Rev. Al Sharpton Calls Pepsi’s Meeting With Emmett Till’s Family “Positive”
The family of Emmett Till and the Rev. Al Sharpton met with represenatives from Pepsi today and the results were “positive” according to Rev. Al.
The soda company came under attacks these past few weeks as successful protests were lead which ended with rap star Lil Wayne being dropped from its Mountain Dew ad campaigns and the company ceased its corporate sponsorship of the artist after his disrespectful lyrics mentioning the late Civil Rights icon Emmett Till.
As previously reported, Wayne rapped insensitive remarks toward Emmett Till in his verse on the remix of Future’s “Karate Chop” and as a result PepsiCo cut ties with Wayne in light of the controversy. Wayne referenced Till, an African-American teenager whose brutal murder helped to spark the Civil Rights Movement, with the line “beat the p-sy up like Emmett Till.”
An ad deemed racist by Tyler was also pulled last week. Rev. Al stated,
“The meeting today with PepsiCo representatives, the family of Emmett Till, and me at corporate headquarters was a positive meeting. PepsiCo apologized to the family again and they accepted while agreeing with me that this is a “teachable moment” and we must work with younger hip-hop artists so they know their civil rights history and become more engaged in the community.
National Action Network (NAN) doesn’t want the end result to be the penalization of artists-although they clearly need to be corrected–but rather them becoming more engaged and conscientious of civil rights history. We agreed to work as partners to try and sit down with younger hip-hop artists, corporate executives, and people in the civil rights community.”
In light of all this, Wayne still hasn’t apologized to the family but did say he wouldn’t reference Till in a negative light again.
What are your thoughts, was anything really resolved with the meeting? Also what about Pepsi using Black stars to peddle their sugar-water when the African-American race suffers highly from hypertension and diabetes. Just something to think about. Which offense is worse, the Emmett Till slander or the poisoning of our people???
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