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?
looks like an gay unemployed shyster to me
John Smith said ..
I found his antics thought provoking
How so? Just what is “thought provoking” in blatant race hustling? Have you actually spent much time in gentrified areas to get a feel for the demographics in it? How is a small business owner supposed to feel if 1/4 or 1/3 or 1/2 of his/her customers are “of color?”
I don’t want the fool prosecuted for a criminal trespass, but I’d love to seem him jacked up on multiple tort liability charges. Just some angry shop owner kicking the snot out of him a couple times would suffice as well. Why does this guy think his 1st Amendment rights include trespass and defacing the private property of others? How would he like it if a similar “attack” were mounted on his house?
Ari
All of these people spend so much time in front of TV with cocktails watching reality show being subliminally programmed they think that something like that is a reality show inside of a reality show.
I found his antics thought provoking. It will be a shame if he is subject to lawyer discipline……… However, it would only be fair for satirical racism to earn the same potential ethical penalties under RPC 8 that sincere racism does.
I’m sorry, did I hear him admit to vandalizing private property?
Tom Blanton
What a crock of Chit. do you realize that there have been laws passed so that is highly illegal sir? People go to jail for that and when the 2nd Civil Rights act passed in 1968 it redefined everything – The Civil Rights Act signed into law in April 1968–popularly known as the Fair Housing Act–prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin and sex.
Fair Housing Act of 1968 – Black History – HISTORY.com
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/fair-housing-act
History
I used to be a Real Estate Agent and that is some real bull pucky you just pulled.
TJustice I don’t know what your game is or why you are right behind this poster so I imagine it’s a game of sorts since you are now playing along with the truther person who is actually someone else who likes to cause hate and dissent wherever he goes.
I am tired of these remarks in perfectly amusing flowing conversations. There is no action like in 1964. It is illegal and you go to jail for it. Trust me. You cannot game the system.
Freaking absurd crybabies Grow up
Tom Balnton said…
And often it is white progressive hipsters with money who displace minorities and low-income residents … often it is white progressive hipsters with money who displace minorities and low-income residents.
What part of my description of “gentrification” in Detroit did you not understand? I’m not guessing and I visit the area regularly…about half white and half black with a fraction of Asians like my kid. Your obsession with the “white” aspect is nonsense, and “telling.” If I am wrong, and that’s possible, explain please.
Do you think black successful people should not live in “gentrified” locales? Are you aware the the greatest loss of population in Detroit has been successful black families moving out to the suburbs? Some how the younger among them are not supposed to stick around and live in gentrified areas? If so, why not?
Never mind that here the city & state has renovated low-income housing so that many low income black families can live in their own neighborhoods alongside low income whites? No more Brewster Project high rise crap holes, similar to Chicago’s old Cabrini Green? Is the modernization of places like Herman Gardens (among the worst old ghetto communities) somehow “displacing” black families, who of course do not want a safe and secure, clean , neighborhood?
Please.
After reading this article and the posts by some posters, many suffer from various psychological disorders.
DBQ:
It’s interesting that you mentioned property taxes. As you know, here in CA, rising property taxes drove the elderly and the poor out of their homes when their property values increased. Prop 13 helped with that, but Liberals keep trying to remove Prop 13, at least for businesses. Inexplicably, they think businesses can absorb what individual people cannot.
I wonder if this attorney thinks property taxes are racist, because as a neighborhood appreciates, the property taxes increase, and the poor are driven out.
What if reposa never even said he made the stickers and just said “Why I did it” as a means to show that folks who rely on MSM don’t have their facts straight when they get fingers on fire. I try lawsuits. I argue for a living, not type. I wasn’t lawyering……..I was performing.
His website lists the results of ‘his trials’:
“I can show you the in-car videos from actual cases in which I have gotten jury acquittals.
I routinely go to trial on cases in which other lawyers have advised their clients to plead no contest and take a conviction.
I have tried many DWI’s to judges and juries in Travis, Williamson, McKinney and Denton Counties.
In Travis County alone I have tried at least five second-offense DWIs and countless DWI first-offense cases. I have lost more DWI trials than I can remember.”
Where’s the beef?”
I agree about the teeth.
He’s like an Osmond Brother gone bad.
Tom Blanton
Great post. I think it’s spot-on
I don’t think the bar should be involved in political speech. For years there have been powerful practicing attorneys associated with the KKK or like-minded groups and the bar did not do a thing… But when it comes to an issue that the bars creators and establishment figures dislike, then lets try and draw a line at political speech.
National Lawyers Guild > Any Bar Association
I think it was Captain Beefheart who opined that everyone is colored or else you wouldn’t be able to see them.
Here’s the thing about gentrification. It isn’t just a consequence of economics in most cities. It usually occurs because of tax breaks in the form of rehab credits and often involves grants and subsidies. Developers and land owners (who bought cheap) lobby the local government for these tax breaks, subsidies and grants as well as zoning changes, etc. and sell it as economic development to invigorate the economy and increase the tax base.
So it isn’t just about free markets and economics, it is about politics. And the politics of gentrification often leads to displacement. And often it is white progressive hipsters with money who displace minorities and low-income residents.
So, it’s not like about really mean racists kicking the people of color out of their neighborhoods, it’s like bringing in really cool people that just happen to be white and have rich parents. It’s the inequality that the mean people have created that makes it so these people of color can’t live in a really hip neighborhood with all the cool people.
I’ll bet all the enlightened progressive politicians and groovy real estate investors wish people of color had more money so they could live with the cool people.
He is a lawyer. Nuff said.
Said another way, is it a bad thing if “anyone of color,” including my “of color” daughter who lives in the gentrified city core, succeeds? Other than it reduces the celebrate cause of guys like Reposa?
Also….he has too many teeth. Never trust an extremely toothy guy (or gal)
😀
Question: Mr Reposa is an attorney? Who on earth in their right mind would hire him.
Question: Why does the newly gentrified area in Detroit’s central city core seem to have a diverse mix of white and black plus a few Asians? Is it a bad thing anyone manages to succeed?
It seems that there is also, as Mike Appleton mentioned, a defamation component and harm to the businesses. If people believe these stickers and patronage goes down because of his actions, I would think the businesses would have a cause of action to sue Mr. Reposa.
I hope they do.
Aside from potential damage of trespass committed by placing the stickers on privately owned property, Mr. Reposa seems well witihn his rights. I’d go so far as to say that his was a successful activist stunt, and his tactic represents as rather intuitive understanding of the social climate–look at college campuses with their tirgger alerts and sensitivity rules: we’ve become a nation of thin-skinned lightweights, trembling at mere words and waging desperate war against ideas. In a way, this is little different than the reality show in which actors go to public places and do repugnant things while a hidden camera films the reactions of bystanders. Mr. Repose used something ugly to draw attention to something he thinks is important. As for gentrification being a race or economic issue–I’d argue that the two factors are irrevocably intertwined, but it doesn’t matter here. He could be arguing that pumpkin farms are the true source of global warming–the issue is about his means, not his point.