Czech Republic: Café says it will only serve "adaptable" customers

There probably is no need to extensively justify the unwritten social rule that if someone disrupts the social order of those peacefully sipping espresso at the Chat Noir Café in Brno to such an extent that it is intolerable, that person can understandably be asked to leave. When, however, the café announces it is forbidding entry to "inadaptables", some prefer to suppress their desire for coffee and give the place a miss.  

A visitor to the Chat Noir has warned readers of the HateFree Culture Facebook page of her recent experience there. A waitress explained to her and her friends that "Gypsies" had recently begun frequenting the place, which is why she had been using signs reading "Reserved" to pretend that all of the free places were taken, but she said that they (evidently identified as members of the privileged "non-Gypsy" part of the population) could take a seat – at which point the visitor and her friends got up in protest and left.

Others, however, still frequent the Chat Noir and according to their posts to its Facebook page, they apparently do so to express support for ethnic cleansing and for this selective approach toward customer service. The owner, according to these messages of support, should not be deterred from this policy by "left-wing Pollyannas", "Utopians", "pseudo-humanists" or "crypto-who-knows-whats".    

A sweet little wish was even posted to the Facebook page from a new fan of the Chat Noir hoping that the young woman who drew attention to the conditions of service at the venue will "soon be raped by an inadaptable". Nothing like decent customers, is there?

The owner of the Chat Noir has evidently also done his best to communicate his policy on its Facebook page, where in capital letters he has written in his commentaries that there is "NO ENTRY FOR INADAPTABLES". Perhaps shocked by the subsequent paeans to those who would improve his business that were then posted by many very "adaptable" citizens, however, he then attempted to post a more refined version of the message, writing:  "An inadaptable guest, however you state it, is not a term used against Romani people, but against those who disrupt the peace and quiet in our café through their inadaptable behavior."  

It is, of course, strange that many of the fans of the Chat Noir are shooting down the owner’s alibi by basically talking about Romani people anyway, for the most part. It is even weirder that one customer has posted a comment describing himself as a dark-skinned Greek, describing the Greeks as a noisy nation, and then saying that the staff of the Chat Noir has always been very friendly toward him and his friends and has never kicked them out.  

That moves this story a bit further down the road. Apparently a bit of a fuss and some noise are basically not such a difficulty – as long as Romani people are not the ones making the fuss.

What’s the problem? Behavior or ethnicity?

The owner has completely specifically described the behavior he does not intend to tolerate, and that is the consumption of beverages and food from elsewhere inside the Chat Noir or in its garden. That is completely in order.  

These awkward explanations of the rules of decent behavior, however, then significantly clash with the owner’s subsequent exclamation that he is forbidding entry to "inadaptables" and the information from the waitress as to whom she basically means by that term. What is actually the main problem here?

Is it the bothersome, specific behavior of a specific individual, or is ethnic affiliation all it takes? This probably is not completely a question for the owner, because he has objected to the narrow interpretation of "inadaptable" as the equivalent of "Romani".  

The answer is provided by the existing or newly recruited customers of the Chat Noir, who feel the need to express their views of the situation and to explain to the owner the content of the concept he has used – sometimes with an ingenuous openness. It seems this is a unique opportunity, at least in the virtual world, for them to both shout about and then mutually soothe each other with the idea that they are the adaptables, the decent ones, those who speak in public in undertones.  

These are people who say "Hello" to passers-by, bow at the waist when thanking someone, and then sit down at their computers and wish rape on someone. That’s certainly the mark of a top-quality soul, of benefit to society.  

These citizens, so honest and proper whatever the circumstance, are unaware that the objection they have repeated so many times – that it is exclusively up to the owner of a business whom he permits to enter his facility-  does not hold up under the rule of law. Even the owner of the Chat Noir is a citizen of a country where, fortunately, the Constitution and laws apply that ban discrimination on the basis of age, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc.  

We know what category someone ends up in who breaks the laws and the rules of respectable society. He ends up in that category he created for the others  – the "inadaptables".