UB,
I wish the "Mom and Pop" MYTH would JUST GO AWAY!
I have been subjected to SEVERE prejudice and treatment at those "beloved bastions of free enterprise" you worship enough times to AVOID THEM LIKE THE PLAGUE (which was their intention, of course).
ALL those big box stores all over this country HELPED minority NON-WHITES to get fair treatment and reasonable prices. All the evils of those giant efficient store systems made a few people horribly rich and have shafted many WHITE small town employees and store owners along the way. That was, and is, WRONG. But moaning and groaning about the "saintly" Mom and Pop stores scares the
**** out of minorities. WHY? Because it is CODE SPEECH for nostalgia for the "good old" RACIST days!
MOM AND POP STORES were the bigotry and price gouging FRONT LINE against people like me in this country before the big box stores came along. THEY STILL ARE in Vermont and other places not totally Walmartized. I KNOW what Mon and Pop restaurants and bed and breakfasts I WANT TO AVOID (ALL of them) if I know what is good for me.
I STOPPED going even to chain restaurants AND fast food outlets several years ago, not for health reasons (although now that is the main reason I don't eat out ANYWHERE). BECAUSE of the dirty looks and delayed service. I was even treated to a caterpillar in my lettuce at a Friendlies Restaurant. I said nothing. My wife had her leg in a cast and I didn't want to ruin the meal for her. So I casually covered the little fellow with my napkin. At first, since the waitress was friendly, I thought it was just one of those things. However, I noticed somebody from the kitchen walked by and looked at me out of the corner of his eye TWICE. I was NOT attracting any attention.
And Friendlies isn't even "Mom and Pop"! You DON'T want to know about the looks I have received at other chain restaurants from rather large, white and menacing looking Vermonters.
Forget venturing into one of those "Mom and Pop" places they have here. At a "Mom and Pop" hardware store I waited a full 10 minutes while THREE attendants studiously avoided eye contact with me while talking in a group. There were NO OTHER COSTUMERS IN THE STORE. I never went back there (which was their plan, of course).
I DO NOT BELIEVE in the "FREEDOM" of people to treat other people like
****, GET IT!!? If you open a business for HUMAN BEINGS TO EAT AT or SLEEP AT, you DO NOT have the "right" to treat people poorly because you think they are LESS THAN YOU.
THAT is what those MOM AND POP
**** ACTUALLY BELIEVED WAS (and IS) their "right".
BUL LS HIT!
I'm GLAD Walmart, Lowes, Home Depot and so on DESTROYED the racist based profits of those Mom and Pop stores!
And millions upon millions of blacks/Hispanics/orientals/brown people FEEL EXACTLY THE SAME WAY!FU CK the Mom and Pop ASS HOLES who nurtured, protected and profited from a RACIST SYSTEM. Put that in your Libertarian pipe and SMOKE IT!