Reverend Jesse Jackson Calls on Nissan to Employ Equality Over Exploitation

    Nissan Motors/Nissan Motor Acceptance Corporation Held Accountable For
    Egregious Discriminatory Practices; Firms Systemically Denied African-
     Americans Parity in Purchase Price of Mississippi Land and Arbitrary
   Application of Credit Standards, According to Reverend Jesse L. Jackson

    DETROIT, July 12 The following was issued today by The
Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Founder & President of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition:
    The Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Founder & President of the Rainbow/PUSH
Coalition, is hosting a press conference to address escalating concerns
surrounding Nissan North America's racially motivated double standards on
automotive financing and land acquired for a new plant designated for Canton,
Mississippi.  The press conference is taking place on Thursday, July 12, 2001
at 10:00 EDT at the Atheneum Hotel and Conference Center.  The announcement
comes on the heels of a joint study conducted by Professors Mark Cohen and Ian
Ayers of Vanderbilt and Yale University, respectively.
    The seven-year statistical analysis included 300,000 Nissan customers in
33 states.  According to the study, African Americans paid on average more
than double the discretionary finance charges (DFC) over white buyers with
comparable credit.  The findings concluded that the practices were pervasive
across the United States.  Dealer markup represents the single largest profit
center of the automotive industry.
    "Our quest is simply equal protection under the law," said Reverend
Jackson.  "It is incumbent upon auto makers to establish two-way trade between
African American consumers who drive their profit margins and the automotive
industry.  Unfortunately, rather than sharing in the wealth, people of color
have been singled out for economic profiling.  We contend that the
discrimination goes from the dealer lot to the residential lot."
    The State of Mississippi paid White landowners up to $60,000 per acre,
while their Black landowners were offered 1/3 of that amount.  The acquired
land is the site of a new Nissan manufacturing plant planned just outside of
Jackson, the state's capital.  "This is no less than state subsidized economic
discrimination.  There is no room in the New South for such old-styled
oppression," continued Reverend Jackson.
    Rainbow/ PUSH has detailed industry-wide examples of pervasive patterns of
insensitivity with regard to people of color.  Nissan's blatant exploitation
follows Toyota's sensationally senseless recent promotional advertising
targeted to the African American community.  The promotional campaign created
by ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi for Toyota's "RAV4" sport-utility vehicle was
the latest in a series of culturally derogatory messages.
    Women or minorities own only 74 of Toyota's 1390 dealerships.
Additionally, of more than $740 million of Toyota's advertising budget, no
dollars have been spent with an agency of color.  Further proof that glass
walls and ceilings limit the opportunities of women, African-Americans, and
other minorities to rise to decision-making roles within the company.