Ted Nugent has once again fired back at accusations of racism, saying that no one has promoted black artists as much as he has his entire life. The outspoken conservative rocker made his comments more than three months after he revealed he lost a major sponsor of his award-winning "Spirit Of The Wild" television show over allegations of racism. During an appearance on the "A Bone To Pick" podcast, Ted said in part (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I'll tell you something outrageous: all people combined have not promoted black artists as much as Ted Nugent has my whole life. My bass player [in the 1990s] was Johnny Gunnell [a.k.a. Jon E. Gee]. He's a black dude. My bass player after Johnny was Marco Mendoza. He was born in Mexico. "I am on record thousands of times — color doesn't matter," he continued. "Punctuality, work ethic, talent, dedication. If you wanna be a bass player in Ted Nugent's band, you just have to be the best bass player in the world. I am color blind. "I've gotta tell you: when I was born in 1948, was there racism? Sure. Jim Crow was still going on. I went to Detroit parks, and it didn't register at the time because there was no racism in my home; it was about dedication and content of character. We had black friends in Detroit, black people all the time and I never gave 'em a second thought. They were black. I'm white. This guy looks like he's Asian. Who cares? Have you ever met anybody that cares? I don't care. "So that is the cheapest, the most dishonest and the most meaningless accusation that has ever existed in this day and age — is one of racism," Ted added. "Because if you really examine those who call us racists, look closely — those are the racists. They always reference color." A board member of the National Rifle Association, Nugent has been accused of using racist language for decades, including in a 1990 Detroit Free Press interview where he defended the institution of apartheid in South Africa by stating "apartheid isn't that cut-and-dry. All men are not created equal." Back in 2014, Nugent called then-U.S. president Barack Obama a "subhuman mongrel" in an interview with Guns.com. He later apologized "for using the street fight terminology of subhuman mongrel." But he maintained that Obama was a "liar" violating the Constitution. In his 2016 memoir, "18 And Life On Skid Row", former SKID ROW singer Sebastian Bach wrote about how Nugent, whom he considered to be one of his musical idols, allegedly went on a racist tirade on the set of the VH1 reality show "SuperGroup", causing Sebastian to step into the role of unlikely hero to the African-American crew by walking out and going to the producer, refusing to continue working with the Nuge. The following year, Nugent slammed Bach for his comments, saying: "He falls in the 'inconsequential' column. It's true — the guy smokes so much dope. People like Sebastian Bach will literally listen to me praise Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley and Little Richard and James Brown and Wilson Pickett, they'll listen to me praise these black artists and literally call it racist. I mean, how much dope do you have to smoke to be that stupid?" He continued: "Literally, I'm the one during that TV show that pounded home that we cannot lose touch with our black founding fathers, that if you don't have that groove of the black artists, if you don't have the Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley and Little Richard and James Brown groove, your music is worthless. That's what I drove home. And he would call that being a racist? This is funnier than Richard Pryor's afro catching fire. I mean, how stupid can you get?" In 2019, Nugent defended Donald Trump after the then-U.S. president was accused of making racist remarks about Democratic congresswomen from black and minority ethnic backgrounds.
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