Hundreds of members of Conservative Clergy of Color are calling out “the hypocrisy of Nike, Apple, and other major companies who have agreed to support the violent Black Lives Matter movement, all while continuing to profit from slave labor in China.”
Founders Bishop Aubrey Shines, Rev. Marlin Reid, Rev. Derek McCoy, and Pastor Francisco Vega spoke to reporters at a virtual press conference on Thursday to share the letter they delivered to Nike CEO John Donahoe, expressing the dangers to the American Democracy the corporation is participating in by “fanning the flames of unrest.”
John Donahoe Letter by Breitbart News on Scribd
“You have been happy to play into the hands of anarchists at home and ignore slavery abroad,” the letter said, referring to Black Lives Matter. “As leaders in the church, we can abide neither.”
“We demand that you immediately sever all business ties with China and acknowledge the suffering of the Uighur people,” the letter said. “We demand you end your support to the violent Black Lives Matter movement and any affiliated causes.”
“We feel like it is morally inconsistent for Nike to say that they want to eradicate racism here in the U.S. and yet overseas you have slave worker factories still in existence,” McCoy told reporters.
“We’re asking Mr. Donahue to be responsible enough to realize every time his organization gives millions of dollars into a Marxist organization, the very thing that you say you’re supporting you are not supporting, because you’re helping feed a narrative that’s keeping America divided,” Shines said at the press conference.
The letter also spoke to the violent riots associated with the Black Lives Matter political organization that are taking place across America:
We the leaders of Conservative Clergy of Color have watched with sadness and frustration as the country we love has been torn apart by violence and looting. This civil terror, perpetrated and lead by the Black Lives Matter movement, has turned American against American and possibly set race relations back decades.
Black Lives Matter, a movement run by anti-Christian, self-proclaimed Marxists, hijacked legitimate calls for police reform and turned it to their own ends. This is not a group interested in constructive change; through their vicious campaign to defund police and silence anyone who disagrees with them, they have destroyed livelihoods and gotten innocent children killed. It is antithetical to the nonviolence that Dr. King and the Civil Rights movement stood for.
You and your company have helped fan the flames of this unrest by caving to support Black Lives Matter and promising financial support to their allies. You have given Black Lives Matter a platform, and as such, have contributed to the chaos that is tearing apart every major city in our country.
When asked by Breitbart News about the Black Lives Matter claim that America is “systemically racist,” Shines said, “It is,” but added why he believes that is the case.
“It has come … primarily, from one political party,” Shines said. “It’s the party that fought against the 13th, 14th and 15th amendment.”
“It’s the same party that gave us Jim Crow laws,” Shines said. “It’s the same party that gave us the KKK.”
“It’s the same party, actually, that continues even to this day to separate Americans based on their ethnicity and/or their gender. And that is the Democratic Party,” Shines said.
And now, the clergy said, Black Lives Matter and its supporters are threatening to take away Americans freedoms again.
“Cancel culture is the issue,” Reid told reporters. “Cancel culture and the eradication of our civil right of freedom of speech and freedom of expression.”
“And groups like Black Lives Matter use and wield cancel culture — and corporations are complacent,” Reid said. [Americans] are ostracized and publicly put on notice if they don’t agree with Black Lives Matter.”
“That’s not American,” Reid said. “We’re talking about absolute suppression of what has made America great in the first place.”
“Every time a company like Nike gives validity to a group like Black Lives Matter by funding it in the millions and millions of dollars, it creates a false media narrative that this group personifies the heartbeat of America,” Shines said. “It does not.”
“We will fight tooth and nail to maintain that America is still the greatest place on this earth to live,” he said.
And all of the participants at the press conference agreed that, as Christians, all lives matter.
“We support the term Black Lives Matter,” Vega said. “As Christians that was settled on Calvary 2,000 years ago — that God values black, white, and every ethnicity in between — that their lives matter.”
Follow Penny Starr on Twitter