[amrogoed] No smoking

Smoking falls roughly along class lines in the United States.  Mentally rewrite "No Smoking" signs as "Whites Only".  One can see class warfare in action.  The signs and their enforcement are a politically correct way of making certain classes feel uncomfortable and unwelcome from a place.

Of course, one can look at the present and be ashamed at history repeating itself.  Beyond that however, I suspect understanding the present allows us to far better understand the past.

"No Smoking" in the present is not intended to be class warfare; it is ostensibly intended to ally a specific, tangible, real health concern: second-hand smoke.  Similarly, "Whites Only" in the past I suspect was not a manifestation of simple hatred of race but of something far more specific, tangible, and real.  I suspect the conflict was over something deeper, which only happened to correlate well with skin color.  (Perhaps what some nowadays call "safe space".)  Racism isn't racism, and thinking it is is what causes history to repeat itself.