Duck Dynasty‘s Jep and Jessica Robertson recently welcomed a new addition to their already sizeable family: Jules Augustus, or as they call him, Gus, a black baby boy. On Good Morning America Thursday, Jep and Jessica were asked how the Duck Dynasty patriarch, Phil Robertson, felt about little Gus. His response might surprise those who have tried to cast him as a racist.
Jep, Jessica, and their five children appeared on Good Morning America to discuss the adoption of Gus. When Jep was asked how his conservative Christian father reacted to the news that they were adopting a black child, he said he was thrilled.
“He always said, and I guess this never got quoted, is that, ‘We’re all part of one race, the human race,'” said Jep. “He loves him.”
Phil became a controversial figure after a Dec 2013 GQ interview in which he made some disparaging remarks about homosexuality. During the interview, he also discussed his own experience growing up in the pre-Civil Rights South, and his comments about African-Americans resulted in accusations of racism from many on the left.
“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them,” said Robertson. “They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, I tell you what: These doggone white people — not a word!… Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.”
As ET Online notes, Robertson later commented on his highly scrutinized statement to Us Weekly. Saying that he was simply relaying his own experiences growing up, Robertson underscored that his point was ultimately a spiritual one.
“The point I was making was that even when our black brothers didn’t have their civil rights, those people had that one thing the government couldn’t take from them: their faith,” he said. “They would sing spiritual songs as they were going across those cotton fields … We don’t look at people like black, white and brown. We’re all members of the human race.”
Jep and Jessica said they discussed the idea of adoption for “many, many years” and that the adoption process was lengthy, but they are overjoyed that Gus is “finally here.”
“It’s like such a surreal moment, to finally have him in our arms,” said Jessica. “We waited so long and wanted to happen for so many years, so to actually have him and hold him and know he’s actually ours and we’re his forever family, we’re excited.”