A publicity-seeking businessman in Wisconsin, who has a problem with black people, believes he has the right to serve and not serve whomever he wants.
So Mark Prior, who is planning to open a gentlemen's club in Abbotsford, Wis., has posted a "No Negroes Allowed" sign outside the site of his future store.
How many ways is Prior an idiot? Let me count the ways.
First of all, Prior doesn't even own an operating business on the site. At this point, it's just a vacant office building. That more than anything else shows Prior's true intention: to simply get a little publicity for his pointy-headed view on race.
Now back in the good ol' pre-Internet days before 24-hour news stations existed, Prior's little publicity stunt would affect only the few hundred people in his community. There might be a little protest, the local NAACP or ACLU might get involved, and that would be it.
But that was then. Now means that Prior will get coverage across news platforms on the Internet that will live on forever. For the rest of time, as we know it, news stories of Prior's sign will live on thanks to the Internet.
From there, Prior will likely draw the attention of a FOX or CNN reporter who will do a story and bring some national attention to tiny Abbotsford, Wisconsin, and its most infamous citizen.
Either way, civil rights law is pretty clear on Prior's gesture:
If he opens his business to the public, he will be breaking the Civil Rights Act of 1964. If he decides to make his club a private establishment, he might be able to discriminate. But with all the publicity that he has garnered, good luck trying to open that business and keep black people from entering.
I can only hope that this is the last time we ever hear of Mark Prior and his little racist sign.
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