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I hear what you're saying, and I would not patronize any such place myself. However, what if we're not talking about restaurants, but clothing stores, and the only clothing store in town that sells what you need/want refuses to do business with your race? According to some here on CD (this is not the first thread), they're just supposed to pick and go somewhere else. What if there is nowhere else to go w/o great inconvenience? I would rather the racist be forced to do business with me, even if s/he didn't want to.
I can understand this too. The McDonald's near my house had a few employees that had a huge chip on their shoulder about having to help me out a little extra cause I was deaf and blind. It wasn't everyone and of course, other employees (luckily, including both managers) were great. But I hated having to deal with those few employees that just had to let me know that I was just about the biggest inconvenience in the world. And the McDonald's was the only place I could get to, so I had no choice but to give them my business.
My only problem is that I think even if they are forced to serve you, they will do everything in their power to give you poor service. Open-mindedness can't be enforced. If people have preconceived notions about you, those preconceived notions are going to affect how they treat you, no matter what sign they can or can't put up.
Part of the reason I would allow the signs is because I feel like it's acknowledging what we all know already happens. Maybe if it's more of an eye sore, people will be more motivated to do something about it instead of letting comments like "Gringo order to go" slide.
If you can't go anywhere else, there are other ways to send them a message. I had a blind friend who was refused for having a service animal. Of course, that wasn't what they literally said so she didn't have a legal basis for it, but it was pretty obvious it was about the guide dog. So what did she do? She got about 8 of her friends together--all guide dog users--and ate there with all of 8 of them a few times. It's easy to turn down one customer cause you don't like something about them, but it's much harder to turn down 8. That got the message across to them that they are the ones losing money by refusing guide dog users service.
If the only store I could get to was racist, the first thing I would do is get a bunch of my friends of that race together and go there a lot to get the message across. That's how attitudes change. Not by trying to legislate how people are allowed to feel, but instead, doing things that will actually change the way they feel.
Oh, for crying out loud! I have actually made many of my own clothes. I made my daughter's prom dress. I made my husband a ski jacket. I/we also grow some of our own food. I have put up 9# of beans and about 4# of tomatoes so far this summer. However, I don't always want to do that. We also have a fireplace with a blower, but we don't care to heat entirely with wood. How about a car dealer? A doctor? Gimme a break!
Oh, for crying out loud! I have actually made many of my own clothes. I made my daughter's prom dress. I made my husband a ski jacket. I/we also grow some of our own food. I have put up 9# of beans and about 4# of tomatoes so far this summer.
** edit: rewrote prior message to make it more person-neutral, taking you out of the hypothetical, so as to not make this about any specific person... but just about the generality of the situation.
I am glad you can do that [sew and make clothes]. You possess a skill I do not. Virtually everyone in society has lost these skills, and in many respects, we are worse off, for it.
The point wasn't to single you out for special treatment, but merely to emphasize that virtually everyone has become inept at many of the skills that matter most, specifically ones that are closely related to biological necessities. Division of labor and hyperspecialization is fine for buying a computer, and for most other 'wants' for that matter. But when we allow this hyperspecialization to so completely consume our knowledge relating to skills that help with our biological needs (e.g. homemaking and homesteading skills, if I can broadly categorize it in those terms)..... that's just not a good thing, all around. It can make us dependent.... in a very bad way. It allows many to be economically leveraged.
As I say, the solution is that we should learn these skills that were once common (because to not learn them allows us to be very heavily economically leveraged by those who do possess such skills). Telling others that they need to serve us should not be the solution, in my opinion.... wrong way to approach the problem.... and not just preaching that from an ethical standpoint..... but very much also from a practical standpoint, as well. We would just be well served if more people could do certain tasks for themselves, skills that were sort of lost over the decades, but which perhaps our great-grandparents had.
Last edited by FreedomThroughAnarchism; 09-11-2011 at 03:03 PM..
I hear what you're saying, and I would not patronize any such place myself. However, what if we're not talking about restaurants, but clothing stores, and the only clothing store in town that sells what you need/want refuses to do business with your race? According to some here on CD (this is not the first thread), they're just supposed to pick and go somewhere else. What if there is nowhere else to go w/o great inconvenience? I would rather the racist be forced to do business with me, even if s/he didn't want to.
Is this just a sound-byte or can you provide a concrete example? Did this happen to you? The rhetorical question of "what if this or that" can be reduced to any absurdity and transplanted into any other era...
If I were a "smart businessperson" -- which I am not or else I wouldn't be a public school teacher! LOL -- and a clothing store in my town refused to sell to white/black/hispanic etc? Welllll...then I would make a killing by opening one across the street which openly welcomed EVERYONES business. Why not...what is so hard to understand about that?
