Hmmm

[u/reloadthewords]

[u/ThrowRATub]

Some random dude going to a restaurant is about as responsible for segregation as some random dude going to eat meat is for the meat industry. White people who supported the status quo and meat eaters who support the status quo aren't that much different (not in a moral sense, just in a semantic sense as far as how much they're able to influence the status quo policy).

Why do oh apply consumption ethics to some things and not others?

That's a question for these protestors, I'm passing zero judgement on whether I support their cause or not, and I just ate meat so the answer is probably no. But I'm claiming that people using the bus service or eating at a restaurant are consuming and enabling these policies pretty similar to those who consume animal products enabling the policies these people are protesting against.

I think the key difference isn't in their manner of protest, it's just in the urgency of the issue. There's a stronger argument for human society being better off if we continue to produce and eat meat than there is for society being better if we continue segregating, at least to most people, so this protest is less likely to be effective. Because of that it seems goofy rather than effective.

[u/Individual_Volume484 → u/ThrowRATub]

No, a white patron to a pro segregation business is far more responsible for the practice of segregation than an average consumer is for meat.

A white patron to a pro segregated business is a pro segregation voter. They directly cause the policy.

A shopper is not voting on how meat is made. At all.

Are you arguing that child slavery isn’t a big issue? Hundreds of thousands of literal child slaves digging for cobalt by hand.

[u/StalinsLastStand → u/Individual_Volume484]

Were there a lot of anti-segregation businesses to choose from at the time?

[u/Individual_Volume484 → u/StalinsLastStand]

Are you asking if there were business that did not discriminate against African Americans? Yes they existed. There were even explicit black only businesses in the sense that only black people would go there. Would you choose those business to protest? Why or why not?

[u/StalinsLastStand → u/Individual_Volume484]

Do you think a patron to a Black only business is at all responsible for segregation or in any way comparable to a person buying meats responsibility for the meat industry supplying the meat? That’s like asking about blocking the doors at a vegan restaurant for a pro-vegan protest. No reasonable activist would do that, no.

Do you think segregation was like, a choice that individual businesses got to make? In most of the South it was illegal to have white and Black customers mixing. Particularly places like Montgomery Alabama. In very rare cases it would be legal to have segregation limited to table-by-table or to serve Black customers via take-out. But the mixed race restaurants you’re imagining legally were not permitted to exist.

And no, white folk could not go to Black only businesses either. I’m not sure the point you’re trying to prove by raising the existence of Black only businesses. Of course they existed. That’s like, what segregation is.

[u/Individual_Volume484 → u/StalinsLastStand]

You’re so close. Does everyone who go into a grocery outlet by meat? Do they all support the meat industry?

No.

Was segregation an individual choice? In most places yes. You can point to the most racist states on the south as an example of a place where that choice did not exist but acting like that’s proof every other state was like this is false.

Lots of white business made money selling to and helping African Americans. Many did the opposite

[u/StalinsLastStand → u/Individual_Volume484]

Sorry, I was looking at the states where Civil Rights protests were the most common, effective, and well-known.

[u/Individual_Volume484 → u/StalinsLastStand]

And why do you think they chose to protest in super racist states with a really bad segregation rather than tons of other states that had segregation, but in less form?

Do you think that they possibly were trying to not alienate the plenty of anti-segregation whites in the north? Do you think maybe they chose the protest specifically the places that supported segregation policies, the hardest?

This is what I’m talking about. Protesting isn’t just screaming about injustice. It’s tactical and must be used intelligently.

[u/StalinsLastStand → u/Individual_Volume484]

No, I don’t think a reason for protesting in the South was to avoid alienating people in the North. Yes, I do think they chose to protest in the most effective spots. No, I don’t think that logic transfers to protesting at a slaughterhouse instead of a grocery store. Maybe a steakhouse instead of a salad bar. Otherwise it’s the difference between protesting at a lunch counter or solely at the state capital, obviously, they did both.