Jackson continues Wall Street waltz: critics claim the reverend's annual shakedown of corporate America does little more than line the pockets of select cronies and his "nonprofit" empire

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Jan 28, 2002 | by Kenneth R. Timmerman

Contributing to the appearance that Jackson saw himself as "gatekeeper" was Toyota's announcement at the meeting that it was appointing Rainbow/PUSH member J.L. Armstrong to head supplier development for Toyota Motor Sales, essentially making him the point man between minority-business beneficiaries and the Japanese automaker.

Jackson drifted in and out of tune during his remarks, accusing the Bush administration of "economic terrorism" and dark designs against its political opponents. "I have been on the `red-squad list' by [Attorney General John] Ashcroft and others; they're after us," Jackson warned. "They're using [Osama] bin Laden as an excuse to come after us. We [the U.S.] gave bin Laden $60 million. If we're going to fight terrorists, we must also fight the Klan."

In closing his pitch to the black businessmen whom he was asking to pay to play, Jackson argued that minorities couldn't make it in America on talent alone. He urged them to join his Trade Bureau or risk missing out on hundreds of millions of corporate contracts.

Then Peterson, who is a talk-show host, author and founder of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND), stood up. "As the president of a nonprofit conservative organization, BOND, I'm concerned that our young people will be locked out of any training programs offered by Toyota because of our conservative beliefs. How are you going to make sure that organizations like ours are not discriminated against by Rainbow/PUSH and its members?" he asked Toyota's Miller.

The crowd started jeering, Peterson and an aide who attended the meeting recall, shouting at him to sit down and keep quiet. "Judge Greg Mathis, host of the TV show Judge Mathis, barked out: "You must be watching too much Bill O'Reilly" Peterson says. "To put it simply, all hell broke loose."

Then Jackson got into the fray. "He called me and other black conservatives parasites who show up after someone else shakes the fruit off the trees,'" Peterson says. Eventually, Jackson turned to his son, Jonathan Jackson, and shouted: "Get his ass out of here!" Peterson says.

Later the burly, younger Jackson spotted Peterson returning to the room to hand literature on his organization to Miller "Jonathan made a beeline for us from the other side of the room," says Peterson's aide, "slamming into Rev. Peterson with a forearm shiv[er]" and nearly, knocking him to the ground.

Says Peterson: "This meeting was a confirmation of everything I already knew about Jesse Jackson. Jackson showed himself to be an intolerant race-baiter, a rhetorical assassin, an anti-American and a degrading and despicable demagogue. Jesse Jackson constantly talks about the strong presence of the Ku Klux Klan in modern society. Last Monday, I saw the real Klan of today. Instead of drawling white Southerners in white robes, the Klan are now black thugs dressed in suits. Both intolerant, both hatemongers, and both committed to keeping black America down."

Peterson and other Jackson opponents plan to hold a counterdemonstration during the public commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday on Jan. 21 outside the Rainbow/PUSH headquarters in Los Angeles. They call it their "Third Annual National Day of Repudiation of Jesse Jackson."