Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson’s Black Unemployment Solution: ‘Put Them All on the Plantation’

The Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, Fox News darling and ultra-conservative black tea party member, said he agrees “100 percent” with GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s assertion that black children should work as janitors at school to build a “work ethic.”

Peterson took Newt’s idea a step further by proclaiming that he would “take all black people back to the South and put them on the plantation so they would understand the ethic of working.”

The reverend made the remarks when he was asked by the Huffington Post to comment on the Jan. 16 Republican presidential debate in which Gingrich was asked whether his statements about a lack of work ethic among poor black kids could be considered insulting.

Peterson, who has received widespread media attention for his outrageous off-the-cuff remarks about American race relations, added, “I’m going to put them all on the plantation. They need a good hard education on what it is to work.”

Those remarks are consistent with Peterson’s view of slavery as the will of God. In a past radio interview Peterson said, “God has a way of looking out for folks, and he made it possible, by way of slavery, to get black folks into this country.”

Peterson is the founder of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND). He believes black people should be grateful for slavery.

“The white man came and brought us to the greatest country in the world. The ride over was pretty tough. But you know, it’s like riding on a crowded airplane when you’re not in first class. It’s a tough ride [laughs] but you’re happy when you get to your destination. To the white man for going and getting us and bringing us here, I want to say, ‘thanks.’ ”

To hear any American so callously dismiss the horrors suffered by our ancestors is mind-boggling, but for the words to come from a descendant of those stolen Africans is beyond belief.

I have yet to hear or read any comment from Peterson about what America might owe black people for more than 200 years of free labor. I suppose he thinks those billions in economic benefits reaped by whites on the backs of enslaved Africans was payment owed for the “cruise” over here. –kathleen cross