Controversial online personality Jesse Lee Peterson is facing renewed backlash after asking former NFL player George Wrighster III why he “speaks like a white person.”
Wrighster appeared on the Jan. 10 episode of Peterson’s The Fallen State podcast to discuss his transition from the NFL to media and the personal growth that followed. The wide-ranging, hour-long conversation touched on sports, culture, and identity, while Peterson injected his trademark controversy throughout.
There were points where Peterson questioned Wrighster about seeing a therapist, criticized men who displayed vulnerability to women, and even took a swipe at Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett by calling her “Jasmine Crooked.”
A clip now circulating online highlights one of the interview’s most uncomfortable moments, with Peterson praising Wrighster for speaking “like a white person.”
“You speak very well, and you’re black. How did that happen?” Peterson asks in the clip shared online.
A visibly taken aback Wrighster expressed his confusion and asked Peterson what he meant by the question.
“You speak well. You speak like a white person. How did that happen?” Peterson asked. “How do I speak like a white person? All proper and right, and you can understand you. You use the right words, and how did that happen?”
Peterson doubled down, telling a visibly confused Wrighster that speaking “like a white man” was a good thing. Wrighster pushed back with sarcasm, explaining why he believes he speaks “like a Black man,” which Peterson quickly shut down, saying “no.”
“Oh, I don’t speak like a black man? Black men are well-read. We go to college. We take care of our kids. We pay our taxes. We do our responsibilities. So I don’t know how that is white. I know that’s what Black men do. That’s what I know,” Wrighster saidd.
Peterson then took the exchange a step further, asking Wrighster, “What’s wrong with the Blacks?”
The exchange sparked swift backlash online, with many criticizing Peterson for what they see as repeated jabs at the Black community during his interviews.
“Jesse Lee Peterson has to be one of the more profoundly absent-minded buffoons in all viral media,” one X user wrote. “Not only is he himself quite repetitively dull in manner, but he also sounds of low bar intelligence with a very effeminate lisp to go along with it.”
Another user offered their take on the topic of Black people being told they “talk white.”
“Sadly, a lot of black people think ignorantly like that
man,” the user wrote. “They call it code switching, but really, it should be a normal thing to speak properly as black people, not to be told you’re sounding white when speaking proper English.”RELATED CONTENT: Political Firestorm: Trump-Appointed Prosecutor Indicts Rival New York Attorney General Letitia James On Bank Fraud