This article explores the curious pattern of harassment against African-Americans and hostility toward advocates of black Africa by the man living in the Cleveland, Ohio area who calls himself “Reverend” Jim Sutter. It should not in any way reflect on anyone else who happens to share the same name
Is Jim Sutter of
"Hate Watch Hall of Shame" a TRUE Racist?
Revised 10/5/08
In addition to flaunting the phony title of “Reverend,” Jim Sutter has masqueraded as a priest, a decorated combat veteran and the holder of three earned PhDs. Twelve years ago he claimed to be a terminal cancer patient and today he pretends to be a crusader against “hate” and racism. Remarkably, in each case he has always proven to be the exact opposite of what he has wanted others to believe.
In fact, Sutter has been exposed as a vulgar, uneducated Navy reject and a twice-convicted felon. In his time, he has unapologetically and openly sought to exploit people with disabilities, people with religious convictions, and victims of rape and other physical and psychological abuse. He has been known to privately fuel the very bigotry that he pretends to battle on his “Hate Watch Hall of Shame” blog (where the few unfortunates who have posted “guest pieces” later regret their haste in associating with him).
Even Sutter's blog avatar- a skinny man typing at a computer - is very much the opposite of his 480-pound non-virtual figure. So, should it really be a surprise if Sutter’s latest attempt to pass himself off as an anti-racist turned out to be just another cynical attempt to project a false image against a much different reality?
Our interest in this was initially piqued by Sutter’s frequent misuse of the word ‘racist’ - which is supposed to refer to someone who believes that race is a legitimate basis of distinction and comparative evaluation. The gravity of the term often invites its inappropriate usage by the intellectually defeated, which in turn trivializes the plight of true victims of racism, both past and present, including those who suffered under slavery and segregation.
Sutter is not the first angry zealot to sputter slurs in lieu of convincing argument, but there is an astounding cynicism in the flippancy and frequency with which he accuses nearly everyone with whom he disagrees of being a racist - especially in matters that have nothing to do with race.
African-American columnist, Erik Rush, has called Sutter's accusation's of racism "outlandish." On occasion, Sutter himself has admitted to using this insult casually without even reading the opinions of those whom he accuses.
Obviously he employs the term disingenuously to project the impression that he is speaking about race, when, in fact, he is not. The abandonment of technical definition often leads to paradox, however, and this is no exception. For example, Sutter has actually accused certain people of African descent of being "racists" and has recently even said the same thing about the Yukon Group, a small Georgia printing company which openly publishes anti-racialist material!
Sutter exhibits an extraordinary insensitivity toward Africans and African-Americans in particular, who have been victimized by genuine racism in the past and would not appreciate the exploitation of the term by a lazy white man who cheapens their suffering and heritage merely to satisfy personal vendettas.
Of course, we don’t know if Jim Sutter is in fact a racist. His true opinions on race are known only to him and, unless he publicly admits to holding such beliefs, it would be inappropriate for us to claim that he is a proven racist, no matter how suggestive the facts.
It is possible, for example, that Sutter’s remarkable callousness toward victims of racism can be credited not only to reckless desperation, but also to a lack of experience with other races, either in his formative years or present day. In other words, the childishly irresponsible use of such serious language could perhaps be a result of Sutter’s immaturity or ignorance.
Sutter does admit to being raised in a white, middle-class Midwestern neighborhood in the 1950’s, where the only “minorities” were Jews. Even today he does not appear to have any personal relationships with African-Americans, as evidenced by a bizarre posting to his “Hate Watch” blog on October 1st of 2007, in which he invented a fictional character named “L. Johnson” to provide his readers with what he seemed to feel was the “black perspective” on a particular incident that was making the news at the time.
Although he has since edited the piece after it was ridiculed, Sutter originally claimed that “L. Johnson” was a black woman and thus “spiced” her conversation with lingo that made her sound more like a sassy sidekick from a 1970’s television sitcom than an actual person. The “exchange” between Sutter and this imaginary character was embarrassing and pathetic, sort of like stumbling upon a teenage boy making out with an inflatable doll.
The problem with assuming that Sutter is merely oblivious to his racial insensitivity is that from what we can tell, his life also reveals a very pronounced and highly suspicious pattern of harassment and hostility toward both African-Americans and those with reputed connections to Africa itself, including human rights advocates of the continent's black citizens.
The first racially-charged incident of record for Sutter may have been in the spring of 1976 at the Naval Training Center in Great Lakes, Illinois involving an altercation between himself and an African-American seaman. We previously speculated that this may have been the reason for his early exit from the Navy and why he tries so hard to hide his real record. Sutter's ungraceful departure occurred during a time when the armed forces were starting to toughen a zero-tolerance policy with regard to racial bigotry.
Strangely, Sutter does not deny the incident when specifically asked about it. Instead, he seems to imply that any such racial episode would not have been significant enough to end his Navy career, since he claims to have retired in 2000 with a highly-distinguished 26-year military record that included counter-terrorism intelligence operations in Afghanistan in the late 1990s.
However, the Navy sharply disagrees with Sutter’s James Bond fantasies, documenting instead an unwillingness or inability to operate within its multiracial environment that brought his time in uniform to an ignominious end after less than eight months. Young Sutter’s first real experience with people of color may very well have deepened his resentment of them, helping to explain his later activities.
There is an interesting rumor that Sutter may also have had race-related problems at a bakery where he is said to have worked in the 1980's. We have not been able to confirm yet that Sutter even worked for a bakery, much less the rest of the story – that he invented a false and defamatory tale about an African-American vendor – but we mention this only because it is astonishingly consistent with his later harassment of an African-American company in Atlanta over twenty years later that he libeled in almost exactly the same manner.
