← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · kminta
Thread ID: 9122 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2003-08-18
2003-08-18 01:15 | User Profile
What happens to blacks who don't go along with the program? The same thing that happens to whites who don't go along with the program: they incur the wrath of the PC crowd.
[url=http://www.issues-views.com/index.php/sect/1005/article/1081]John Goode's Troubles[/url]
By Elizabeth Wright
[Reprinted from Issues & Views Summer/Fall 1999]
John Goode had no idea of what he was starting when he refused to have his small business officially declared a Disadvantaged Minority Business Enterprise. For one thing, he had no desire to waste his energies on the miles of paperwork that would be required for such designation by the bureaucracy in Austin, Texas.
For another, this black man wanted no part of the special favors set aside for those who happen to have his skin color. He simply wanted to sell his barbecue specialties at the city's Convention Center. Goode owned his own restaurant, Mr. Bones Barbecue, in North Austin, and planned to set up a food stand to take advantage of the crowds that attend the Center's special events.
In 1995, Goode signed a concessions contract with Fine Host Corporation, to whom he was to give a share of his sales. He was pleased with the arrangement and looked forward to the new venture. But then early the next year, Affirmation Action came to Austin with a vengeance. The City Council passed a law requiring racial quotas for all city contracting, which meant that all companies doing any kind of business with Austin had to set aside a percentage to minority subcontractors. This meant, of course, only certified minority contractors, or those who would pass through an official bureaucratic maze of qualifying litmus tests.
Pressure was put on the Fine Host company to get any blacks, hispanics, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, ad nauseum, with whom it had contracts, to certify themselves as "official minorities." When Goode refused on the grounds that he did not believe in set asides or Affirmative Action, he rocked Austin's racial preferences boat.
Goode wanted to know why Fine Host could not continue to treat him as a businessman on an equal footing with the other businesses with whom the company dealt--as it was set to do prior to the city's new law. Why must his status change, as if he were now some kind of charity case for whom the company must be forced to "set aside" a percentage of its business? Why must he now become a statistic needed by the company to fulfill the city government's mandated quota of blacks?
To shorten a lengthy story, in August 1996, John Goode's contract with Fine Host was terminated, putting an end to the revenues he had expected to earn to help establish a second restaurant to be located near the airport. He decided to make a legal challenge of the city's racial preferences, located a public interest law firm, and filed suit for wrongful and unfair dismissal.
But this story was not to have a happy ending. In 1999, the lawsuit was dismissed by an Austin federal judge, one well known for his liberal leanings. Goode's ensuing appeal to the Fifth Circuit court was denied because, in a bizarre twist of logic, it was ruled that because he is black, he cannot challenge racial preferences. Goode's case is now on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Update - May 15, 2000: On this date, John Goode lost his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court refused to review his case and provided no comment.
Earlier, the AP reported on Goode's lawsuit in the 5th U.S. Circuit: In 1996, Goode filed a civil rights lawsuit against the city and also sued Fine Host, saying it unlawfully canceled the contract for racially discriminatory reasons. A federal judge and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for the city and Fine Host. The Appeals Court claimed that Goode lacked legal standing to sue because he challenged an affirmative action program that "benefited rather than injured him." Goode's lawyer says that this ruling in effect would require minorities to accept a "stigma of inferiority."
Copyright é 2001 Issues & Views
2003-08-18 01:37 | User Profile
I feel sorry for the man, being put out of business because he refuses to accept affirmative action... but I have to say, this is intensely funny. :lol: It's yet another anecdote demonstrating that modern liberalism isn't about helping the naturally disadvantaged, but trying to shove an ideology completely removed from the real world down everyone's throat. Even if it hurts its supposed benefactors.