Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank is moving ahead with a $5.5 billion building project in Baltimore’s southern end, which will include not only the company’s headquarters but also residential and commercial property and a manufacturing plant.
Some might suggest such a massive investment is a good thing for the struggling city—but Baltimore City Council member Ryan Dorsey denounced the company and its CEO Kevin Plank as emblematic of “white supremacy.”
“White supremacy cozying up to white supremacy? Shocker,” Dorsey wrote in a Facebook post about Plank, who was among the business leaders meeting with Donald Trump in January. “’Quisling’ probably isn’t even an appropriate term to use. It specifically refers to a local traitor getting in bed with an occupying force.”
Dorsey, who is white, also slammed Plank as “an occupying, colonizing, culturally appropriating force.”
Plank didn’t respond, but a spokesman for Plank Industries told the Baltimore Sun that Dorsey’s comments were “unprofessional and unworthy of an elected official, even a very inexperienced one.”
Dorsey, a 35-year-old first-term progressive Democrat, is known for showing up to meetings in a black hoodie sweatshirt, the Sun noted.
Plank’s Baltimore project, which received near-record-breaking subsidies from the city, is expected to create 25,000 local jobs. Under Armour, the second-largest sports apparel company in the United States, anticipates that its new Baltimore headquarters alone will provide 10,000 jobs, up from about 2,000 before.
Other local politicians rushed to denounce Dorsey’s comments. The mayor called them “totally unacceptable.” One council member said Dorsey’s statements were “highly disrespectful” and another said he was “shocked and saddened” by them, the Sun reported.
But Dorsey has since doubled down on his comments, saying the new development is an “egregious example” of a project that benefits only the city’s white residents.