Hell, far as that goes, I might play off their discriminatory policies to make even more money. Take out adds in the local paper that say "Those Across the Street hate everyone...We love everyone. Come on in and free Dr. Pepper for the kids". or whatever.
You would rather the "racist" be forced to do business with you? Is that what you are saying? Ok, fair enough if that is what you really believe. But if so, you have to likewise acknowledge it wipes out any consideration/right of your right to ANY sort of control of your own business.
Is this just a sound-byte or can you provide a concrete example? Did this happen to you? The rhetorical question of "what if this or that" can be reduced to any absurdity and transplanted into any other era...
If I were a "smart businessperson" -- which I am not or else I wouldn't be a public school teacher! LOL -- and a clothing store in my town refused to sell to white/black/hispanic etc? Welllll...then I would make a killing by opening one across the street which openly welcomed EVERYONES business. Why not...what is so hard to understand about that?
Hell, far as that goes, I might play off their discriminatory policies to make even more moneyh. Take out adds in the local paper that say "Those Across the Street hate everyone...We love everyone. Come on in and free Dr. Pepper for the kids". or whatever.
You would rather the "racist" be forced to do business with you? Is that what you are saying? Ok, fair enough if that is what you really believe. But the whole basis of that you have any right to own a business at all...
I've been on a thread like this before. Did I say anything like this happened to me? I'll answer for you: no, I did not. I said I wouldn't patronize a place that treated me as the poster I quoted said he (?) was treated.
Back in the south in the pre-Civil Rights era, Jim Crow laws and "tradition" meant that many businesses did not serve blacks, and it didn't seem to hurt their business. Up north, "tradition" often did the same thing. There is another thread where I discussed a restaurant in my hometown in Pennsylvania that had an unwritten policy of not doing business with blacks. I'm sure there were many other businesses that did the same.
Property rights are no more absoulte than any other rights. You can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater despite the first amendment.
I've been on a thread like this before. Did I say anything like this happened to me? I'll answer for you: no, I did not. I said I wouldn't patronize a place that treated me as the poster I quoted said he (?) was treated.
Back in the south in the pre-Civil Rights era, Jim Crow laws and "tradition" meant that many businesses did not serve blacks, and it didn't seem to hurt their business. Up north, "tradition" often did the same thing. There is another thread where I discussed a restaurant in my hometown in Pennsylvania that had an unwritten policy of not doing business with blacks. I'm sure there were many other businesses that did the same.
Property rights are no more absoulte than any other rights. You can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater despite the first amendment.
All your "points" have been answered and properly addressed. And yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre is a total non-sequituer as to the point at hand.
You can live back in the Jim Crow era if you want. However, most of us have moved on and are discussing the topic in a modern day context. It might not have hurt "their" business then...but it would now. Am I wrong?
All your "points" have been answered and properly addressed. And yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre is a total non-sequituer as to the point at hand.
You can live back in the Jim Crow era if you want. However, most of us have moved on and are discussing the topic in a modern day context. It might not have hurt "their" business then...but it would now. Am I wrong?
I don't know. I'm sure there are some people who don't give a damn whether a business discriminates against some people as long as it doesn't discriminate against them. Many times one doesn't really know if a business owner is a racist or not.
I don't think my "yelling fire" example is a non-sequitor. It's an example of another "right" that is not absolute, like property rights.
I don't know. I'm sure there are some people who don't give a damn whether a business discriminates against some people as long as it doesn't discriminate against them. Many times one doesn't really know if a business owner is a racist or not.
Aren't adults in a free society presumed to have the common-sense to figure it out for themselves?
Quote:
I don't think my "yelling fire" example is a non-sequitor. It's an example of another "right" that is not absolute, like property rights.
We all know private property rights are not absolute. There are considerations of emiment domain and such, for example. But your example IS a non-sequiteur, because no one is yelling "fire" in a public place. In fact, the yelling of "fire" would be, as to the issue at hand, posted clearly beforehand.
That is to say, for example, there is a sign on the door "We Serve Black People Only" or "No Asians need apply". Then the "fire" thing -- metaphorically speaking -- is clearly announced aforehand. Don't go into the place and you will not have to get burned nor trampled to death.
I just don't understand why you (or anybody else) would use the hand of government to force someone to do business with you when they don't want to, or you didn't want them to.
Do you support the right of businesses to not allow white customers? For example, your neighborhood grocery store or restaurant?
Of course they should have that right. The repercussions will be whatever the market deems appropriate.
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