JONATHAN TURLEY

Texas Attorney Under Fire For Sticker Campaign Declaring Businesses Are “Exclusively For White People”

Today we have been discussing the call for disbarment against a California attorney for seeking an anti-Gay measure for the state ballot. In Texas, you have another attorney who has attracted controversy over stickers on local businesses reading “exclusively for white people.” The shirtless Adam Reposa is seen in a video defending the campaign. [Warning this story contains foul language]

The stickers read “Maximum of 5 colored customers, colored [back of house] staff accepted” and feature a copy of the city’s logo.

Reposta sayd that his motivation is “pretty obvious” “[b]ecause it would be obvious that even though people know the real problem — and the real problem is that people without money are getting fucked. They’re getting pushed out, and pretty quick. This area of town is turning into whites only.”

Reposta in the video below further taunted his critics: “I knew I could just bait all of y’all into being as stupid as you are. Just allowing the issue to be framed in the most simple way — ‘Oh, he said an offensive term. Let’s not worry about the actual condition of the way things are, let’s worry about an offensive term.’”

In another video he criticizes a local politician who called him racist and notes that “To her, the worst thing is to make a joke and use the word ‘colored,’ not the reality that all the black people and Mexican people are getting kicked out of East Austin.”

Reposa appears to prefer appearance in shorts than suits in his video appearances:

The question is when such political speech becomes a matter for the bar as they were in California in the other case discussed today. These attorneys are engaged in political speech, though Reposa might be accused of a minor property trespass in the placement of stickers on businesses. Again, the question is where to draw the line if the bar proceeds against such individuals. In Reposa’s favor, while McLaughlin in California was calling for the killing of gay people, Reposa was railing against what he viewed as economic displacement and racism. Yet, civil rights leaders like Austin NAACP president Nelson Linder have denounced Reposa’s actions as fueling race problems: “It’s repugnant and also alarming, and also indicative of a mentality that doesn’t understand race relations. So if you’re trying to help race relations, you just did the worst thing you could possibly do.”

What do you think?