House Speaker Mike Johnson Responds to New Round of Scrutiny About Black Son - eviltoast
The Louisiana representative cited privacy as to why there are no pictures of his “adopted” child in public family photos.

Mike Johnson’s meteoric elevation from an under-the-radar congressman from Louisiana to second-in-line to the U.S. presidency sent journalists, Democrats and Republicans alike to uncover information about the personal and professional history of the most right-wing and least experienced House Speaker in history, who took the top job on Wednesday.

On the day Johnson was voted in, several major right-wing social media accounts on X, formerly known as Twitter, began circulating clips of an interview Johnson gave to PBS in 2020, in which he told journalist Walter Isaacson that the police killing of George Floyd was “an act of murder” and called for “systemic change.” Notably, Johnson said in the interview that he had learned about racism in America through the experience of raising a Black son, Michael.

  • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
    223·
    1 year ago

    Okay.
    but.
    There’s zero photos online at all. No mention on the campaign, either. his campaign “about” section says “Father of four”. that decision is said to have happened after his~~ speakership election~~ election to congress. There is a complete vacuum of photos online when you do an image search. plenty of family photos with four kids, but none with a fifth, older, black kid.

    if this son exists, then he was scrubbed out of existence… which is weird. I’m actually not sure which is worse. (I mean, at least acknowledge him somehow, right?)

    (edit, fixed timing. Either way, he would have had a black son during at least one campaign,)

    • HuddaBudda@kbin.social
      192·
      1 year ago

      If I was a republican with an African American son, I would world tour with him. At least get SOME photos of me with him.

      At least seen proud with him.

      But there is nothing.

      Day told Newsweek that the Johnson family did not formally adopt Michael because of the “lengthy … process,” and declined to say whether Michael used the same surname as the family.

      So… he wasn’t their son, he was their project.

      Johnson said that he had asked his son about the idea of reparations for slavery, and that his son said he opposed it.

      Convenient. That a 14 year old is making the decisions for an entire demographic.

      Sounds like at best, he was supposed to be a stand for the African American voters for Mike Johnson. He realized his role early on and broke away from them, or the Johnsons decided to whitewash their history in order to secure the white supremacy vote.

      Either way, it sounds like an unloving household if you cannot even get 1 picture with him.

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
        72·
        1 year ago

        It’s entirely possible for all of that to be accurate and still be a loving household. Families are weird, and love is love. There are plenty of real, tangible, known reasons to oppose Mike Johnson politically and morally, and we don’t need to be casting aspersions on adoptive parents without any evidence.

    • meco03211@lemmy.world
      8·
      1 year ago

      I definitely don’t know the whole story. I’d love to know the truth provided it didn’t invade on the privacy of someone that didn’t ask for any of this. Which would be impossible to know without invading the privacy of someone. I know time and time again I’ve been fooled when trying to give conservatives even the slightest benefit of the doubt.

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
        103·
        1 year ago

        Which would be impossible to know without invading the privacy of someone.

        not that hard, really. I mean, yeah. I guess it could be an invasion… but, like a quick wave to the cameras make sense, because people are absolutely going to go nuts over it. I absolutely feel for the supposed son who absolutely deserves his privacy.

        The only reason i could see the guy absolutely refusing to bail his dad out and just announce that he exists or maybe drop some old family photos with the son in it… is trauma. like. I’m not sure which is worse here- making up a token black son, or, that son deciding they were so awful to him that it was necessary to cut them out of his life.

        • Countess425@lemmy.world
          111·
          1 year ago

          The only reason here, is BS. The kid is real, he’s a grown-ass adult with children of his own that he wants to keep away from the general public. This is conservative propaganda to make you think Johnson’s statements on racial injustice (which lean toward "my white kids get opportunities and have an easier life that my black kid doesn’t) are bunk. Which they’re not, just because the guy doesn’t want to do photo ops and give press releases doesn’t mean he’s fake. Johnson was first elected to Congress less than 10 years ago. His son made a decision not to be a pawn for his adopted father’s political career to avoid the public, not his father; and the public are generally terrible, which makes it an appropriate and rational decision.

          • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
            161·
            1 year ago

            Which they’re not, just because the guy doesn’t want to do photo ops and give press releases doesn’t mean he’s fake. Johnson was first elected to Congress less than 10 years ago. His son made a decision not to be a pawn for his adopted father’s political career to avoid the public, not his father; and the public are generally terrible, which makes it an appropriate and rational decision.

            1. explain this screen grab from his own campaign website:

            2. Recognizing the son wants no part of his political career doesn’t mean disavowing said son, does it? Why on earth would would they say ‘father of four’ instead of ‘father of five’?

            Wikipedia also lists his family as being 4 children. every source I can say he has four children. I can see no photos on any variation of websearch I can find of Johnson with a some one both identified as his son, who is black. none. Maybe, some how, magically, nobody ever looked into that or posted pictures on line… ever… or maybe it was scrubbed.

            I don’t know. What I do know is scrubbing yourself out like that is only going to raise questions. because as you say, the public is… well terrible.

            (edit:) There seems to be some prior interiviews where Michael is mentioned. In that article they talk- too briefly to be clear about it- an interview with Ms Day (I can’t tell if she’s the one asking the questions or being asked?) from the article-

            In his public remarks over the years, Mr. Johnson describes Michael as his son and did not correct an interviewer who described Michael as “adopted.” Ms. Day said in an interview that the Johnsons did not formally adopt Michael because of the “lengthy adoption process.” Ms. Day declined to say whether Michael was using “Johnson” as his surname.

            Mr. Johnson has spoken publicly about Michael largely when he has talked about race. He has described Michael as a “success story” and likened the experience of being a white couple adopting a Black teenager to the movie “The Blind Side,” the 2009 film that depicts a wealthy white family taking in an impoverished Black teenager who becomes a football star.
            (end edit)

            further, here’s the 2020 PBS article he talks about him. Relevant quotes:

            Yes, sure. We took Michael in almost 20 years ago. He was 14. I often — the easiest way to summarize the story is, I ask friends, have you seen the story “The Blind Side”? That was our story, except my Michael was not an NFL prospect, a similar story to that. And we took him in as our own. And Michael is now doing great. This is 20 years later. He’s in his mid-30s. He lives in California, four children of his own. He and Adonza (ph), they have a great family life. And he says to people, he shares his testimony that, were it not for our intervention in his life, that he would certainly have joined a gang, gotten on drugs, wound up in prison, or dead on the street somewhere. And that’s the harsh reality that we have here. What it’s taught me is, we now have four other children of our own. And my oldest son, Jack, ironically, this year is 14. And I have thought often through all these ordeals over the last couple of weeks about the difference in experiences between my two 14-year-old sons, Michael, being a black American, and Jack being white, Caucasian. They have different challenges. My son Jack has an easier path. He just does. The interesting thing about both these kids, Michael and Jack, is they’re both handsome, articulate, really talented kids gifted by God to do lots of things. But the reality is — and no one can tell me otherwise — my son Michael had a harder time than my son Jack is going to have simply because of the color of his skin. And that’s a reality. It’s an uncomfortable, painful one to acknowledge, but people have to recognize that’s a fact.

            Any one you know whose actually adopted people? They do not make the kind of distinction he makes here. “My oldest son Jack …” So; I say, either the guy doesn’t exist, or something happened that caused the guy to not want to be part of Johnson’s family.

            It is interesting that a guy who supposedly learned about racism second hand, by raising a black child… is so deeply part of the anti-civil-rights crowd… is a bit shocking. And his issue with reparations is that “they have a culture of self reliance”?!

            something smells off here. that’s all I’m saying, really.

            • Countess425@lemmy.world
              11·
              1 year ago

              I can’t speak to what happened during his upbringing, but if the man I saw as my father, who took me in as a teenager, decided to enter into politics, conservative politics no less, I’d tell him to visit for Christmas but leave me out of the politics. I’d want to go to the grocery and raise my family without being harassed by reporters and crazy random idiots, especially if he was a minor local politician in the community where I lived, but even moreso if national office were ever a possibility. The best way to achieve that would be to not let the general public even know about him, but he can still be in the family text chat and bring the grandkids by to see the rest of the family in person and in private.

              The guy just wants Internet detectives like you to leave him and his family alone. Doing a good job of that doesn’t mean anything should smell off.