What if I told you that a right-wing radio host openly declared that “white power” was the only thing that keeps this country going? You’d probably wonder how he was still on the air. Well, what if I told you that host was a member of one of the most exclusive clubs in this country? Specifically, a black conservative who has bowed down to Donald Trump.
It’s been amply established that the standards to get into this club aren’t all that high. After all, consider some of its members. There’s Mark Burns, the South Carolina pastor who declared Democrats were the enemy during his benediction at the Republican National Convention, and tweeted a picture of Hillary Clinton in blackface. And there’s former reality TV star Omarosa, who declared during the campaign that the country would have to bow down to Trump if he won. After Trump’s upset victory, Omarosa became a public engagement adviser to Trump, and used that role to warn a reporter that the White House had dossiers on its critics.
But black conservative pastor Jesse Lee Peterson may have outdone them all on the Wednesday edition of his radio show. During the show’s third hour, he openly declared that whites were the only ones who keep this country going. People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch got a clip.
Roughly seven minutes into the show’s third hour, Peterson and his producer, James Hake, engaged in what started out as a boilerplate case of a right-wing host offering fawning praise to Trump. Peterson said that while he had believed from the start that Trump was going to make America great again, even he was surprised by how “the light that’s within him” would “expose the darkness” in both this country and the world. Not entirely surprising, since Peterson considers Trump to be a shining example of how a real man should act.
He then praised Trump for shoving Montenegrin Prime Minister Dusko Markovic at last weekend’s NATO summit. Most of the world saw this as yet another example of boorish, bullying behavior from Trump. Not Peterson.
“He goes overseas, and as those weaklings try to get in front of him during a photo shoot, he pushed them out of the way. Obama would have stood behind in the back, and Trump went up and just grabbed the guy and pushed him out of the way. He got out in front.”
To Peterson’s mind, Trump was telling the world, “I’m the baddest man in town! A new sheriff is in town!” Hake was also pleased by it, and wanted to get the video.
But then Peterson crossed the line from mere alternative facting to something more sinister.
“White power! White power! I’m loving it. I love good. I love the light, I love it. And it doesn’t matter the color of the person that the light is coming from. I love it. I rejoice when I see men and women stand up with the love of God operating through them, overcoming evil.”
Wait a minute. In one breath, Peterson praises “white power,” then says that the color of your skin doesn’t matter if the light is shining through you?
Peterson then said that for much of Obama’s presidency, he believed that God had “given up on us” as a nation. He and Hake recalled how Hillary “sailed” through a Fox News interview in 2014. Both Peterson and Hake believed at the time that Hillary’s momentum was almost unstoppable. But Peterson claimed that one night while he was praying, God told him, “Be cool, Trump is coming. I will send my son and he will save you.”
Hake then recalled that there were a lot of white millennials, like himself, who were enamored with Trump and were “willing to fight” for him. Peterson agreed, saying that it was “beautiful” to see whites–especially young whites–“finally standing up” by suporting Trump. At that point, he really went off the deep end.
“It’s so refreshing, because if white people give up completely, it’s over for the country. It’s the whites who make things happen. Blacks and Mexicans don’t make things happen.”
Hake allowed that “very few” minorities actually do anything. Peterson agreed, allowing that “one or two” minorities at most actually make an impact. Nonetheless, the message was unmistakable–people of color really don’t do anything worth mentioning.
It turns out that this isn’t the first time Peterson has spewed something along these lines. A week after Trump took office, he dropped by Steve Malzberg’s show and claimed that only a white man like Trump could solve the rampant crime problem in areas like Chicago. Watch here.
Peterson said–with a straight face–that black men can’t “clean up their own neighborhoods” and “put their own families back together.” Only a white man can do it.
Granted, we’ve learned not to expect much from Peterson. This is a man who thinks blacks were better off before the civil rights movement, and also believes businesses should be able to discriminate with impunity. But with this latest screed, Peterson was blowing a dog whistle into a megaphone. If Malzberg, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or any other white right-winger were to say something like this, they’d be canceled before the next break.
You may recall that earlier in the spring, after I blasted Peterson for his outrageous defense of Bill O’Reilly, Hake invited me to call into Peterson’s show. But I threw that offer back at him after his boss claimed that people who divorce are “selfish” if they remarry while their kids are still living with them. As someone who fled a marriage to an emotionally abusive woman, I considered it insulting on a personal level. It amounted to victim shaming.
As far as Hake was concerned, that made me a coward.
You want to argue behind a screen. I'm not wasting time on a closed minded coward. Call jesse or go away.
— James Anton Hake (@JamesAntonHake) May 15, 2017
This is coming from a man whose boss engages in rhetoric that has no place in civilized discourse. Victim shaming, out-and-out racism, the lot. And said boss is only willing to respond in a forum that he controls. That says it all, from where I’m sitting.
(featured image courtesy Peterson’s Facebook)
