Geno's steak shop in Philly

[piercehawkeye45]

Hates all non-whites and is a member of the KKK? Bit of a slippery slope there....

When someone says "This is AMERICA: WHEN ORDERING 'PLEASE SPEAK ENGLISH.", that tends to show xenophobia whether it is intended or not. He says he never denied customers and by the way Classicman described the place, I don't doubt that it was made with the best of intentions but the wording is very misleading.

If you say "This is AMERICA", that strongly implies nationalism, which directly leads to xenophobia so make that connection is not invalid. If the sign said "For the convenience of the store/workers/whatever, please speak in English", then to see xenophobia would the slippery slope in this situation.

[jinx]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

When someone says "This is AMERICA: WHEN ORDERING 'PLEASE SPEAK ENGLISH.", that tends to show xenophobia whether it is intended or not.

What about the people who say "I'm gonna speak my native language wherever I go and people better try to understand me or I'll consider it xenophobia"?

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by jinx

What about the people who say "I'm gonna speak my native language wherever I go and people better try to understand me or I'll consider it xenophobia"?

Strawman? I don't see how this fits in with our argument since you are now suggesting that the customers are making an ultimatum.

If a customer that does not speak English comes into the store expecting everyone to bow down to his or her wishes and calls everyone that does not xenophobic, that would obviously be logically flawed but that is irrelevant to this discussion.

As I said before, if the sign said "for the convenience of our store/workers/etc, please speak English", there would be no rational reason for controversy. That wording directly implies that the store has had problems with customers ordering in languages other than English in the past, which has caused problems so in order to solve this problem, the store asks customers to order in English. But because the wording is "This is AMERICA, PLEASE SPEAK IN ENGLISH", it is implied that the store asks customers to order in English because of nationalistic ties to the English language. And, you cannot have xenophobia without nationalism so even though it is invalid to conclude that the owner is xenophobic because the nationalistic-xenophobic relationship is just a stereotype, the generalization will happen because most xenophobes use nationalism as their justification for their English-only stance.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

If a customer that does not speak English comes into the store expecting everyone to bow down to his or her wishes and calls everyone that does not xenophobic, that would obviously be logically flawed but that is irrelevant to this discussion.

Incorrect IMHO, it happens daily in many parts of the US. As others have said if people don't like they can take their money elsewhere. I have a feeling this guy is not going to go bust when they do.

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Incorrect IMHO, it happens daily in many parts of the US. As others have said if people don't like they can take their money elsewhere. I have a feeling this guy is not going to go bust when they do.

Some blacks say "kill all white people" daily, but that isn't something that can legitimately be used in a race relation argument without trying to pull fear into the equation.

I honestly don't care what this guy does, I personally believe if he made the sign with no intentions of being nationalistic, he worded the sign badly, but other than that this has no meaning to me. Unless there is a big campaign about it, I agree that this will probably neither help nor hurt the store.