When Andrew Young, the United Church of Christ minister and civil rights icon who served as mayor of Atlanta and U.N. Ambassador, signed on as a spokesman for Wal-Mart his allies in the church and civil rights community were dismayed. How could a man so committed to justice take on a client with a record of fighting the unionization of workers? How could a man so committed to taking care of the poor work for a company that pays such low wages?
Now Young has resigned from his position with Wal-Mart after making truly bigoted comments about Jews, Koreans and Arabs. The New York Times reports:
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.
Rev. Young, bigotry shouldn't work in Atlanta either.
Our religious and political leaders ought to be finding ways to reconcile the American people instead of fostering further division. Young has done what many good people have done before him: bow down to the false God of wealth while turning away from the real God's call for us to be a people of justice. Come home, Rev. Young.
Related Site: Wal Mart Watch