[UPDATE 1/21/08 - It looks like Sutter may have indeed worked for a baked goods firm called Schwebel's during this time. We have yet to confirm that he targeted an African-American business however, but someone who worked briefly with Sutter told us that he would act differently around blacks, as if he was not used to associating with them. Apparently he would adopt a stereotypical street accent when speaking with African-Americans, not necessarily to be mean, but rather out of some misguided notion that this was a form of camaraderie with his "ghetto brothers." He did not seem to be aware that he was a source of amusement to others.]
By 1990, Sutter had reached the pinnacle of his abbreviated working career after landing a job as an agent for the Better Business Bureau in Cleveland. With this position came some measure of influence over others… power which Sutter promptly abused. By the time he was fired, Jim Sutter had managed to involve his employer as a defendant in multiple lawsuits by companies that either hired African-Americans or claimed connections with Africa. (One of the lawsuits also involved Sutter's defamation of a Muslim-owned business).
One of the persons that Sutter singled out for particular abuse was reportedly a representative of Sierra Leone, a West African nation. Claiming to have received death threats and suffered a knife attack, Sutter also accused this man of stalking him. The police later determined that Sutter had invented the entire story (including mailing the death threats to himself).
Sutter was convicted of falsifying a police report in order to have this person arrested on false charges. He also lost his job and is believed not to have worked a day in his life since. Not surprisingly, his hostility toward people of African descent seems to have intensified with the idleness and impotency that his next seventeen years would bring.
In 2007 however, Sutter found himself once again enjoying a fleeting period of influence following the promotion of one of his articles by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (which failed to apply even the least bit of fact checking to the piece and actually staked its reputation on Sutter being an Arabic speaker). Giddy with his newfound power, Sutter immediately set about harassing African-Americans and shutting down websites that promote human rights for Africans under racist oppression.
One of the websites that Sutter targeted was highly critical of his associate, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, for ignoring the racial cleansing campaign in Darfur and for attempting to exploit the legacy of civil rights icon Rosa Parks. In December of 2007, Sutter was successful in shutting down CAIR's critic, CAIRBaby.com, by making several false legal claims to the site’s ISP, including an assertion that he could be reached through an attorney who, in fact, knew nothing of the matter and was not representing him.
A second website that Sutter attempted to have blocked by Internet censors was also an outspoken advocate of human rights in Africa. In September of 2007, Sutter used the assumed name of a potential donor, pretending to be an executive with the National Jewish Fund, in order to trick the anonymous operators into revealing their identity.
When he learned that the site was run by two hard-working Nigerians, Elu and Omo, Sutter redoubled his efforts against them. Over the next several months he attempted to expose their identities and defame them with malicious lies that were clearly intended to jeopardize their livelihood and perhaps even their lives. (For this reason, we are not identifying the website, nor providing a link to his defamation).
Not content with merely harassing individuals reportedly from Africa, Sutter has also gone after African-Americans. An example of this is his senseless and libelous campaign against a minority-owned business in Atlanta named CI2.com. As near as we can tell, this company came to Sutter's attention only because it shared an address with a legal firm that was listed as a domain registration contact for a pro-Africa website that refused to yield to his demands!
Sutter invented and publicized a vicious lie about this small business, saying (in his usual Orwellian fashion) that the African-American firm lost government contracts because it was running a “racist website.” Not only is it untrue of CI2.com (which actually has ties to the storied civil rights community in Atlanta), but there does not appear to be any other business in the U.S. that fits this description.
Amazingly, Sutter even went so far as to invent another fictional conversation with a black woman, but this time his partner in fantasy is a real person. Knowing nothing more about her other than her race, Sutter falsely presented the owner of this firm as something of an incompetent boob who hires people without knowing their real names. This is no truth to any of this, of course.
So, is Sutter a closet racist?
He would probably deny this. But Sutter’s denials are worth no more than the four Purple Hearts that he once claimed to have earned over a 26-year Navy career that never existed.
As we have shown on this site, nearly everything that this deeply disturbed man says about himself turns out to be exactly the opposite of reality. He covers an ignominious incident in the Navy with false combat tales and the claim that he is a highly-decorated Navy Seal. He hides his lack of educational accomplishment by fraudulently claiming three PhDs and at least two Masters Degrees. To cover for an impending 1996 prison sentence on a Federal felony conviction in which he victimized others, Sutter falsely claimed to be a victim himself – of terminal brain cancer.
Isn’t it likely that Sutter’s current “Chasing Evil” blog is simply another example of a fictitious cover that hides a much darker, contrary reality - in this case a deep personal animosity toward people of color? Should we really be surprised to find that while claiming to be an opponent of racism, Sutter has actually been working to defame African-American businesses, harm people of color, trivialize the issue of racism, and even shut down websites that protest the racial genocide of black people?
For at least 18 years now Sutter has been lying about himself and others. His pattern of malicious harassment also corresponds quite curiously to African-Americans or those who advocate on behalf of Africa's people. He has even criticized anti-racialist publications and falsely maligned their authors and publishers!
Make up your own mind as to whether this makes Jim Sutter a racist. All we can say for certain is that he is most definitely a con man.
With the exception of
referenced links, images and quoted text, everything
on this website is
our opinion and is true to the best of our knowledge. The information in
this article was
obtained from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the US Navy and from Sutter's own
writings.
