Wal-Mart Imagemaker Quits Amid PR Flap

Andrew Young Criticized For Remarks About Jews, Koreans, Arabs

(CBS/AP)  Civil rights leader Andrew Young, who was hired to help Wal-Mart Stores Inc. improve its public image, said early Friday he was stepping down from his position as head of an outside support group amid criticism for remarks seen as racially offensive.

"I think I was on the verge of becoming part of the controversy, and I didn't want to become a distraction from the main issues, so I thought I ought to step down," Young, a former Atlanta mayor and U.N. ambassador, told The Associated Press.

Young, 74, once a close associate of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., said his decision to step down followed a report in the weekly Los Angeles Sentinel that he said was misread and misinterpreted.

In the Sentinel interview, Young was asked about whether he was concerned Wal-Mart causes smaller, mom-and-pop stores to close.

"Well, I think they should; they ran the 'mom and pop' stores out of my neighborhood," the paper quoted Young as saying. "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."

The backlash was abrupt, reports CBS News correspondent Anthony Mason.

"It does border on racism when you say Jews, Arabs, Koreans and things of that nature," Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, told Mason. "Certainly I know that Andy wouldn't want that same type of characterization done to African Americans — nor would I."

Young, who has apologized for the remarks, said he decided to end his involvement with Working Families for Wal-Mart after he started getting calls about the story.

"Things that are matter-of-fact in Atlanta, in the New York and Los Angeles environment, tend to be a lot more volatile," he said.

He also said working with the group "was also taking more of my time than I thought."

Reading a statement to CBS Radio News, Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley said Friday that the company supported Young's decision to resign and that Young's comments do not reflect Wal-Mart's views.

"We are appalled by those comments," Simley said. "We are also dismayed that they would come from someone who has worked so hard for so many years for equal rights in this country."

Simley declined to comment on how the situation might affect Working Families for Wal-Mart.

"Ambassador Young's comments do not represent our feelings toward the Jewish, Asian or Arab communities, or any other diverse community," he said.

The remarks surprised Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, who pointed to Young's reputation of civil rights work.

"If anyone should know that these are the words of bigotry, anti-Semitism and prejudice, it's him," Hier said. "I know he apologized, but I would say this ... during his years as a leader of the national civil rights movement, if anyone would utter remarks like this about African-Americans his voice would be the first to rise in indignation."

Young came under fire from the civil rights community after his company, GoodWorks International, was hired by Working Families for Wal-Mart to promote the world's largest retailer. Young's company, which he has headed since 1997, works with corporations and governments to foster economic development in Africa and the Caribbean.

In an April letter to the General Synod of the United Church of Christ, Young said it was wrong for the church and others to blame Wal-Mart for world ills.

"I think we may have erred in not paying enough attention to the potentially positive role of business and the corporate multinational community in seeking solutions to the problems of the poor," Young wrote at that time.

"While there's no justification for his comments, we do hope that people will reflect on the contributions he's made throughout his life, and not just this one unfortunate and regrettable incident," said Wal-Mart's Simley.

[cwfabian]

Has anyone stopped to consider that what Mr. Young said happens to be true or not? Foreign minorities do own many of the small "mom and pop" stores in this country. Before Wal-Mart and big chain grocers came along, these stores had strangle holds on poor neighborhoods as far as prices on goods. Is it racist or bigoted to state nationalities now?? Let me guess, in the context Mr. Young said it, it is right? Wake up people.

[steve5442]

I wonder if Mr. Young was under the influence of alcohol or was he driving a car?
If he was D.U.I, like Mr. Gibson, we could all say that he was not aware what he said, however, the statement he made was clear as glass and he was NOT drunk...He meant it...and so did Mr. Gibson..Let's try and tell it like it is, as Mr. Cosell once said.

[hmcreations2]

Why is anyone surprised that a 74 year old man who's an acclaimed civil rights workers can utter such feelings? If he didn't have valid feelings about the certainty that whites and other minorities have gained financial independence over African Americans in the United States, he would never have gotten into the business in the first place. I'm a 44 year old African American woman married to a white man in New Orleans, and no matter what kind of love and respect I feel for him and his family, there are feelings you can not get away from because of our past. My inlaws live in a parish fond of electing former Klansman to office and they wonder why we don't come to live there. It's not on their radar that there's an underside to their city that would not be kind to their son and his family. But why should it be on their radar? They don't have to think about who their daughters will date or if the neighbors will be ugly to their family. Was Young wrong to say what he did? Yes, because as a diplomat he should have known better than to phrase his comments as he did. Do his comments mean he hates other minorities? No, but I certainly think there's some resentment behind the comments. However, I think more resentment should be leveled at the black community itself for not taking more initiative to improve the situation themselves. Stop waiting for the government to make it right, it won't ever happen, but if you want to own your own store, you can make it happen.

[nateragland]

Although I don't believe that Ambassador Young's comments were tasteful, I do believe they were true. I can recollect for the past 40+years the different races of people that posted-up in the African American neighborhoods to set-up shop suck up the resources and leave it to the next wave of refrugees. I remember the Jewish people selling us our groceries when I was a child, the Asians doing our nail,cleaning our clothes, selling our women their hair and beauty supplies and now the Middle Eastern boys selling us our gas, cigarettes, lottery tickets and snacks. But what I can't recall is one of these minorities putting anything into back into the community while leaving the hood at night with bags of money. There is a proven fact that our Goverment help these people get on their feet when they arrive and that same help for African American businesses is all but non-existant. Ambassador young is exactly right, just about all the races he named in his comments have used our community to come up.
Oh, I did I forget to mention the White Boys who stole the "Numbers" when back in the day they would come in our neighborhoods and arrest our numbers men for making a living and now they call the exact same thing which they deemed illegal "THE LOTTERY" You all ought to thank African Americans for being such a great stepping stone and not just step over them.

Sincerely.

[madinusa]

I am sick to death as a white person about how bad blacks have it. I was with this writer until he had to insult the white man. I can proudly say that none of my ancestors ever had slaves, and I wish there were never any white men that had a slave, because then what would blacks have to complain about? I am sick of bending over backwards to accomodate every other race that comes into the USA. The white man has quickly become the minority and our Civil Rights are being eroded away because black people and now other races can't do anything except cry about what happened to them. Try doing for yourself, quit living off the government, and leave the white man alone...Whether you see it or not, the black man has more rights than a white person. If I said to a black person that blacks deserve what they get..I would be walked off my job, massacred by the media, etc., etc., etc. But a black man can say to me and get away with" I am ok..They haven't burned a cross on my lawn yet".. and he doesn't even get disciplined even after it is taken up with the EEO of the company... so please spare me the boo hoos...If everyone is supposed to be an American, then try living like one. Stop all the blame games and work/live together. There is enough of the USA to go around if everyone would learn to share...

[whatithink-2009]

- madinUSA

About the blame game, I think you should use your own advice. What do you think the following comments are...that are coming from you?

"The white man has quickly become the minority and our Civil Rights are being eroded away because black people and now other races can't do anything except cry about what happened to them."