SALT LAKE CITY — The founder of Overstock.com rejected the NAACP's demand for an apology Friday after an Internet video surfaced of him saying that Utah minorities who don't graduate from high school might as well be burned or thrown away.
Patrick Byrne's comments were posted on YouTube. The video clip was from a debate two weeks ago in Provo, where he was speaking in favor of vouchers, public aid for families sending kids to private schools.
A statewide voucher program that would grant $500 to $3,000 per child based on family income is on the Utah ballot Nov. 6.
On the YouTube video clip, Byrne says: "Right now, 40 percent of Utah minorities are not graduating from high school. You may as well burn those kids. That's the end of their life. That's the end of their ability to achieve in this society if they do not get a high school education. You might as, just throw the kids away."
Okay, you read his exact quote and I'm sure most of you had no problem understanding what he was saying. And yet, it didn't take the NAACP long to get it wrong:
Jeanetta Williams, a voucher opponent and president of the NAACP's Salt Lake branch, said the videotaped comments shocked her and she believes Byrne meant that minorities who don't graduate should be burned or thrown away.There they go again. Mr. Byrne is clearly concerned about the minority community and wants to see them succeed by finishing high school (and is promoting a voucher program to help with that), and yet the NAACP, stuck on their own stupidity, can't get past words like "burn" and "throw away".
"Those were his words, not mine," she said.
Williams noted that Byrne didn't mention white children who don't graduate. Utah is 83.5 percent white, 11 percent Hispanic and 1 percent black.
"It says he's not sympathetic to the minority community and he means exactly what he said," Williams said of Byrne's lack of an apology.
Context is everything.
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