A three-year-old video showing Chick-fil-A’s boss shining the shoes of a black man during a plea for white people to fight racial injustice resurfaced this week amid a push by outraged conservatives to boycott the fast-food chain over its hiring of a diversity officer.
Dan Cathy, the son of Chick-fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy, got down on his knees at a church in Atlanta in June 2020 as the city was gripped by protests over the police-involved deaths of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks.
“I invite folks to put some words to action, and if we need to find somebody who needs to have their shoes shined, we need to just go right on over and shine their shoes,” Cathy said.
The devout Christian — whose father founded the popular chain in Hapeville, Ga.in 1946 — then stood up and walked over toward Lecrae Moore, a Christian rapper who took part in the roundtable discussion at Passion City Church.
The executive bent over and began shining Moore’s shoes.
“Whether they got tennis shoes or not, maybe they’ve got sandals, it really doesn’t matter,” said Cathy, who stepped down as CEO the following year and was replaced by his son, Andrew Truett Cathy.
The dad’s bold gesture came after several Chick-fil-A branches in Atlanta were smashed up during Black Lives Matter protests.
“We’ve had a dozen Chick-fil-A restaurants that have been vandalized in the past week, but my plea would be for the white people rather than point fingers at that kind of criminal effort would be to see the level of frustration and exasperation and almost the sense of hopelessness that exists among some of those activists within the African American community,” Cathy said.
“We’ve got a real bad situation, and we don’t need to let this moment miss us. It has to hurt us,” he continued. “As Caucasians, until we’re willing to pick up the baton and fight for our black African American brothers and sisters – which they are as one human race. We’re shameful. We’re just adding to it. Our silence is so huge this time. We cannot be silent. Someone has to fight.”
However, his conciliatory words and actions were turned against him as the video was posted to social media Tuesday amid backlash over Chick-fil-A naming Erick McReynolds its senior executive in charge of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
“This is embarrassing on so many levels,” one Twitter user responded to the video.
“Get woke, go broke,” another user posted.
“Wait, they trying to get bud lighted?” a third person wrote.
Chick-fil-A, which has nearly 3,000 locations, was long considered a beloved brand in the eyes of conservatives who applauded the chain’s opposition to same-sex marriage.
But in recent years the company has stopped donating to groups that oppose same-sex marriage.
Chick-fil-A is the latest company to find itself in the crosshairs of furious conservatives calling for a boycott of popular companies.
Bud Light has seen its sales nosedive in recent weeks after partnering with transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Target, the national retail chain, has also been subjected to boycott calls over its new “PRIDE” collection that markets LGBTQ-friendly apparel to youngsters.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
