This week’s Sunday Smack inspiration comes from the North Carolina General Assembly’s decision to overrule a Charlotte ordinance which banned discrimination against LGBT people. The legislature also banned North Carolina cities from passing LGBT non-discrimination laws, as well as regulating local minimum wages.
However, the mounting pressure being placed on North Carolina by large organizations such as Facebook, Apple, NBA, IBM, NCAA, and major Hollywood Studios — entities which conduct consequential business with the state — could provide compelling economic reasons for the legislature to reverse its reversal.
Many equate the LGBT community’s quest for equality in America with the Black civil rights movement of the 1960s.
I generally think a debate over whether or not the comparison is valid would be a waste of electrons — everyone deserves equal rights, after all.
But for the sake of this Sunday Smack, let’s run with the idea that the two groups’ struggles are mirror images of each other.
And let’s also assume the recent voter ID laws passed by North Carolina and other states — legislative measures which adversely and disproportionately affect African descendant citizens — are what opponents call extensions of a state-sponsored war on civil rights.
These assumptions make my Sunday Smack obvious: “Should businesses conduct economic boycotts against states to protect African descendants’ voting rights?” Why or why not?
song currently stuck in my head “landcrusin’” – ak
mentalunrest.com 