Unfortunately for Black America, Umar Johnson has reappeared. Yep, despite innumerable promises that his “public career” was over, Umar Johnson is back. If nothing else, Johnson should be applauded for his uncanny knack to break every promise or commitment that he makes to anyone willing to listen to mounds and mounds of his foolishness. In every way, Umar Johnson is nothing more than the latest in a long line of self-proclaimed “Race men” whose antics have retarded the progress of Black America.

Prior exposure to Umar Johnson’s foolishness makes his most recent video essays regarding the tragic death of former Los Angeles Laker superstar Kobe Bryant inevitable.

In response to Bryant’s death, Johnson issued a wild conjecture filled conspiratorial tale whose most tangible support was of a helicopter crash of the incident. The only problem with this crucial piece of evidence was that the footage was not of the crash that led to the death of Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and others. Johnson’s total ignorance regarding this being the incorrect video is in a word, revealing. In fact, it is predictable as none of what can be termed his signature conspiracy theories are evidence-based. His followers are apparently not bothered by a small thing such as evidence.

Make no mistake about it, Umar Johnson’s antics have done a grave disservice to the downtrodden Blacks who follow him. You know the type of people that I am referring to, those whose daily experiences inform their intuition that the deck of life is somehow stacked against them. Devoid of the means of articulating their angst, they turn to the Umar Johnson’s of the world to articulate the voluminous pain that shadows them daily. History will remember many of Umar Johnson’s followers as well-meaning lambs who were victimized by greedy conmen who simultaneously filled their pockets while building towers of self-importance that benefited their followers in no appreciable manner.

Umar Johnson’s roving sideshow serves as the antithesis of Malcolm X’s charge to Black leaders to “Tell the truth.” Instead of truth, Umar Johnson intentionally makes up theories and stories based on nothing other than the fanciful, flighty, and frightening notions of his mind. In many ways, it appears that Umar is actually sharing with the world an internal dialogue that would be best shared on the sofa of some credentialed psychiatrist. Yet, there are those in Black America who are so desperate to make sense of this world that seemingly rests on deplorable principles such as denigrating Blackness at every turn that they not only listen to the conspiratorial stylings of Umar Johnson but allow such foolishness to significantly alter their world. If they are not careful, they will accept Johnson’s implicit argument that blackness dooms them to be oppressed their entire lives.

When one really thinks about it, Umar Johnson’s standard shtick that conveniently attributes tragedies ranging from Kobe Bryant’s death to his own failed endeavors to a yet to be identified conspiracy from “White folk” fashions Whites as Gods capable of destroying the plans of mere Black mortals. I am sure that I do not need to tell you that this reliance on conspiracy theories must be abandoned immediately and replaced with Marcus Garvey’s mantra of “Up, you mighty Race, achieve what you will.”

It is the only reasonable path forward, and that is no conspiracy.

Dr. James Thomas Jones III

© Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2020.