Black bodyguard stands by Cliven Bundy despite racist statements

By Zenitha Prince
Contributing Writer

(Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspaper) – When racist statements made by Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher and conservative hero-of-the-month, hit the airwaves, his Republican boosters abandoned him like rats fleeing a sinking ship. But he has at least one stalwart supporter—his African-American bodyguard, Jason Bullock.

I would take a bullet for that man if need be,” Bullock told CNN. “I look up to him like I do my own grandfather. I believe in his cause and after having met Mr. Bundy a few times, I have a really good feel about him and I’m a good judge of character. He’s shown me nothing but hospitality and treats me as his own family.”

JASON BULLOCK

Bullock may be the only Black person in America willing to give Bundy a pass on his insensitive remarks, including Bundy’s suggestion that Blacks were government moochers who were better off in slavery

Propelled by robust Fox News coverage, Bundy shot into the public spotlight following his armed standoff with Bureau of Land Management rangers, who, with court order in hand, tried to confiscate his 500 cattle. Bundy owed the federal government some $1.1 million in fees for illegally grazing his herd on public land for more than 20 years, according to The New York Times.

The defiant 67-year-old became a hero of the right-wing’s fight against government overreach—until his unfiltered remarks about African Americans became public.

Bundy recalled passing public housing projects in North Las Vegas and seeing Blacks sitting around with “nothing to do.”

I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” Bundy told his supporters, as reported by the Times in an April 24 article. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”

This article originally published in the May 12, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.