Kentucky House candidate is unapologetic over racist Obama posts
Dan Johnson, who is running for Kentucky's State House, is not apologizing for Facebook posts he made about President Obama that many are calling racist.
Dan Johnson, who is running against the incumbent Democrat in the 49th district for Kentucky’s State House, is not apologizing for Facebook posts he made about President Barack Obama that many are calling blatantly racist.
The images included a picture of a baby chimpanzee labeled as being Obama as well as images of ape-like features Photoshopped onto images of the president, but Johnson insisted in speaking with WDRB’s Lawrence Smith that the images weren’t racist.
“It wasn’t meant to be racist. I can tell you that. My history’s good there. I can see how people would be offended in that. I wasn’t trying to offend anybody, but, I think Facebook’s entertaining,” Johnson said.
He insisted that the posts were meant as satire, saying, “I looked this up. There has been no president that hasn’t had that scrutiny. Not one. I think it would be racist not to do the same for President Obama as we’ve done for every other president.”
He also defended his posts that included the Confederate flag: “That flag was for state rights. The reason it is under attack now is we’re being attacked as state rights and constitutionalists. We are being attacked.”
What’s more, he defended several anti-Muslim posts, saying, “My thing for Islam, if you want to be in America, be an American. The thing about all religions in America, they don’t oppose America or want to destroy America, or some way or another get us to take on another law, like Sharia law. I hate that.”
Asked if he was concerned that the racist posts might hurt his chances of winning, Johnson replied, “I want to be myself. I would rather be myself than be elected as state representative of the 49th.” However, he has since deleted many of the posts, saying he does not want voters to misunderstand him.
