COLDWATER, MI — Maytag, owned by Whirlpool Corporation, is corrupting Major League Baseball through its “Filthiest Plays of the Week” promotion. They have enlisted 12 time all-star Barry Larkin as spokesman for the campaign. Barry Larkin does not have a clue about what Whirlpool Corporation really represents.
I, Rev. Edward Pinkney, speak out against Whirlpool and Major League Baseball, not in anger, but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and above all with a passionate desire to see our country stand as a moral example to the world.
Ferdinando Imposimato, the Honorary President of the Supreme Court of Italy and former candidate for the president of the Italian republic says this about Whirlpool, Benton Harbor and my imprisonment: “I have seen the beginnings in Italy of the same process of urban degradation and economic impoverishment which has ruined the city of Benton Harbor. Whirlpool has bought up large chunks of our splendid Italian appliance industry, including especially the appliance manufacturer, Indesit. Now, Whirlpool executives have issued a proclamation from [their headquarters in] Benton Harbor announcing they intend to wipe out about 2,000 Italian jobs, more than a third of the current personnel of the Italian branch of Whirlpool. This mass firing would be a devastating blow for the Italian cities that Whirlpool is targeting. We have to ask if Whirlpool is trying to drive these Italian cities down to the same level of plantations of despair which we observe today in Benton Harbor? The Italian government should call in the American ambassador in Rome and demand explanations about the Pinkney case, emphatically reminding him that the U.S., as signatories along with Italy of the Final Act of the Helsinki Treaty (1975), is required to respect human rights and civil rights, with voting rights at the top of the list—meaning exactly the right which Reverend Pinckney was attempting to exercise.”
These are revolutionary times. We must move from words to deeds. We must organize against gentrification in our communities all around the country, against Whirlpool Corporation (including Maytag), against poverty, against racism. We must begin to organize the ghettos for control by the people against exploitation. Exploitation and racism do not only exist in this nation’s foreign policy, but right here in the streets of Benton Harbor, Michigan. Make your neighbors see the other side of Whirlpool. Have mass protests at every Major League Baseball park to protest against poverty, job loss, and racism. Let’s stand together.
Write to Rev. Pinkney at: Rev. Edward Pinkney # 294671, Lakeland Prison, 141 First Street, Coldwater, MI 49036
By Rev. Edward Pinkney
