Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Karen Hunter called the United States a "400-year criminal enterprise" in a YouTube livestream on Saturday.
Hunter delivered the comments while dissecting a new PBS documentary, The Black Church, on Howard University professor Greg Carr's weekly YouTube series In Class with Carr. Hunter said she appreciated the film for representing black America but was left feeling "empty" because PBS documentaries are made for white people and fail to "free" black people.
"We have so much more history even in Christianity than the Europeans," said Hunter, a distinguished lecturer at Hunter College's journalism school. "We have so much more history in God and religion and how we practice. This little 400-year criminal enterprise does not define the black church."
The professors also discussed Coca-Cola's diversity seminar, which went viral last week after slides that instructed employees to "be less white" surfaced on Twitter. Participants were told that to "be less white" meant to "be less oppressive, be less arrogant, be less certain, be less defensive, be less ignorant, be more humble." Hunter called the training "reasonable."
Hunter is a former MSNBC contributor and currently hosts the Karen Hunter Show on SiriusXM. She has authored several books, including Why Black Men Love White Women, Don’t Bring Home a White Boy, and Al on America, which she co-authored with Al Sharpton.
Hunter alleges that MSNBC put her on a "do not call list" in 2017.
Hunter charges between $20,000 and $30,000 for speaking engagements, according to her All-American Entertainment Speakers page. That puts her in league with other social justice activists like Robin DiAngelo, a white woman who charges upward of $30,000 for an hour-long speaking event.