Jesse Jackson Sr. has a message for A&E’s suspended “Ducky Dynasty” star Phil Robertson: you’re worse than Rosa Parks’ bus driver.
“At least the bus driver, who ordered Rosa Parks to surrender her seat to a white person, was following state law,” Mr. Jackson said in a release by the the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. “Robertson’s statements were uttered freely and openly without cover of the law, within a context of what he seemed to believe was ’white privilege.’”
Mr. Jackson’s organization now wants meetings with A&E and Cracker Barrel regarding the two companies’ treatment of Robertson, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The media firestorm over the A&E star’s comments began with an interview with GQ Magazine, in which he recounted growing up in the Jim Crow era and shared his biblical beliefs on gay sex.
“But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical,” he told the magazine. “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men. […] Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”
Mr. Robertson went on to say that he never saw mistreatment of black individuals as he was growing up. “Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash,” he said.
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The Rainbow PUSH Coalition condemned the remarks as “unacceptable,” and went on to say that the Duck Dynasty star should not have “such a large platform would benefit from racist and anti-gay comments.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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