Maybe it was that serving anyone that substance laughingly passed off as “food” is grounds for a lawsuit? 
Actually, according the cite in the OP, one of the defendant’s attorneys used it as part of his arguments:
Using a “magic grits” argument in open court is the real gem here. I wonder if the reference was lost on the judge?
DrDeth. Ahhhhh. you’re from San Jose. Whattya know from good grits?
sewalk. The reference was lost on me until I Googled it a second ago. Somebody watched too much “MY COUSIN VINNY” back in law school.
You have me there. 
Let’s not hear you dudes talk about refried beans then, OK?
I don’t have to, as that wasn’t my claim. I was making a historical observation. YOUR point seems to be that because some white people got the short end of the stick, that African-Americans shouldn’t complain, because some white people; who weren’t treated the same way anyway, can’t.
No shit.
That of course ignores the fact that anyone regardless of race, creed, religion or sex, have the same right to sue, if they feel they are given vermin filled food stuffs, simply because the chef doesn’t like the way they look or is just being “funny”.
Your second point concerning time, is also wrong . The Voting Rights act was passed in what, 1965? Which means I’ve been alive longer than African-Americans have had the right to vote and be proctected under the law, by the law; as the rest of Americans…and I’m not a century old. This stuff didn’t end a generation ago, you do know that don’t you?
I mean you speak about your Native-American roots, so clearly you understand how long these attitudes last and how strong the bias is. By your logic, since the Indian Wars ended a century ago, you don’t have the right to sue under the fair housing act…because lots of white people don’t get shown houses and can’t sue…but they can; they just sue as Native Americans…because they’re not.
I don’t know the age of all the people, however if any one of them is over 40; they as African-Americans would have been denied the right to eat, vote or have an education…depending on what part of the country they lived it at the time…as it was standard OP, back then. Not 300 years, not 200 years, not 100 years, 40 freaking years ago.
Think about it, say you wanted to buy a bottle of wine, the store manager refuses to sell it to you, because you can’t be trusted with “fire-water”. Do you have the right to sue him? Yes you do, now you may in typical Liberalville way, take your business elsewhere, as is your choice; however you also have the legal right to seek redress. Redress, I can’t have because I’m not Native-American; the slur means nothing to me and in fact, he wouldn’t slur me at all.
But i bitch anyway, telling you since my relatives were killed by the Russians, why do you get to sue this guy who refuses to serve YOU? They didn’t.
What does my relatives past have to do with you not being treated fairly TODAY? Nothing. What does your suing and winning a suit against THIS store owner have to do with me? Nothing. However YOUR relatives past, has everything to do with how you’re being treated now. Unless I’m pissed that my relatives weren’t butchered, lied to and stolen from by the US government, I should be glad that you have redress to be treated as I am. Again you’re not suing me or ‘us’. You’re suing him. His store. Him, the guy who wouldn’t serve you, because you’re a Native-American and would’ve if you weren’t.
Liberal Your response is typical of these types of discussion. The same selfishness and knee-jerking taints them as well. No one is asking for you or innocent people to be responsible for this Waffle-house. The suit is very specific, and the people “charged” are the ones directly responsible for the incident and the ones who “benefit”, will be the ones directly affected as well.
So why do you care?
You first!
You’re right. I find your argument to be convincing. It is indeed true that the target is the owner of the Waffle House and not the ancestors of white people. That said, I disapprove of anti-discrimination laws, and believe that a restaurant owner has an ethical right to serve or not serve whomever he wishes for any reason whatsoever. At any rate, thank you for presenting a compelling logical case. Nothing is more delightful to read.
Fair enough.
Wow, that’s really kind of out there, and I say that as a real honest-to-God WASP Republican.
I get the whole thing of being able to what you want with your own business, but we’ve have a good view of what happens when that’s allowed. The pile of crap is just overwhelming. You get people being denied some of the most basic human rights (live where they want, etc) and near rights (eat right up front with everyone else, etc).
The phrase “you can’t legislate morality”, IIRC, originally meant that you can’t make people actually be moral by passing laws, not that you can’t pass laws to make people act right. In fact, the entire point of laws is that left to their own devices, a great many people don’t act right. If this weren’t the case, there wouldn’t be a governing body of any real size in the first place, and in this case no push for the Civil Rights Act.
