Jesse
Lee Peterson is hardly part of the silent majority.
Because
nothing about him silent.
The
radio, TV and book voice roars with points that turn on some, turn off others
in America.
“Racism
is an illusion,” says Peterson. “It doesn’t exploit people. The anger
that black people have starts in the home, not from white people. Racism isn’t
holding black people back. The problem is that black leaders keep them in a
state of anger.”
He
tries to take that leadership from his conservative side:
·
As
a frequent guest on Sean Hannity’s hit Fox News Channel show.
·
With
“The Jesse Lee Peterson Radio Show” that airs throughout the South and online.
·
Through
his Los Angeles-based, family-advice organization, BOND, or the Brotherhood
Organization of a New Destiny.
·
As
an ordained minister who makes his case on the speaking circuit.
·
Via
three books, the latest of which is “The Antidote: Healing America From the
Poison of Hate, Blame and Victimhood.”
Peterson, loud and clear in his weekly
WorldNetDaily column, is just as outspoken on the pages of “The Antodote”:
·
“Blacks
in the United States are the freest and wealthiest group of blacks anywhere. If
black America were a country, it would be the 16th wealthiest nation in the
world.
· “As
many as half a million black babies are killed in the womb each year — roughly
three times the rate of white babies. . . . Some black lives apparently don’t
matter at all.”
·
“For
political reasons, black leaders supported these other minorities (Hispanics,
Muslims), even if it meant selling out black citizens to do so. This has never
been more obvious than in the support of black political leaders for illegal
immigration. . . . They look at people sneaking into the country, illegally
taking jobs that poor blacks and whites might have otherwise had, and see only
future Democratic votes.”
Andrew
Klavan, a crime novelist out of Southern California who has covered Peterson,
lauds the reverend: “Jesse talks directly out of his life, out of his own
struggles with anger, his own search for forgiveness, and out of his Bible
reading - and with no regard whatsoever for the current racial narrative. Where
we've all been so brainwashed into thinking of a black man's struggles as
intimately connected to his blackness, Jesse refuses to do down that rabbit
hole. He's a man. His experience is a man's experience. His wisdom is a man's
wisdom. His answers are human answers. In this race-corrupted day and age, that
makes everything he says riveting and original.
“The
guy is unbelievably authentic. It's not that he's politically incorrect. It's
that the category of political correctness doesn't seem to exist in his mind.
As far as I can tell, he does not give Damn One about what he's supposed to
think or say. He says what he means, what he knows. The minute he starts
talking, his absolute fearlessness is the first the thing you notice about him.
It's a God Thing, I think. He's got the Bible to back him up. You don't like
it, file your complaints with the Lord and good luck.”
Alabama Rise
Peterson started out 66 years ago on a
plantation near Eufaula, Ala., with his grandmother and cousins. Their tiny
house had no bath, shower or running water.
Making it tougher was an absent father. Then
his mother and new husband moved with their children and left Jesse with
Grandma.
Jesse’s father barely came by. Filling that
void was Grandpa.
“Sometimes during the school year I would
stay home to help with the plowing and the planting, the picking of cotton and
the harvesting of crops,” Peterson wrote. “Now, if that is not an ‘authentic’
black experience, I am not sure I know what is.”
Peterson
found his way to California and found a job transcribing on computers at the
Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, but wanted more.
He
searched for a business he could start without much money and found one: a
janitor service. He dived into double duty, working morning to afternoon
inputting at the hospital, then till midnight cleaning buildings.
In
seven years, his company grew to seven full-time employees.
By
1990, he heard another calling. He sold the janitor service and had enough
money to start BOND. “I was called by God to do this,” he says.
To
strike out on his own, he had a hurdle to leap: fear.
“Because
I was not raised by a father, I didn’t have a good example of how to start a
business,” he said. “I also had to overcome anger. The offspring of anger is
fear. When God took my anger away, He took my fear away. Now I was not afraid
of giving it a good try. I didn’t have fear to hold me back.”
Having
been ordained a minister by the state, Peterson started bolstering the group
that today counsels 160 people at any one time, with a staff of 10 and an
annual budget of $500,000, much of which comes from donations, plus his
speaking fees and books.
The Peterson Principle
“I’m
proud of the fact that I’ve never gotten one dime from the government,” he
said. “I’ve worked hard.”
Especially
with books. Before “The Antidote” came “From Rage to Responsibility” in 2000
and “Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America” in 2003. He was
building a brand — black conservative with strong opinions that, he says,
“opened so many possibilities.”
All
the while, he gained traction on the TV shows of Geraldo Rivera and Phil
Donahue, plus radio interviews and a newsletter — while keeping his BOND focus
on “rebuild the family by building the man. It’s all about getting people to
overcome anger, blame and victimhood. We teach people to judge based on
character rather than color. We encourage men and women to get married, stay
together and raise families. We teach people to be independent thinkers and to
be self-sufficient so they’re not relying on the government for jobs or
handouts. For those interested in starting a business, we provide resources and
mentors to help them get started.”
As for Peterson’s own life, he’s never been married. He
has a son from a relationship decades ago and now has several grandchildren.
That son, the name of which Peterson wants private for
security reasons, is in his early 40s and lives in New York. Jesse relates how the young man
gave him a joyous gift one day with a phone call: “He had overcome the anger in
his life. I felt like the man wandering in the desert who finally found a
spring. . . . I’m blessed that God returned my son to me.”
Hence
Peterson’s advice to kids at BOND:
“Overcome your anger from that feeling of
lack of love. I show them that they have to forgive and do well in school. If
they do that and network, they can make it.”
That
networking helped Peterson make a national imprint. He met Hannity’s sister
years before running into the TV and radio star. That led to a friendship with
Hannity that regularly lands Peterson on the conservative personality’s Fox
program.
One
reason opinionated shows want Peterson is his refusal to pull punches. He
swings hard amid an America boiling with Ferguson, Baltimore and Chicago:
·
“White Americans have to overcome their fear
of being called racist.”
·
“We have to arrest and punish the criminals.”
·
“People have to get back on their feet alone.
Quite spoiling them. We need tough love.”
In His Corner
Cheers come from fellow conservative radio
voice Dennis Prager: “There are many admirable traits that a good person may
possess — honesty, integrity, compassion, among others — but there is one trait
that very few people have. That trait is courage. . . . Jesse is fearless. Or
to be more accurate, he does not allow fear to govern his behavior or speech. I
have no idea whether or not he has fears. I only know that fear plays no role
in his work. He answers to God and his conscience.”
Klavan
is another journalist glad to have met Peterson: “As best I can remember, I was
waiting to give a sales talk at Thomas Nelson publishers, and picked Jesse's
first memoir off a shelf and paged through it. I was caught. I took the book
home and read it and thought: I gotta talk to this guy. I wound up doing a profile
on him for City Journal, and if you read it, you can almost hear me spluttering
with awe at the guy's honesty. Since then, I've become a supporter and I hope
he considers me a friend.”
Bucky Fox is an author and editor in Southern California.
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