnerships in April, appeared on the program in 2008. The comments resurfaced Thursday after CNN published a report about them with audio snippets.

Johnson’s incendiary comments about black people came on the show “The Right Balance,” on Accent Radio Network, CNN reported. An unidentified speaker on the show said “a lot of blacks are anti-Semitic” and asked Johnson why.

Johnson extolled the economic successes of American Jews and said “it’s an indictment of America’s black community that has turned America’s major cities into slums because of laziness, drug use and sexual promiscuity,” according to a recording posted by CNN.

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As a guest host on the AM radio program “Mickelson in the Morning,” in Iowa, Johnson spoke harshly of Muslims, saying radical Islam was “faithful Islam.”

“I never call it radical Islam, if anything, it is obedient Islam. It is faithful Islam.” Johnson said, according to audio posted by CNN.

He later said he agreed with the conservative author Dinesh D’Souza that “all that Islam has ever given us is oil and dead bodies over the last millennia and a half.”

In a statement given to CNN before his resignation, Johnson said he regretted the remarks and said they do not represent his personal or professional viewpoint.

“I have and will continue to work with leaders and members of all faiths as we jointly look to strengthen our safety and security as an interfaith community,” Johnson said. “Having witnessed leaders from the entire faith spectrum work to empower their communities I now see things much differently.”

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