Posted on 08/18/2006 11:07:06 AM PDT by neverdem
The civil rights leader Andrew Young, who was hired by Wal-Mart to improve its public image, resigned from that post last night after telling an African-American newspaper that Jewish, Arab and Korean shop owners had “ripped off” urban communities for years, “selling us stale bread, and bad meat and wilted vegetables.”
In the interview, published yesterday in The Los Angeles Sentinel, a weekly, Mr. Young said that Wal-Mart “should” displace mom-and-pop stores in urban neighborhoods.
“You see those are the people who have been overcharging us,” he said of the owners of the small stores, “and they sold out and moved to Florida. I think they’ve ripped off our communities enough. First it was Jews, then it was Koreans and now it’s Arabs.”
Mr. Young, 74, a former mayor of Atlanta and a former United States representative to the United Nations, apologized for the comments and retracted them in an interview last night. Less than an hour later, he resigned as chairman of Working Families for Wal-Mart, a group created and financed by the company to trumpet its accomplishments.
“It’s against everything I ever thought in my life,” Mr. Young said. “It never should have been said. I was speaking in the context of Atlanta, and that does not work in New York or Los Angeles.”
His remarks drew forceful condemnation from Arab, Jewish and Asian leaders.
The national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham H. Foxman, called the comments “very hurtful.”
“The sad part,” he said, is that “even people of color and even minorities who suffered discrimination and prejudice are not immune from being bigoted and racist and even anti-Semitic.”
In the six months that Mr. Young was under contract with the Wal-Mart-financed group, he traveled the country promoting the retailer, meeting with community groups and writing opinion...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Carter sent Andrew Young to the UN. Great team...NOT.
Democrats are so diverse and understanding and compassionate and..............
Troof to power! Troof to power! Reparations now!
Wal-Mart hired this racist for that post? They deserve all they get for this, then.
I could take the stale bread and bad meat but I draw the line at wilted veggies.
Many, many, many Jewish and Arab and Korean shop owners in those communities were shot in the face for their troubles but - to my knowledge - not one was shot in the face in a dispute over stale bread.
"The civil rights leader Andrew Young, who was hired by Wal-Mart.."
They pretty much get what they deserve for hiring that idiot.
Well, isn't that special!!
Let us see how the al-MSM handle this compared to how they have handled, say, Mel Gibson.
The hidden truth always spills out eventually!
And blacks cause such a disproportionate amount of the crime in the U.S. as well as out of wedlock and fatherless babies it stinks. But Hey, let's not dwell on truths.
It's all the white and Korean devils fault?
How about take f-ing responsibility for your own connunity. Your own race, your own.
Nah it's easier to blame the white devil.
Idiots.
In other words "I made enough money ripping off the people in the '96 Olympics that I don't need your crappy job. I can go back playing golf."
How many people have heard of Mel Gibson compared to how many people have heard of Andrew Young?
Let's see if this gets as much airplay as Mel Gibson's rant.
Betcha a dollar it doesn't.
Regular grocery store chains will return to the ghetto soon after they stop being robbed and burnt down by their patrons.
Looks like Wal-Mart's strategy to capture the ghetto dollar has crashed and burned. Wonder who their next "spokesmen" will be -- "Hymie Town" Jackson? Maybe "White Devils From Outer Space" Farrakan?
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