Al Sharpton Ritz Crackers Boycott: Why TruthRevolt Made A Petition
What goes good on a Ritz Cracker? According to the conservative group TruthRevolt, the answer is nothing – not even the cracker itself.
TruthRevolt is calling for a boycott of Ritz Crackers because it’s one of the advertisers on the Rev. Al Sharpton’s show on MSNBC, and because the “PoliticsNation” host used “cracker” in a speech 20 years ago.
Why the boycott started now is unclear, but roughly 4,000 people have signed the TruthRevolt petition to boycott Ritz Crackers as of Tuesday morning.
The conservative group pointed to a 1994 speech Sharpton gave at Kean College in New Jersey for demanding the Ritz Crackers boycott.
“We built pyramids before Donald Trump even knew what architecture was. … We taught philosophy and astrology [sic] and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it. … Do some cracker come and tell you, ‘Well my mother and father blood go back to the Mayflower,’ you better hold your pocket. That ain’t nothing to be proud of, that means their forefathers was crooks,” the reverend said.
TruthRevolt said it reached out to Ritz’ parent company, Mondelez International (NASDAQ:MDLZ). The company did not directly comment on its advertisement spots on Sharpton’s MSNBC show, but it gave the following statement to the group:
“At Mondelez International we demonstrate our commitment to responsible corporate citizenship by participating in programs that best serve a wide range of local communities and their interests and needs. We extend our responsibility to the sponsorship of tasteful, believable television programming and we avoid sponsorship of programs that would be unacceptable in terms of generally accepted social or community standards,” the statement read.
TruthRevolt said it does not agree that Sharpton embodies those qualities and called the reverend a “race-baiter.”
“Al Sharpton is one of the greatest race hoaxers and divisive demagogues of the last half-century,” the group says in its petition. “Sharpton is the man whose anti-Semitic language helped stoke the flames of the 1991 Crown Heights riots that resulted in the murder of Yankel Rosenbaum; he is the man whose incitements against a white owned store in Harlem ended with one of his followers torching Freddie’s Fashion Mart, causing a fire that killed eight people; he is a liar who falsely accused a district attorney and five other innocent men of raping 15-year-old Tawana Brawley; he was the leader of the lynch mob that smeared the innocent Duke lacrosse players and the demagogue who helped turn Trayvon Martin into a martyr and George Zimmerman into the target of race-baiting vigilantes.”
The group continued, “Now it’s time to let his advertisers know that we won’t stand for our purchases backing his propaganda. TruthRevolt is leading the fight to inform Sharpton’s financial backers just who Sharpton is – and what the consequences will be for continuing to support his race-baiting.”
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