OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Fox News host Harris Faulkner tore into the CEO of fast-food chain Chick-fil-A, arguing that he said some “amazingly crazy stuff” in an uncovered video of him talking about racism.
The video showed the CEO, devout Christian Dan Cathy in June 2020, talking about n elderly black man he met at a Christian revival.
“At that revival, in the front seat, there was an older African-American man that was sitting there, and this young man got up,” he said. “And he’d been so gripped with conviction about the racism that was in that local community in a small town in Texas, that he took a shoe brush and walked over to this elderly gentleman and knelt on his knees and began to shine his shoes.”
He then stood and walked over to a black man on stage with him with a shoe shine brush in his hand..
“I invite folks to put some words to action here,” he said as he kneeled in front of the black man to shine his shoes. “And if we need to find somebody that needs to have their shoes shined, we need to go over and shine their shoes.”
“Any expressions of a contrite heart begins with an apologetic heart. I think that’s what our world needs to hear today,” he said.
Radio host Jason Rantz, Faulkner’s guest, was the first to speak after the clip played.
“There’s pandering that goes on that I think is more offensive than anything else. On the one hand, I don’t like the idea that we’re looking for things to be offended by on the right. But on the other hand, that is the exact kind of nonsense we have to push back against,” he said.
In the next hour Faulkner talked about the clip.
““Chick-fil-A, look, we played it last hour. We dug up that CEO and some pretty amazingly crazy stuff he said. But, you know, and it was offensive to a lot of people over the weekend, and that’s why this story blew up. People felt like, well, you brought in race, you brought in all these things. You can get offended by a lot,” she said.
“But, can Chick-fil-A walk the plank, continue to have the value system it has, the delicious waffle fries — which are my spirit animal — and, at the same time, do DEI, which keeps everybody really happy in the corporate end. And, if their states start mandating it, some of these companies are going to have to start doing some things they said they’d never do,” she said.
DEI stands for “diversity, equity and inclusion,” and Chick-Fil-A has recently made a hire in that department.
The New York Post reported.
The Atlanta-based company named Erick McReynolds to the post of vice president of DEI two years ago, but social media users took note of it in recent days — igniting angry denunciations on Twitter from conservatives who allege that the firm has “gone woke.”
McReynolds has been employed by Chick-fil-A since 2007.
He was promoted to the position of vice president of DEI in November 2021, according to his LinkedIn page.
But the recent LGBTQ controversies involving brands such as Bud Light, Target, and Kohl’s have triggered scrutiny of other corporate actors.
On the company’s website McReynolds said “Chick-fil-A restaurants have long been recognized as a place where people know they will be treated well. Modeling care for others starts in the restaurant, and we are committed to ensuring mutual respect, understanding and dignity everywhere we do business. These tenets are good business practice and crucial to fulfilling our Corporate Purpose.”
“One of our core values at Chick-fil-A, Inc. is that we are better together. When we combine our unique backgrounds and experiences with a culture of belonging, we can discover new ways to strengthen the quality of care we deliver: to customers, to the communities we serve and to the world. We understand that getting Better at Together means we learn better, care better, grow better and serve better,” the page said.
“Chick-fil-A, Inc.’s commitment to being Better at Together means embedding Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in everything we do,” it said.
