Posted on 08/07/2002 10:35:43 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
The leader of a black organization most noted for its opposition to the Rev. Jesse Jackson says he was "booed and jeered" at an annual career fair in Wisconsin where he was asked to be a debate panelist.
The Rev. Jesse Peterson, founder and head of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, or BOND, said Tuesday that he was invited last week to the National Association of Black Journalists' 27th Annual Convention & Career Fair, to participate in a debate on reparations for blacks.
According to the group, Peterson was asked by NABJ president Condace Pressley to participate in a debate with Michael E. Dyson, Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities from the University of Pennsylvania. The Aug. 2 event was entitled, "The Case For/Against Reparations for African Americans."
"The debate was poorly organized and unfairly administered from the start," Peterson said. "[Dyson] was thirty minutes late and was still allowed to make both the opening and closing remarks."
Peterson said Dyson blamed Caucasians "for the high incarceration rate of black males" as well as "a host of other problems in the black community." Upon making his remarks, Dyson "received a thunderous applause from the 250 to 300 black so-called 'journalists' in the room," said the leader of BOND, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit group that seeks to provide religious guidance to help men better provide and care for their families.
"I opened my remarks by stating that black Americans don't need reparations," said Peterson. "What they need are two-parent households with good fathers leading them."
He said he also told the crowd blacks "should get educated" but that wouldn't "repair the moral and physical damage that has taken place" within the black community.
Peterson said the crowd "immediately" began to erupt "with boos and laughter."
During a follow-up question-and-answer period, Peterson said Dyson, a leader of the black journalists association, and audience members "called me ignorant and accused me of being 'the white man's boy.'"
The event "validated my long-held suspicions that even the most educated blacks hate whites with a passion," he said. "You would think that these 'professionals' would be satisfied with their progress," but instead "in their blind anger they can only think about an undeserved big payback."
Attempts were made to reach NABJ and Dyson through the university's press office, but calls and e-mails seeking comment were not returned.
The NABJ is headquartered at the University of Maryland. Its website is sponsored by a grant from McClatchy Newspapers.
The conference was held July 31-Aug. 4.
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