After all, this "civil rights advocate" has spewed bigotted garbage against ethnic minorities and Jews -- while stone-cold sober. Will Andrew Young get the Mel Gibson treatment?
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.
Mel Gibson is an alcoholic actor who spoke while three (or more ) sheets to the wind. Young is an influential political figure who spoke while under the influence of his own hatred. Wil he receive the same sort of high-tech lynching that Gibson did -- or will his liberal credentials be sufficient to earn him a pass from those who have sought the personal destruction of a sick conservative?
Trackback Information for Will There Be Media Hysteria?
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://blog2.mu.nu/cgi/trackback.cgi/182588Listed below are links to weblogs that reference 'Will There Be Media Hysteria?'.
Comments on Will There Be Media Hysteria?
Wah, wah, wah. Whiny conservatives strike again. This has
|| Posted by Dan, August 18, 2006 07:50 PM ||been published all over the place, from the Washington Post to Mother
Jones, but if you really think the American public cares as much about
Andrew Young (known only to a handful of political junkies with good
memories) as Mel Gibson - one of the biggest stars in the world - you
are simply delusional. And whiny.
Still, I've yeat to hear calls for his fellow civil rights advocates to denounce him and disassociate tehmselves from him. I've yet to hear demands that all of his previous work be renounced due to the taint that these comments place upon his accomplishments.
|| Posted by Rhymes With Right, August 19, 2006 09:30 AM ||And, despite the history of anti-Semitism speweed by other "civil rights leaders" (Jackson, Sharpton, Farrahkhan), I've yet to hear anyone question whether this is a sign of underlying anti-Semitism on the part of Afriocan-Americans, like was said about Catholics/Christians following the arrest of Mel Gibson -- especially since the anti-Semitic comments of Young and the others were made while SOBER.
Good luck with that fever and delirium.
Look at the grief that Lieberman is catching for his association with Farakhan. You're trying so hard to try to make something out of nothing here. Try to find a real issue . . .
|| Posted by Dan, August 19, 2006 10:24 AM ||Actually, I think you got my point about the hypocrisy of those who made a big deal out of mel Gibson's drunken comments. They are more than willing to give a pass to those whose overall world-view they support, even if the comments are made in a state of sobriety. On the other hand, a drunken tirade by an alcoholic with a world-view they find antithetical constitutes a crisis -- and even outweighs the violent rampage of a Jew-hating Muslim terrorist in a major American city.
|| Posted by Rhymes With Right, August 19, 2006 10:29 AM ||I haven't heard anyone give him a pass. He said stupid stuff, and it got published all over the place.
The fact that America cares more about Hollywood stars than it does about people who had a minor government position almost 30 years ago is probably a sign of our sickness, but hardly news or evidence of some sort of hypocrisy.
Man, you rightwingers sure do whine a lot . . .
|| Posted by Dan, August 20, 2006 08:11 PM ||Good grief -- whining is about all a lefty like you is good for!
|| Posted by Rhymes With Right, August 20, 2006 08:25 PM ||Post a comment