Jesse Lee Peterson | |
|---|---|
| Groupaffiliations | Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND) |
| Published By | OPP HQ |
| Published On | 13 March 2004 |
One day conservatives are going to regret the pathetic patronization they are repeatedly guilty of. That because some black people are recognizing the fact that as long as they say they are Republican or conservative, white conservatives will bend over backwards to accommodate them--and some progressive black man or woman will take mad advantage of it. It will not matter if they scream "Free Mumia" from the White House steps. George Bush will stand right next to them touting them as the new black leadership--probably joining in on a few chants of "No Justice No Peace, No Punk-ass Police!"
We say this not because that is happening (although Project 21's Reginald Jones on Young America's Foundation's speaking circuit extolling the virtues of the Nation of Islam is damned close), but because we notice how much a black person goes unchallenged regardless of how baseless or downright dumb their argument is, so long as they accept that mark of the conservative beast. This entry is for the latest example of that, Jesse Lee Peterson.
In January of 2001, Peterson was making one of his numerous appearances on Sean Hannity's radio show to promote a demonstration in Los Angeles against Peterson's favorite target Jesse Jackson. On the program he decided to make the declaration that "Most black people are wicked," a over-generalizing remark that Hannity tried to get him to temper, but Peterson insisted. Don't even think he would have tried to clarify it either. An earlier appearance where he again went on a Jesse Jackson rant, this time during a debate with noted columnist Julianne Malveaux, had him repeating the usual cliche of how Jackson is misleading black people and how he is an evil man-as examples of why is evil and how he is misleading black people. After a few personal insults from Peterson, Malveaux dismissed him as pathetic. She was on target.
Peterson is the president of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND), whose website says it is
"To Help Men and their Families, Particularly in Major Urban Areas find Spiritual and Personal Freedom through our Personal Development Programs and Community Outreach and Renewal Efforts."
Look into the group a bit more and one discovers it is yet another black conservative group that whines a lot about how other blacks don't like them. Look even further and one discovers it is Jesse Lee Peterson whining a lot about how other blacks don't like him, and oh yes, buy his book, which he touts everywhere he goes. He says he found God around the time he turned 35 and eventually became a minister. He began to make appearances on television shows on the theme of rebuilding the family by rebuilding the man, but his approach to that was questionable from the beginning.
One of his earlier stunts was to defend the book The Black Man's Guide to Understanding the Black Woman. It was a self-published Afrocentric book that caused more than its share of controversy among African Americans because the author, herself a black woman, suggested that every now and than it is acceptable for a black man to hit the woman he is romantically involved with if he feels she is out of line. Peterson defended this on the basis that it helps black men to reclaim their place as the head of the family. It went increasingly downhill from there.
He began to do the rounds among conservatives painting himself as a counterpart to African American groups that are respected among African Americans. He has staged boycotts against the NAACP, which has never taken hold, and once admonished South Carolina Senate for removing the Confederate flag from top of their Statehouse. Why was he against this? Because, as his press release states,
"There is no end to the demands of the NAACP and people like them."
Apparently it is no concern of Jesse Lee that the flag was put up there in protest of the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, the act that allows him to even speak out on the issues that he does.
Jesse Lee also had a problem with the Nation of Islam's Million Family March in October 2000, calling America not to accept its leader Louis Farrakhan and "rebuke him without hesitation." This message went unheeded by some conservatives however. Robert Novak is a supporter of NOI, and fellow black conservative Armstrong Williams, himself a critic of the earlier Million Man March, was a participant in the MFM.
Peterson makes his way to Washington himself every now and then. He has appeared at an event on Halloween 1998 sponsored by Freak Republic to call for the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Again here he chose to take a generalized swipe at African Americans, calling them amoral, and this was to the cheers of a predominately white crowd many of which have been on the Freak Republic website posting racist and anti-Semitic comments on their discussion board. He was there again during Dummya's inauguration declaring most blacks are for the new "President." That declaration is a bit curious given his earlier statements of blacks being amoral and wicked, but we are not dealing with a man with all his marbles here.
Apparently while he likes to go after blacks, and particularly Jesse Jackson as being racist and wicked, whites on the other hand get a free pass. Take the example of irony at his latest rally against Jesse Jackson. Among the speakers at this event was Glenn Spencer of Voices of Citizens together, a so-called anti-immigration group that is actually an anti-Hispanic organization that has engaged in a number of battles against the Mexican community in the country, a few of them physical.
Spencer has been in the company of a number of white supremacists, speaking at Council of Conservative Citizens affairs and hobnobbing with folks like Tom Chittum. Maybe Jesse Lee could explain this association. This event was so pathetic, Ward Connerly, the black California Board of Regents member fighting affirmative action at universities there, specifically stayed away from it when he was invited.
This was not the first time that Peterson associated with white racists. At an anti-immigration rally a few years prior, he was joined by Canadian holocaust-denier Paul Fromm as well as his boy Spencer. The guy gets sillier and sillier!
Peterson continues to talk trash about every black person that he views as immoral and wicked, and why should he stop? It is his bread and butter. Not a lot of it recently, though. After September 11, a statement came up on his website begging for money because their donations went down 50%. Considering that conservatives are starting to look at this guy as someone too silly to deal with, we submit that his dwindling funds have nothing to do with a terrorist attack. It just might be the fact that while everyone else was in mourning, Jesse Lee was worried more about his donations. There is another ace in the hole for him however.
On December 10, 2001, after he tried disrupting a speech by Jesse Jackson at Los Angeles Trade Bureau Forum Meeting held at the L.A. Chamber of Commerce, he was soundly booed and asked to leave. Once through the Jesse Lee spin machine, somehow Jesse Jackson's son was accused of assaulting him. Peterson says he now fears for his life. We suggest that he is not that important, but this helped him win favor with some deep-pocketed conservatives out there, even if in the end nothing came out of it.
Ah, what a racket being a black conservative must be.