Black Leader Defends Jimmy the Greek

Jimmy (the Greek) Snyder was accurate in some of the controversial racial remarks he made last week, the chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality said Monday.

Roy Innis, national chairman of CORE, is one of the few black leaders to defend Snyder, who has been widely criticized and has lost two television jobs for making on-air racial remarks considered derogatory toward blacks.

Snyder got his second pink slip Monday from the producers of the third-annual John Madden Super Bowl Special, a syndicated preview show. Snyder was fired Saturday by CBS sports.

Innis referred to Snyder’s firing as a tragedy.

“Jimmy the Greek spoke the truth,” Innis said.

Innis defended Snyder’s statements that “during the slave period, the slave owner would breed his big black with his big woman, so that he could have a big black kid . . . “ as accurate during an awards dinner in New York, honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Innis said black leaders, including Malcolm X, had made similar statements in the past.

Speaking of the days of slavery, Innis said: “We were bred like chattel. It’s wrong that they did that to us--but it’s not wrong to talk about history.”

Innis said the meaning of equality between blacks and whites incorporates the idea that members of the two races should be able to exchange ideas “even when they’re unpleasant.”