When I saw the news, two thoughts leaped readily to mind. First: The more things change, the more they stay the same. Second: You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
The news: The Cracker Barrel restaurant chain is under attack from America First Legal, a group closely aligned with the Orange Cult. The group claims that Cracker Barrel company policies discriminate against an oppressed, put-upon category of people: white folks. More specifically, white men. Straight white men.
Shoot, I thought we pale dudes ran everything. America First has asked the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Tennessee’s attorney general to investigate this perceived corporate injustice.
“Cracker Barrel’s policies openly discriminate against heterosexual, white, and male employees in favor of diverse employees,” the letter to the AG states.
Given their fealty to the Orange One and his anti-DEI obsession – as well as his many other obsessions – I expect both the commission and the AG to comply forthwith. Or at least to noisily signal agreement.
Meanwhile, Cracker Barrel executives must be thinking, “Are you kidding?” Expressed, perhaps, in more colorful language.
Cracker Barrel, for those who may not know, was founded in 1969 with a single restaurant in Lebanon. It has since expanded to more than 600 locations in 44 states, serving up Southern staples like chicken and dumplings, biscuits and sawmill gravy, turnip greens and fried okra while also housing a “country store” peddling all manner of candy, clothing and decor designed to appeal to informal tastes.
It’s downright hokey.
I love it.
As even America First’s senior legal counsel, Nicholas Barry, acknowledged in a news release: “Cracker Barrel is almost as American as apple pie.” Except I’d argue that it’s not “almost as,” but more American, since apple pie has its roots in England. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
And here’s the thing: America First Legal is not the first entity to accuse Cracker Barrel of discrimination. Back in the early 1990s, the company came under fire for a policy that required employees to display “normal heterosexual values.”
I don’t know what that meant – no hair glitter? no flannel shirts? – but, in any event, complaints and bad publicity forced an end to the policy.
Then in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was sued by employees and customers who claimed they had been discriminated against because of race. According to the law firm that handled the case, the complaints included:
• Paying Black workers less than white employees
• Segregating Black workers from other staff
• Ignoring and perpetuating racist slurs and comments
• Turning black customers away
• Allowing white staff members to refuse to serve black customers
That’s not all the complaints, but you get the gist. The Justice Department stepped in as a result of the suits, and Cracker Barrel agreed to a consent order that, the law firm states, required it to “adopt detailed nondiscrimination policies and publicize those policies; Implement a better system for addressing discrimination complaints; Conduct trainings on compliance with federal nondiscrimination law.”
And so, we presume, Cracker Barrel did. But here’s the problem: Complying with what used to be federal nondiscrimination law is now, owing to the Orange One’s whims and the Orange Cult’s obeisance, violating federal nondiscrimination law.
In other words, it used to be illegal to discriminate against gay people, Black people, brown or red or other minority-hued people. Now it is illegal to discriminate against straight white people.
And before you say that it should be illegal to discriminate against anyone, bear in mind that, to my knowledge, no white customers or employees have come forward to accuse Cracker Barrel of bias. This discrimination exists only in the imagination of America First Legal, an outfit founded by Stephen Miller.
Miller’s title is White House deputy chief of staff, but he is in practice the chief architect of anti-immigrant policy. It’s no stretch to see how opposition to DEI efforts can fit into the same mindset. He really seems to dislike a lot of people. Certain people.
So I suspect Cracker Barrel officials are scratching their heads right about now, wondering how to respond to this latest twist. And a third thought comes also to mind, this one from Saturday Night Live’s Roseanne Roseannadanna:
“It just goes to show you, it’s always something – if it’s not one thing, it’s another.”
Joe Rogers is a former writer for The Tennessean and editor for The New York Times. He is retired and living in Nashville. He can be reached at jrogink@gmail.com