Jesse Lee Peterson, an African-American pastor and conservative activist whose hallmark is claiming that racism does not exist, has recently been making the rounds on the alt-right media circuit. Earlier this week, that tour included a stop at a white nationalist podcast called “The Daily Shoah,” whose name is an anti-Semitic reference to the Holocaust.
Peterson said he had an intern that was familiar with the white nationalist alt-right movement and that he took to scheduling interviews on alt-right programs because “he believed that we can help one another, I guess.” Peterson went on to explain his long-held belief that there is “no such thing as racism,” and that the “myth” of racism was created by people to “divide and conquer.”
In the past year or so, Peterson has been openly promoting white nationalists, using his own platform to feature alt-right activists such as Richard Spencer, Johnny Benitez, Christopher Cantwell and Jared Taylor. In 2016, after Hillary Clinton gave a speech calling out Donald Trump for energizing white nationalists, Peterson wrote a column for Breitbart that urged conservatives to join forces with the alt-right.
Peterson often refers to Trump as “The Great White Hope”:
The Great White Hope (@realDonaldTrump) hit a GRAND SLAM last night!!! #SOTU #MAGA ??????⚾️?️♂
— Jesse Lee Peterson (@JLPtalk) January 31, 2018
But Peterson’s growing relationship with the alt-right—not to mention his long history of misogyny— hasn’t prevented him from spreading his message on right-wing media and at conservative events. Peterson has appeared on Fox News many times, and as recently as July. In August, he was interviewed for the Daily Caller by Ginni Thomas, a conservative columnist and the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. In November, he appeared alongside former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon at a conference in Washington. Fox News host Sean Hannity has served on the board of Peterson’s organization.
In an interview uploaded Monday, Mike “Enoch” Peinovich introduced Peterson to “The Daily Shoah” audience and said Peterson had “been wanting to do an interview with us” for a while.
“This attack on white men, especially white, conservative, straight men with power, has been evil and it’s wrong because white people really have nothing to do with the destruction of black Americans,” Peterson said, instead blaming racial divides on black fathers who have abandoned their families.
“If white people don’t stand up and fight these people back with the truth, it’s only going to get worse,” Peterson said, although he warned that if alt-right figures like Richard Spencer keep openly advocating for “white power, they’re going to end up in the same ditch that black people ended up in pushing black power.”
Peinovich said he agreed with Peterson that white people are “under attack” but believed that there’s nothing wrong “with being for your race and wanting to have a space for your race to develop and be fruitful unto itself.”
“You’re right, there is nothing wrong with an individual or a group of people who want to be together. You have a right to do that and no one has a right to judge you for wanting to be with whomever you want to be with,” Peterson said.
Throughout the rest of the interview, Peterson advised Peinovich and other white nationalists who are “finally standing up” to advance their cause through a loving message instead of a hateful one.
