N.C. Mayor Doesn’t Apologize to Blacks
AP, July 12, 2007
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Mayor Pat McCrory, who is white, said he was accurate when he wrote that “too many of our youth, primarily African American, are imitating and/or participating in a gangster type of dress, attitude, behavior and action.”
His remarks came in a July 5 letter to the city manager in which McCrory congratulated police for their presence the night before, when 169 people—mostly black—were arrested.
The mayor painted “African American youth with a broad swath that cuts deep in many of our communities,” said Ken White, president of the Charlotte branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
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McCrory told The Charlotte Observer that he understands his remarks offended some people, but he cited statistics that more than 60 percent of Charlotte’s gang members are black.
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