“Vinny Gambini: How could it take you five minutes to cook your grits when it takes the entire grit-eating world 20 minutes?
Mr. Tipton: Um… I’m a fast cook, I guess.
Vinny Gambini: [across beside the jury] What? I’m sorry I was over there. Did you just say you were a fast cook? Are we to believe that boiling water soaks into a grit faster in your kitchen than any place on the face of the earth?
Mr. Tipton: I don’t know.
Vinny Gambini: Perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist on your stove. Were these magic grits? Did you buy them from the same guy who sold Jack his beanstalk beans?”
Just so’s everyone knows what "magic grits’ means.
Nobody has a right to just “live where they want.” They have the right to try to acquire land or housing via purchase or lease, but if the owner doesn’t want to sell or rent to them, tough. Or do you think that government should have the power to force a landlord to lease to whomever shows up on his doorstep?
Racism is bad, but government coercion is worse.
I disagree. We have a good view of what happens when that’s institutionalized, when white property owners are allowed to send goons in the night to rustle up negroes and Injuns and tie them to trees. What I advocate is liberty for all men — the black ones and the white ones (and the always forgotten red ones). Give me the freedom to compete against a bigoted white merchant who is unable to call upon the politician in his pocket to oppose me, and I will be a wealthy man.
Wouldn’t it be all kinds of dumb for a restaurant that didn’t want black customers to serve flies in their food? What if one of the customers just happened to work for the local health department? The restaurant would be fucked while the person from the health department shut them down. And then tipped off the local media.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to just serve the black customers lousy tasting food? The cook could just add an excessive amount of salt or such to their grits. The health department doesn’t care about if the food taste lousy; they are just concerned about health code violations. And the black customers might not even pick up on the fact this was done for racist reasons. They might just think the food sucked, and eat elsewhere in the future.
Thank you. I was wondering if magic grits were akin to the “magic loogie” referred to in the Seinfeld episode.
You obviously don’t know a thing about grits and haven’t spent much time eating at Wafflehouse. Hashbrowns are scattered,smothered, and several other strange things.
Grits come plain, but are better with butter and salt/pepper added, but not with flies.
From my memory, they can be
Scattered and
-Smothered
-Covered
-Peppered
-Capped
-Chunked
-Topped
-Diced
-Scattered All the Way
There are probably another couple I’m missing.
There’s a lot of that going around, though.
There are only six basic Waffle House hash browns, but these can be altered (e.g., Scattered and Diced):
Traditional
Scattered and Smothered (Onions)
Scattered, Smothered, and Covered (Onions and Melted Cheese)
Scattered, Smothered, Covered, and Chunked (Onions, Cheese, Ham)
Scattered, Smothered, Covered, Chunked, and Topped (Onions, Cheese, Ham, Chili)
Scattered, Smothered, Covered, Chunked, Topped, and Diced (Onions, Cheese, Ham, Chili, Diced Tomatoes)
A restaurant chain may not be all kinds of dumb; an individual server or cook is another.
I just thought of a source for the flies: do they have a bug zapper in that kitchen?
To expound on Lib’s description of Waffle House’s charm, I remember a time I went to a WH in Raleigh. The waitress, a little apple-faced grandmother, took our order with an eerie delight. When I ordered a slice of pie, her face broke out in a radiant smile. “Oh, I just love it when someone orders pie!” she exclaimed. “It means I get to lick the knife!”
So, on the one hand, the “all kinds of dumb” thing seems to be an argument in the plaintiffs’ favor: Waffle House doesn’t exactly administer an IQ test as part of the application process. On the other hand, it also doesn’t pride itself on its impeccable hygiene.
The one time I’ve had grits at a Waffle House, they tasted nasty to me, and I assumed that they were instant grits. Instant grits cook very quickly–I think it’s like two minutes or something after you pour the boiling water over them. If they used instant grits, they could easily be cooked with flies in them. As other folks have said, they could also throw flies into individual bowls, and the heat from the grits would cook the flies pretty much instantly.
Or it could just be a foul, foul restaurant.
Daniel