Mark Woodward, a Silicon Valley tech CEO, sparked outrage when he wrote a Facebook post, now deleted, threatening to aggressively harass low-income fruit vendors and “make their life miserable”. UK newspaper The Guardian reports that he now says he is “terribly sorry” – but with an apology that continues to defend his position.
Woodward's post said that if fruit sellers were stationed outside his home in a suburb of San Jose, he would “do whatever it took to make them leave” even if “that meant destroying some of their produce, or standing out there with signs to chase everyone away”.
Asked on Monday 2nd May for a comment about his post – which made him only the latest wealthy California entrepreneur to rant about low-income people – Woodward refused to apologize, sending a short statement saying his comments were an “emotional reaction”. He said he deleted the post because he “realized bringing a nuanced conversation to a social forum where it could be taken out of context was not the best way to bring resolution to a serious, multi-faceted issue”.
On Tuesday, in the face of significant backlash, he published a Medium post titled My Apology, saying he learned a “tough lesson” about “the power of my words”. Woodward said he had posted on Facebook to share his “frustrations with a situation affecting my family and our neighborhood”.
My comments were heated, but also insensitive and offensive to some people. For that I am terribly sorry. Shortly after realizing the gravity of my words taken out of context, I removed my comments.
But he also continued to defend the remarks, writing that they were a “response to several incidents that have made me and my neighbors feel unsafe, including one that required me to call the police because individuals were physically threatening me at my home”.
Woodward did not respond to requests for comment about the alleged incident he referenced in his apology, and San Jose police did not immediately respond to an inquiry.
His apology did little to appease angry residents in the Willow Glen neighborhood of San Jose, who had criticized him for railing against Latino residents who are less fortunate than him and often struggle to make ends meet.
“For him to say his words were taken out of context is a lie,” said Jillian Torrez, a 30-year-old resident who grew up in Willow Glen. “Those words were taken for what they are. He’s just upset because he’s in the public eye. This is just some PR, trying to get back in the good graces of people. In this day and age, you have to be accountable for the things you say.”
Torrez, who works for the government, said the fruit vendors in the neighborhood never cause problems.
If neighbors have serious concerns about the fruit vendors, they should politely approach the merchants and have a civil discussion, she added.
“To say you would destroy somebody’s livelihood because you don’t like them selling fruit? … People can see him for what he really is. He’s not this nice person. He’s an elitist snob.”
