August 18, 2006
DEMOGRAPHIC, NOT DEMAGOGIC (via Glenn Dryfoos):
Young to Quit Wal-Mart Group After Racial Remarks (Abigail Goldman, 8/18/06, LA Times)
Andrew Young, the civil rights leader and former U.N. ambassador, said Thursday that he would resign as head of a Wal-Mart advocacy group, acknowledging "demagogic" remarks about Jewish, Asian and Arab business owners.Young, 74, has been lobbying minority groups and civic leaders to accept Wal-Mart stores in their neighborhoods, a relationship that has drawn criticism from other African American leaders. In an interview published in Thursday's Los Angeles Sentinel, he was asked about the retailer's role in displacing mom-and-pop stores.
"Well, I think they should; they ran the 'mom-and-pop' stores out of my neighborhood," he told the Sentinel, the oldest and largest black-owned weekly newspaper in the West.
"But you see those are the people who have been overcharging us — selling us stale bread, and bad meat and wilted vegetables. 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, very few black people own these stores."
Of course, he's being fairly accurate -- though not necessarily about the quality of the goods and services provided-- but when you've made a living mau-mauing you ought to know better than to describe ethnic reality. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 18, 2006 11:13 AM
Jewish immigration and assimilation to the U.S. at the lower business levels of the economic strata was before Andrew's time, but he really ought to ask himself how the Koreans and Arabs managed to climb above the economic rung of many urban blacks during the time when he and others were supposed to be leading the way in the battle for racial and economic equality.
As for the remark itself, since Andrew mananged to get himself fired by Jimmy Carter as U.N. ambassador for his actions in 1979 that were seen as being pro-Palestinian, saying something like this shouldn't surprise anyone, except for his inclusion of Arab shopkeepers in there with the Jewish and Korean grocers (who have been on the hit list at least of the race-focused pols since the 1992 Rodney King riots).
Posted by: John at August 18, 2006 12:46 PMBy ripping off the brothers....
Posted by: oj at August 18, 2006 3:29 PMAndy Young is a stereotype himself. When he was mayor of Atlanta, he cared only about the black community insofar as those who were lighter than he is.
He is celebrated as a pioneer, but he is really quite different. Maynard Jackson was 10 times the mayor Andy Young ever was.
Posted by: jim hamlen at August 18, 2006 5:22 PMspeaking of Arabs. he was a major figure in flacking for BCCI (the Pakistani based, UAE
and Saudi financed ponzi scheme, operating
as a ponzi scheme/bank