The retired NBA All-Star and a friend claim they were ousted from the bar of a ritzy Atlanta restaurant because they were black. The restaurant says they weren't the victims of a discriminatory policy, but a long-standing practice rooted in Southern hospitality that allows women a seat at the bar when the place is packed.
Those arguments were made Monday at the start of the weeklong federal trial of a lawsuit filed by Joe Barry Carroll and attorney Joseph Shaw. The two say they were humiliated when a security guard escorted them from the Tavern at Phipps when they refused to give up their seats to a couple of white women, an action they say was part of a broader pattern of discrimination against blacks.
"You're probably thinking: Two black gentlemen go to a bar - this is a joke," Jeffrey Bramlett, an attorney for the men, told the jury during opening arguments. "But it's no joke. The evidence will show a serious civil rights violation."
The restaurant's lawyers said the men were asked to give up their seats as part of a long-standing "good manners" practice that's been in place at the restaurant for 20 years. Attorney David Long-Daniels said thousands of men have complied with those rules, from stars like Michael Jordan to the other men at the bar the night of the incident.
"Chivalry is not dead," he said. "And it's not a civil rights violation to give up your seat to a woman."
The standoff over the seats took place on a Friday night in August 2006 when Carroll, who played parts of 10 seasons in the NBA starting in the 1980s, and Shaw sat and the end of a bar and ordered a few beers, a few appetizers and some liquor. As the crowd grew thicker, a bartender offered them complimentary drinks to move, but they declined.
Post je objavljen 14.09.2011. u 09:30 sati.