Papa John and the Worst Kind of Spokesperson
Hey gang, let’s talk about Papa John. But only for a minute, because we really need to talk about the idea of “Papa John” and his place in society.
As you might remember, John “Papa John” Schnatter got in a bit of trouble back in 2018, capping off a negative PR streak with some questionable race-related behavior in a meeting with a client, including, but not limited to, using the N-word during the call.
As was likely suggested by more than a few of his co-workers, friends, people he saw at the grocery store, etc., Schnatter stepped down as CEO a few months later, and in case you were wondering, recently checked in with OAN to let us know how he’d been handling everything that went down. Here’s a quote from that interview:
OAN: “Take me back to a few years ago when you start to see these headlines coming out and smearing your good name. How did you feel at the time when you were seeing these headlines?”
Schnatter: “Umm, state of shock, umm, unbelievable, umm… I couldn’t understand it. I mean, again you have a public board that paints its chairman complicit, passive or active, they paint the founder as a racist. They know he’s not a racist. It’s just unbelievable, and I used to lay in bed just going, ‘How did they do this?’ And we’ve had three goals for the last twenty months, to get rid of…
