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That story about how 47% of Republican voters (And rising,) support allowing businesses to refuse service on the basis of race has me thinking about what our strategy should be if the supreme court invalidates the public accommodations part of the 1964 civil rights act...
...One thing we have going for us is the power of national chains. If Wal-Mart allows Mississippi stores to refuse service, we can boycott them across the country...
...In the 60s, national chains like Woolworths could hide behind "Respecting local custom," obviously, since refusing service on the basis of race has been illegal for over half a century, it can't be a local custom...
...There is still the matter of more localized businesses employing discriminatory measures that don't rise to the level of outright refusal. The solution to that would be to pressure national suppliers to refuse to do business with small businesses that discriminate...
...Another possibility would be businesses offering "separate but equal," accommodation. The problem with that is it renormalizes segregation, which would allow monolithically White areas to plead out by saying "We can't afford to segregate, so, we will refuse service"...
...I could see restaurants maintaining very small non-White sections then denying additional patronage once those are filled. Or, making people take their food to go. (We've seen this before.)...
...We must take no quarter. Places with large Black populations will probably be fine. But I think it would be imperative that if the slightest rumbling gets made in this direction, we conspire to shut down every shack from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon that refuses service
...There's a well known story about LBJ's cook, Mrs. Wright that apparently he liked to tell has he wrangled votes for the Civil Rights act...
...Johnson was senate majority leader and was meeting with some people in DC. He informed Wright that she and her husband were going to carry some articles from DC to Texas for him in advance of he and Mrs. Johnson going down. Mrs. Wright told him clearly: No...
...She then explained that the last time they'd done that, they'd been exposed to the massive indignity of not being able to eat, sleep or perform nature's necessities anywhere but by the side of the road and that wasn't going to happen again. Johnson stormed out of the room...
...He apparently got over it well enough to be able to cite the incident in his negotiations to get the act passed...
...I remember a few years ago, the family and I were traveling into south Georgia from Tennessee for my grandfather's funeral. The navigation app, being anti-Black, took us off the interstate onto a two lane highway in the middle of Klan/Trump country...
...A few of us had to conduct nature's business, so we stopped at a convenience store which was basically a shed attached to somebody's house. We walked inside and the proprietors stiffened up like they'd never seen Negroes before...
...While everybody handled business, I stood and swapped glares with the proprietor while exercising my best: "Ever seen a crazy nigger before?" mean mug. Not a word was said, we left and that was that...
...If those rednecks had had their way, we wouldn't have made it through the front door. Yet they demurely watched us patronize their establishment. Why? They knew we could have the Georgia NAACP and Feds so far up their asses they'd be shitting ink until the south rose again...
...Just to be clear, it would suit me wonderfully to never patronize another White business from now until Glover's funeral home in Orangeburg, South Carolina lays my worn and weary body in the cold, cold ground...
...Sidebar, in response to the apparent decline of Black funeral homes, I've said that I'd rather be thrown in the streets to be eaten by dogs than taken to a non-Black mortician, in the far future when I need such services. But, I digress...
...But as it stands, it is of immeasurable value to be able to force every no-account mongering bigot from the Florida Keys to Anchorage to provide to me whatever services I am willing to pay for. It is a bulwark for human dignity in the Klan's own country...
...Now that I think about it, repealing the public accommodations statutes would probably open up a firestorm of activity the likes of which hasn't been seen since the close of the 60s. So, the bigots might not be that stupid...
...They've walked about the lion's mouth, they might not want to stick their head directly into it. Also, addendum, the civil rights act also contains important "Force," provisions that give the 14th amendment teeth...
...I can't imagine the whole 64 act would be repealed in one piece, but, if they can find a way to repeal the statutes allowing the federal government to pursue cases under the 14th amendment for civil rights violations, it might be a backdoor to repealing all hate crime laws...
...If the force acts get repealed along with federal hate crime laws, that would basically throw us back onto the states for the protection of our basic human rights. Under which conditions we should expect "Judge Lynch," to come even further out of retirement...
...Boycotts and pressure campaigns would help preserve public accommodations. The return of lynch law could be faced with the same weapons. Barring those, our grandparents' .45 caliber veto in self defense would become necessary. But I'll let that alone...
...Don't mind me, I'm just speculating out loud on the return of Jim Crow. Okay, I'm done.
