by Alberta Parish
When I first read the story about Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson who agrees with Newt Gingrich’s statement about poor Black kids having no work ethic, and says that he would take all Black people back to the South and put them on the plantation so they would understand the ethic of work, I was taken aback. Right-wing conservative and Christian minister, Reverend Peterson is exactly the kind of man who should never hold any positions of power, not in government or religion. Does he not understand that Black leaders in time’s past have fought against human rights violations (institutionalized slavery)? The plantation represents a system in which Blacks had no legal rights, were the property of another man, and were viewed as less than a human being.
He reminds me of those churchmen who burned people at the stake for not having certain religious and moral views.
To me, Rev. Peterson is another religious nutjob. He reminds me of those churchmen who burned people at the stake for not having certain religious and moral views. Peterson’s entire worldview is between the pages of the Bible, which teaches racism and sexism. He believes in the master/slave relationship. After all, the Bible teaches that slaves ought to obey their masters in the flesh. Abolitionist and Union soldier Harriet Tubman, Minister Nat Turner, and many other Africans as well as White abolitionists fought to end human rights violations in the form of chattel slavery. But Peterson wants to return Blacks to the plantation…where many of his ancestors lived miserable lives working from sun up to sun down for zero wages. It is one thing to teach social justice and equality among all men, but it’s another to divide men and subjugate one group of people for the benefit of another. Institutionalized slavery in America was for the benefit of another.
Quite frankly, I think the motivation behind Rev. Peterson’s remarks was so that he could garner a little attention for himself, because now people are interested in knowing who Mr. Jesse Lee Peterson is. People who’ve never heard of Mr. Peterson is now visiting his websites and listening to his weekly radio broadcast. The negative attention following Peterson’s controversial statements is also building up his church membership. Therefore, more money is being generated.
Reverend Peterson represents the latest brainwashed Christian in a long list of brainwashed Christians who believe that it is normal to be a slave, because his holy books condone slavery.
Even though we live in a free society called the United States of America, you’re only as free as the money you have in your checking account. If you don’t have a lot of money, you don’t have a lot of freedom. Therefore, poor Blacks don’t have to return to the South and work on a physical plantation. Poor Blacks already live and work on the state plantation where there is less opportunity for poor Black children who live in neighborhoods where there are more non-Black-owned businesses than Black-owned businesses, and where there are more under-performing public school systems in which poor children are forced to endure. The state plantation that poor people live and work on often does not produce millionaires and billionaires, but instead it produces government slaves who, in turn, produces religious slaves like Good Ol’ Reverend Peterson. The government slave often copes with his mundane existence through religion.
...for hundreds of years it has taught the Black community to depend on an imaginary friend who sits among the clouds-
Reality dictates that the Black church has a role to play in the downfall of the Black community, because for hundreds of years it has taught the Black community to depend on an imaginary friend who sits among the clouds, and wait for his blessings. To any oppressed population, the hope of blessings in the form of finances sound like good news. However, the Black community has been bamboozled for years by these pimps in the pulpit that teach false hope and imaginary blessings, and not self-reliance and financial freedom. It’s not that Black people don’t understand the ethic of work, we just don’t understand the lack of a decent and fair wage for our honest day’s labor. After a certain amount of years spent working a job, you expect a shot at the American Dream. After all, they told us if you work hard enough, you can achieve anything. Now, Black people are realizing that was bullshit.
In the face of Americans losing pensions and other retirement benefits due to an ailing economy, people are realizing the American Dream is not so easily obtainable anymore. People are tired and fed up with their mundane routines: all work, no play, no pay increase for two or three years. I think poor Blacks are the hardest working people in America. Most are working up to 60 hours a week just to make ends meet. Of course Rev. Peterson lacks enough intelligence to realize that poor Blacks are not his problem. Religion is his problem and everybody else’s.
bullet columnist Alberta Parish is best known as a take-no-prisoners Youtube commentator, you can also follow her writings on Myspace and Twitter.
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