National Rifle Association board member Ted Nugent continued his ongoing racial tirade, appearing on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' radio show to claim that that African-Americans could fix “the black problem” if they just put their “heart and soul into being honest, law-abiding, [and] delivering excellence at every move in your life.”
Nugent has faced criticism over the past two days for a pair of columns he wrote for conservative websites WND and Rare that variously termed deceased Florida teenager Trayvon Martin as a “dope smoking, racist gangsta wannabe,” an “enraged black man-child” and a “Skittles hoodie boy.”
During his appearance on The Alex Jones Show, Nugent used the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Martin as a platform to offer advice to black America and make a number of unfounded claims about racism.
From the July 16 edition of The Alex Jones Show:
Nugent began his rant by suggesting, “There are black mobs across America that are guilty of the worst racism since the Klan,” and also adding, “The worst racism against blacks is documented and undeniable by blacks.” According to Nugent, “The blacks have bought into this lie that somehow they're oppressed when the President is black, the Attorney General is black, governors are black, senators are black, congressmen are black, mayors are black, Oprah Winfrey, the richest people in the world are black. It is a dirty lie.”
He continued that Americans should “beg our fellow Americans who are black to admit to this suicidal self-inflicted curse that you've bought into the big lie of Jesse Jackson and Eric Holder and Al Sharpton, that you're not helpless, you're not a slave, you're not worthless, you're not inept, you can do anything you want to do to if you just get out from the self-inflicted shackles that have been brought upon by the race baiters.”
Then, speaking of a “racist industry” that has convinced African-Americans they are “incapable of independency,” Nugent said that African-Americans could “fix the black problem tonight,” if they would put their “heart and soul into being honest, law-abiding, [and] delivering excellence at every move in your life.” According to Nugent, “I would like to reach out to black America and tell them to absolutely reject the lie of Al 'Not So' Sharpton, and Jesse Jackson, and the Black Panthers and Eric Holder and Barack Obama. They are enslaving you and the real shackles on black America, 100 percent of the time come from black America.”
Nugent concluded by claiming that, “racism against blacks was gone by the time I started touring the nation in the late [19]60s” and by the 1970s, “nothing of consequence existed to deter or compromise a black American's dream if they got an alarm clock, if they set it, if they took good care of themselves, they remained clean and sober, if they spoke clearly, and they demanded excellence of themselves and provided excellence to their employers.”
Nugent also used his appearance on Jones' show to further attack Martin, again calling the Florida teenager a “dope-smoking, gangsta wannabe, involved with illegal drugs, and illegal guns and illegal people” and while alleging that Martin was “emboldened by a Black Panther president” to attack Zimmerman.
Nugent frequently uses racially charged language in his role as a conservative commentator. In a February 10 column for WND, Nugent wrote that civil rights leaders Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson speak in “ebonic mumbo-jumbo.” An ardent defender of the Confederate flag, Nugent wrote in a July 2012 Washington Times column, “I'm beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War.” Nugent has also claimed that “real America” is comprised of “working hard, playing hard, white motherfucking shit kickers, who are independent and get up in the morning.”