# Would privately owned businesses thrive or fail if they were allowed to racially discriminate? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 30, 2010, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255 "2010-05-30T03:13:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2010, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255/41 "2010-05-31T03:52:25Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > …That being said, I understand that there are many women who like to work out in a place where they know that men won’t be leering at me. … Not to suggest anything about you personally, but many of the women who would argue this also are in favor of banning pornography as objectification of women. A world without women jumping up and down in leotards and without porn to boot is just too terrible to contemplate. Won’t _someone_ think of the men and teenage boys??!! ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2010, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255/42 "2010-05-31T03:58:56Z")
> [@sleestak](#): > > So, segregation ended in the 80’s? > > Do you have a cite for this being a sundown town in the 80’s? > > Slee No. But I do have a cite for this being a sundown town in the 1990s. > [@](#): > > Vidor, Texas, is infamous for driving away black residents. Considered a Ku Klux Klan stronghold, Vidor has excluded African-Americans to the point of violence. It gained national notoriety in 1992-'93 by foiling a court-ordered desegregation of public housing in East Texas. The nine black people, including five children, who moved there were driven out by protests and threats. [http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/ent/columnists/jweeks/stories/DN-sundown\_1107gl.State.Edition1.6670c7d.html](http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/ent/columnists/jweeks/stories/DN-sundown_1107gl.State.Edition1.6670c7d.html) Does that count? ---
**Author:** ![SoulFrost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f07891/32.png) [@SoulFrost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SoulFrost)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2010, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255/43 "2010-05-31T05:01:35Z")
> [@simple\_homer](#): > > "Sundown towns are actually rare in the traditional South (this doesn’t include Texas or Arkansas because those states were highly contested between Union and Confederate). In the belt from Louisiana through the Carolinas, whites saw no reason to drive away their cheap labor. So contrary to the popular notion of Northern enlightenment, Dr. Loewen says, most sundown towns are actually in the Midwest and North – and in “disputed” areas like Texas. According to Census data, the most segregated city in the country today is Milwaukee. " > > [http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/ent/columnists/jweeks/stories/DN-sundown\_1107gl.State.Edition1.6670c7d.html](http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/ent/columnists/jweeks/stories/DN-sundown_1107gl.State.Edition1.6670c7d.html) I also see this from [wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_Town): > [@](#): > > The highest proportion of confirmed sundown towns are in the state of Illinois, but that may not be truly representative of their distribution, as sundown towns are difficult to pin down given the reluctance for the towns themselves to have, or to reveal, official documents stating their status as sundown towns. For example, —, One Hundred Years of Progress: The Centennial History of Anna, Illinois, although more than 400 pages long, never mentions Anna’s 1909 expulsion of African Americans, the sundown signs at the northern and southern city limits in 1954, or anything else about race. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2010, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255/44 "2010-05-31T05:16:25Z")
Interesting article [When Signs Said ‘Get Out’ - In ‘Sundown Towns,’ Racism in the Rearview Mirror](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/20/AR2006022001590.html) > [@](#): > > The signs are gone now but once they were a part of America’s roadside culture, posted along the highway at the town or county line, a blunt reminder of brutal racism. > > "Most read ‘Nigger, Don’t Let the Sun Set on You in – ,’ " says James Loewen, the Washington-based author of a controversial new book called “Sundown Towns.” But sometimes, he adds, the sign makers tried to get clever. "Some came in a series, like the old Burma Shave signs, saying, ’ . . . If You Can Read . . . You’d Better Run . . . If You Can’t Read . . . You’d Better Run Anyway.’ " > > Most of the signs were posted in the first half of the 20th century, Loewen says, but some lingered on long afterward. They were not a Southern phenomenon, he stresses. They were found all over the United States with local variations: > In Colorado: “No Mexicans After Night.” > > In Connecticut: “Whites Only Within City Limits After Dark.” > > In Nevada, the ban was expanded to include those the sign-writers term “Japs.” > > All told, Loewen says, he found evidence of more than 150 sundown signs in 31 states. But he wasn’t researching the sundown signs . They were just symbols. He was researching sundown towns , which he defines as “towns that were all white on purpose.” He found lots of them – far more than he expected when he began his research in his home state of Illinois about five years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2010, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255/45 "2010-05-31T06:08:56Z")
