Cyndi Nguyen, a New Orleans City councilwoman, apologized for saying that residents of the Lower Ninth Ward prefer eating “greasy fried chicken,” reported WWL.
Nguyen made the comment in response to a question about new businesses in the Lower Ninth Ward, a majority-Black neighborhood, according to The Grio.
“This is just a reality, OK, and this is not putting anybody down: I think people in the Lower Nine like those greasy fried chicken [places],” Nguyen said.
“I don’t like to have conversations just to sugarcoat people and say, ‘Yeah, we can get a Raising Cane’s,’ when you know very well that people here like those chicken, those fried chicken. . . You can’t ask people to start up a business and not be able to make money,” she added.
Louisiana Representative Jason Hughes, whose district overlaps with Nguyen’s city council district, said that he was “shocked, appalled, and insulted” by Nguyen’s statements.
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Nguyen apologized on Facebook Live a day later, saying that her comments were taken out of context and “came off as insensitive,” reports NOLA.com.
She also wrote a letter to her residents, in which she stated that her intention was to “describe that the Lower 9th Ward is a food desert, with the lack of access to healthy food alternatives due to the saturation of convenience stores and gas stations with unhealthy food options.”
She claims that there was no racist intent behind her words.
“I recognize the pain, and my deepest apology. But please don’t judge me on words that were used out of context. That is not the intent. The whole conversation was about what the Lower Nine used to have, what we have now and how we bring other options to the area,” she added.
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