McDonald’s is facing additional pressure over CEO Chris Kempczinski’s text message exchange with Mayor Lori Lightfoot, in which he appeared to blame the deaths of two Chicago children fatally shot earlier this year on their parents.
A coalition of community groups that protested outside the company’s headquarters last week said they sent an open letter to the Chicago-based fast food giant’s board demanding Kempczinski’s removal, joining a similar call from U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush.
“It’s clear to us that Chris Kempczinski can’t fix McDonald’s problems with race because Chris Kempczinski is himself part of the problem,” the community groups wrote in a news release Thursday.
The groups said they want the company to create a $200 million fund to make investments in Chicago communities, commit to a nationwide minimum wage of $15 per hour and set up a committee with representatives from the company, its workers and government to improve wages and working conditions.
In the texts, sent after Kempczinski and Lightfoot met at McDonald’s Chicago headquarters in April, Kempczinski referred to recent shootings that killed two Chicago children: 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams, shot in the drive-thru lane at a West Side McDonald’s, and 13-year-old Adam Toledo, shot by a Chicago police officer during a foot chase in Little Village.
“With both, the parents failed those kids which I know is something you can’t say. Even harder to fix,” Kempczinski wrote in the message.
Last week, after the exchange became public, Kempczinski sent a note to McDonald’s U.S. corporate employees saying he was “thinking through my lens as a parent and reacted viscerally” when he wrote the message.
“But I have not walked in the shoes of Adam’s or Jaslyn’s family and so many others who are facing a very different reality,” he said. “Not taking the time to think about this from their viewpoint was wrong, and lacked the empathy and compassion I feel for these families.”
Community groups, including the Fight for $15 and a Union and Little Village Community Council, protested outside McDonald’s West Town headquarters the following day.
Over the weekend, media mogul Byron Allen, who filed a $10 billion lawsuit alleging racial discrimination against McDonald’s earlier this year, ran a full-page ad in the Tribune asking McDonald’s board to remove Kempczinski.
Rush joined the call Wednesday, saying in a statement that he was “utterly horrified” by the texts.
“This is a deplorable message, and one that is completely unacceptable for the CEO of a powerful multinational corporation — let alone a corporation that markets aggressively to communities of color and publicly proclaims that ‘Black lives matter’ — to espouse,” he said.
©2021 Chicago Tribune. Visit chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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Part 1—Here, we have two sides where there is right and wrong on both, but because it happens to be White vs Black—by default, the wrong on the White side is worse than the worst. I am telling you right now, Blacks can holler about race and racial injustice all they want, but they, themselves, are the chief instigators of it all. With help from Liberal politicians, the Media, Black celebrities, and Black activists, they embrace a mindset that Whites and White Supremacy are the driving forces behind their plight. All that is happening is that animosity towards Blacks is growing and their manufactured claims of oppression are becoming a reality as a result—but it is what they have brought upon themselves—not what Whites have forced upon them.
There is a high degree of dysfunction in Black families—fathers are largely absent. In the two incidents that Mr Kempczinski referred to—those may not have come about due to parental failure, but in a general sense, he did touch upon a glaring problem that exists in a large number of Black families.
IF i was the CEO, i’d tell Chi-raq to go sit and swivel, THEN PULL OUT ALL MC donnals stores FROM THAT STATE!
Part 2—So, the opportunists take advantage of what they perceive as a cardinal sin to lobby for a $15 minimum wage which is absolutely ludicrous. But Mr Byron Allen tops that with a $10 Billion dollar lawsuit alleging racial discrimination. The cost of “discrimination” keeps going up, but I suppose they had to factor in Biden’s inflation. So, how much money solves this “racial discrimination” they are on the warpath about? The George Floyd family got only $12 Million, so if they see this, they are really going to feel slighted—but we have gone from millions to billions in monetary requests to do what about the “discrimination”?
No matter what they may think, money—no amount of money—will solve interpersonal problems—it will not bring them racial justice—it will merely exacerbate the problem and it will only get worse. That $10 Billion could go a long way in helping to eradicate runaway crime in a city that has sunk into barbarism—and what part do you suppose parental failure plays in that?
It always boils down to money where the liberal demonic democratic blm antifa are concerned. What happens when thre is no mre money to dole out to this kind.
In 1965, Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson introduced the WPA (war on poverty act). The black community was targeted, specifically. The WPA financially rewarded women for having children, multiple children, out of wedlock. The Democrats tore black families apart by forcing fathers out of the picture. Before this, even though there were no civil rights for blacks firmly established, they had been making gains in blue and white collar work. But Lyndon B. Johnson and the Democrats destroyed the black community. I believe LBJ’s historic words were this: “I’ll have those ******* voting Democratic for the next 200 years”. And, so far, he’s right on track today.
What a joke! 😀
Sort of makes one long for the good old, rational, reasonable lawsuits of yesteryear, where one could win millions because the evil McD’s hatefully served hot coffee ummm, you know …. hot /sarcasm OFF
ROFL
Gotta love it when liberals EAT their own LOL wonder if they’re gonna want fries with THAT “happy meal”??
So now it has been make absolutely clear – extortion is a legal & lawful action in the new & better America. Come on 2022!
more money aint going to fix this problem.
For most of these libtard whiners, There is not enough money out there, to EVER SATISFY them.