Capitalism Is Not The Answer

Happy Friday! My adopted home state of Virginia makes me proud once again. This time it's because it includes one lady with a lot of junk to sell and a dream. And that dream is that no Muslims or queers show up to her yard sale.

Road trip, y'all!

JK.

Anyway, seriously. She wants to be sure to not sell her stuff to gay people or brown people (what about gay brown people?). No "LGBT people, illegal immigrants, and muslims, anyone else is warmly welcomed! no drama, terrorism, or illegal transactions with non-US citizens / illegal immigrants / people taking jobs away from people who belong and are legal in this country is desired."

So first and foremost, we know she's barely literate. Second and secondlymost, I love how it looks like she thinks the queers bring the drama, the Muslims bring the terrorism, and the "illegal immigrants" bring the illegal transactions. #stereotypeFridays

This is a good illustration of how the free market is not going to solve inequality, the way some libertarians (*cough*Rand Paul*cough*) seem to think it will. I've heard people argue that capitalism will prevent discrimination because people will always want to sell their stuff to whoever will pay for it, so obviously restaurants will always seat black people! That's how it's always been!

Right?

No, of course not. That's what Jim Crow was all about: white supremacy, and not thinking that black peoples' money was as good as white peoples' money. If black people couldn't shop at Macy's, Macy's made less money, but it was participating in the myth of white supremacy, and that was worth more to the bigots. See? So this dumb woman in Virginia cares less about being able to sell all her garbage at her yard sale than about making sure she sells it to the "right" people.

We can't let everything in this country be privatized if we want to make sure everyone has equal access, because the people who have all the stuff we need access to can be jerks. So just because I'm a gaywad or you're Latin American (and therefore she can't tell if you're "legal," because straight white people are always totes legit, and as though there is such a thing as an illegal human being) she can tell us that we can't come into her yard and buy her My Little Ponies. And that ain't right.