James Loewen is not what I consider a credible source. The man has an ideological view to promote and he selects his evidence to support it. ---
**Author:** ![Staale\_Nordlie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Staale\_Nordlie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staale_Nordlie)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2010, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255/46 "2010-05-31T06:36:28Z")
> [@astro](#): > > In reading some of the Libertarian oriented GD threads I’m amazed at how some bright (mostly young) dopers making otherwise logical and pointed arguments get all googly eyed and disbelieving when when you tell them that many private businesses would quite probably re-discriminate in a heartbeat if they could get away with it legally. > > They refuse to believe this is possible. Their insistence that this is impossible is as endearing as a child insisting that Santa Claus lives because of all the presents. They cite that their friends would \*never \*do business with such an establishment, and thus no business like that could possibly thrive and exist. Examples of such posts? ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2010, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255/47 "2010-05-31T06:45:15Z")
Major restaurant chains are slow to expand into middle class and upper-middle class black neighborhoods and suburbs. Why? Not because they can’t get customers, but because they can’t find enough wait staff who would want to work there, because of the … uhhh, I’ll just say that we’ve discussed it here before. While I don’t see a national chain discriminating against anyone, a local restaurant that discriminates against blacks will probably find a lot of wait staff beating down the door for jobs there. ---
**Author:** ![simple\_homer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@simple\_homer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simple_homer)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2010, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255/48 "2010-05-31T06:50:16Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > Major restaurant chains are slow to expand into middle class and upper-middle class black neighborhoods and suburbs. Why? Not because they can’t get customers, but because they can’t find enough wait staff who would want to work there, because of the … uhhh, I’ll just say that we’ve discussed it here before. > > While I don’t see a national chain discriminating against anyone, a local restaurant that discriminates against blacks will probably find a lot of wait staff beating down the door for jobs there. Stereotypical tipping habits ? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2010, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255/49 "2010-05-31T10:34:42Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > If you are white, there are several areas in this country, TODAY, that you don’t want to be caught in after dark. Even though that is because the failure of the law instead of the active actions of it, does it make a practical difference? You have to name them. I was a racial minority in my neighborhood in several places throughout my life. Even in one of the large cities I lived in, there was a lot of racial boundaries. [I lived in one of the darkest areas on this map for a few years.](http://www.philaplanning.org/data/pctblack2000.gif) I heard some comments from neighboring people about “why does a white person live here,” but I was not denied housing in the area and I was not driven out, and those are the hallmarks of Sundown Towns. Eventually class becomes more of a determining factor as well: There are no neighborhoods of affluent black people that I know of where they systematically discourage white neighbors which seems to be the hallmark of a Sundown Town. A white male may feel more comfortable living in a poor white neighborhood than a predominantly black one but that discomfort has traditionally not been instigated by pogroms. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2010, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255/50 "2010-05-31T10:36:07Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > James Loewen is not what I consider a credible source. The man has an ideological view to promote and he selects his evidence to support it. You have some kind of citations to support this opinion, I assume? ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2010, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255/51 "2010-05-31T12:06:26Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Well.. it’s not. Not even close. You may not have cross burnings anymore, but there is a huge chunk of middle aged and older whites who think blacks are useless social parasites, and if they had the opportunity to go to a “whites only” bar or nightclub they might well take it. > > Do you disagree? But you see, the bad guys aren’t the ones who support segregation. The bad guys are the ones who oppose segregation and believe themselves entitled to use the power of the state to end it. People naturally prefer to associate with others like themselves, and demanding that they should not is both irrational and unjust. Even white liberals start moving out of a neighborhood along with the rest of the whites when they sense the neighborhood is becoming too dark. (The tipping point seems to be around 30%.) So long as it is not mandated by the state, there is no reason that whites–or anybody else–should not have their own racially exclusive communities and institutions. Unforced segregation is not evil. Forced integration is. ---
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2010, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255/52 "2010-05-31T13:49:26Z")
