US Chick-Fil-A’s CEO takes knee & shines shoes of black rapper to win pardon for whites’ ‘shameful oblivion’
Dan Cathy, CEO of the Chick-Fil-A fast-food restaurant chain, publicly polished the sneakers of the black rapper Lecrae. The son of the Chick-Fil-A founder said he did it to recognize white people’s “oblivion” to racial injustice.
“Most of us white people, we’re out-of-sight, out-of-mind oblivious to it,” Dan Cathy said.
Kneeling at the feet of the Christian rapper during a panel discussion at the Passion City Church in Atlanta, Georgia, the CEO then started to polish the artist’s shoes.
“If we... find somebody that needs to have their shoes shined, we just need to go over and shine their shoes.”
Shoes or sneakers, it doesn’t matter, according to Cathy, who claimed any personal touch would do, and afterwards, moved to hug the rapper.
Explaining his anti-racism stance, Cathy said, “Our silence is so huge at this time. We cannot be silent.”
He called on white Americans to recognize “the level of frustration and exasperation, and almost the sense of hopelessness that exists within the African American community”.
The CEO admitted that there were “conscious and unconscious biases” within his corporation, and some Caucasian staff who made their black “brothers and sisters” feel they weren’t being treated with honor, dignity, and respect.
Cathy is not unique in his self-humbling attempt to earn the sympathy of the black community. In addition to those taking a knee in solidarity with the protests against police brutality, there have been examples of white residents and police officers washing the feet of their black neighbors.
Also on rt.com White residents wash black priests’ feet during George Floyd vigil in USA number of white-owned businesses in the US have also proffered an apology for their racist practices in the past, though concerns have been raised as to whether all of them were sincere or had just attempted to capitalize on the situation.
About a dozen Chick-Fil-A outlets have been attacked during the unrest that followed the police killings of George Floyd in May and Rayshard Brooks in June. Cathy reacted immediately, tweeting apologies to his company’s black staff “who are suffering because of racism”.
Also on rt.com ‘As soon as I saw the slaveowner’s statue being toppled in Bristol, I knew the real anti-racism protest was OVER’In the past, Chick-Fil-A has come under fire for its owners’ record on LGBT issues. In 2012, Cathy criticized same-sex marriage and donated funds to groups that opposed it. From 2019 onwards, he has no longer made any such donations.
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