Papa John isn’t going quietly, and the company that’s trying to erase him from existence is floundering

Good. He need to keep up the pressure. And it certainly appears that he is. We’ve already covered what happened to John Schnatter – how the company’s own media training firm essentially set him up and then apparently blabbed to the news media when Schnatter got caught in their trap. How a cowardly Papa John’s board of directors, in a typical act of corporate panic and cowardice, tried to essentially erase him from existence so as not to incur the wrath of the social justice warriors.

Schnatter remains the company’s largest shareholder and a member of the board of directors. Yet the company is cutting off his access to corporate headquarters and refusing to give him documents he has a right to as a board member. Why? Because in the public eye, Schnatter has become associated with the dreaded “n-word,” even though he never called anyone that nor did he use the word as a pejorative in any way. Doesn’t matter. When a media feeding frenzy starts, your typical American corporation goes into grovel mode and will throw anyone off the cliff in order to save itself. The usual sequence of events is that the now-tainted person emasculates himself and disappears from the public view so as not to taint anyone else by association with his tarnished self. Schnatter is not playing that game. He’s started a web site called SavePapaJohns.com, and it contains a lot more than just his personal meanderings. Schnatter has posted legal documents, press releases and internal correspondence that shows just how badly Papa John’s corporate leadership is bungling its way through this whole thing. Everything they’re doing is ham-handed and designed to appease the unappeasable social justice warrior left. They’re systematically violating Schnatter’s rights as a shareholder and as a board member, and they’re doubling down on the fiction that Schnatter is some sort of bumpkin racist. He is not taking it. Good. He shouldn’t. Visit Schnatter’s web site and support him in any way you can. John Schnatter is the farthest thing from a racist. He is a hard-working, honest, successful businessman who has done right by people throughout his career, and has been generous with what he’s earned. He does not deserve the vilification that’s coming on him now, and kudos to him for not bending over and taking it. And personally, I’m not spending a dime with Papa John’s until they start once again treating Schnatter as what he is – the man who built that company, and is Papa John.

Dan Calabrese——Bio and Archives

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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