"Unforced segregation is not evil. Forced integration is. " George Wallace? Is that you? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2010, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255/53 "2010-05-31T14:19:32Z")
> [@](#): > > You have some kind of citations to support this opinion, I assume? If I listen to Rush Limbaugh I don’t need somebody to tell me he has an ideological bias - I can see it one my own. Same thing with Loewen when I read his books. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2010, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255/54 "2010-05-31T14:21:13Z")
> [@](#): > > George Wallace? Is that you? Heck, no. Wallace was a backslider who eventually said segregation was wrong. Not LonesomePolecat. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2010, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255/55 "2010-05-31T15:34:18Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > James Loewen is not what I consider a credible source. The man has an ideological view to promote and he selects his evidence to support it. So are you challenging parts of Loewen’s research, or are you challenging the entire premise that there were sundown suburbs? It can be a little difficult to find non-“ideological” sources to verify the existence of segregated communities. I looked up the official history of one of our local sundown suburbs. You’d have to flip back and forth between the town’s history and that of the local school district to determine there was any racial undertone behind the founding of the town whatsoever. I also looked up my own suburb’s official history of its annexation of a historically black neighborhood. Nowhere is it noted that the neighborhood not only was historically black, but that was because it was one of the few subdivisions in the county that allowed sales to blacks. It’s not the kind of thing that a lot of people are going to admit. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2010, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255/56 "2010-05-31T15:46:18Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > If I listen to Rush Limbaugh I don’t need somebody to tell me he has an ideological bias - I can see it one my own. Same thing with Loewen when I read his books. So the answer’s no then? ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2010, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255/57 "2010-05-31T15:47:58Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > There are several areas in this country, TODAY, that you don’t want to be caught in after dark. Even though that is because the failure of the law instead of the active actions of it, does it make a practical difference? Fixed. It has nothing to do with color. It has everything to do with the second part, where you opine that it’s race-based, but end up at a better reason with the relative failure of the law but don’t advance to the real reason: poverty. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2010, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255/58 "2010-05-31T15:52:30Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Unforced segregation is not evil. Forced integration is. Not in a Constitutional Republic. If a group of people are being subjugated to the whims of a majority, the Constitution must be upheld. If that means forcing the majority to stop denying rights to others because they have shown that they cannot manage it on their own (which has often been the case in American history), then simply maintaining the status quo is the biggest evil of all. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255/59 "2010-06-01T05:14:12Z")
One thing to keep in mind about the “jim crow” era was that much of the discrimination by business concerns was not by their choice, but rather that the law required them to maintain exclusive or separate accommodations. If you had the black half of your diner, bar, or hotel 3/4 empty, and an overflow crowd in the white half, you were shit out of luck. You had to turn away customers, even though you had plenty of excess capacity. In many cases, it was only the requirements of the law keeping every establishment equally non-competitive that prevented many business owners from going integrated. Of course there will always be people who will run segregated establishments if it’s legal to do so, but unless the law requires segregation, if your community is 6% bigot, only 6% of the bar seats will be segregated. There isn’t enough market to support more. Should segregation be allowed as long as it’s not mandated? That’s an argument I will leave to others, because I don’t give enough of a shit either way to bother debating. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255/60 "2010-06-01T11:44:44Z")
I agree some white only business would open, but it wouldn’t be nearly as bad as it was. I think people over 40 can remember the “bad days” and think the worst. The younger generation never knew and even worse, doesn’t want to learn. As a gay man, I lived through the worst of AIDS and HIV. But I find it astounding that young people today, don’t care about that. They almost all tell me, “Who cares, that’s past.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-privately-owned-businesses-thrive-or-fail-if-they-were-allowed-to-racially-discriminate/541255.md?page=2)