The Civil Rights Movement Disrupted Meals Too
Pundits often reflexively denigrate direct action. They should reconsider.
When conservatives and centrists want to highlight the excesses of the left during the Trump era, they often point to disruptions of dinner.
When a small restaurant in Virginia refused to serve Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders because of her role in the Trump administrations child separation policies, the Washington Post editorial board penned an op-ed insisting that, in the name of civility, the left should “Let the Trump Team Eat in Peace.” Similarly, when Texas Senator Ted Cruz and his wife were driven from a DC restaurant by protestors opposed to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, Georgia’s Augusta Chronicle called for “all of us to stand together against out-of-control tantrum-throwing bullies dressed up as protesters who are harassing public servants in restaurants.”
And last week, after antiracist Black Lives Matter protestors in Rochester took over restaurants and forced patrons to leave, Arc Digital editor Berny Belvedere chastised the activists, writing that “there’s no interest to persuade or win people over using the techniques befitting a democratic society. The idea is to ‘force’ solidarity. Yet on both pragmatic *and* philosophical grounds, this approach is patently…
