How to protect free speech rights of low-wage black waiter in red state?

"Wokeness" provides a better answer than tradition

A few weeks ago, The New York Times published a piece examining the A.C.L.U.’s evolution on how it fights to protect free speech rights. Many excoriated the venerated civil liberties organization for allegedly caring less about free speech than something they derisively call social justice.

Once a bastion of free speech, the A.C.L.U. faces an identity crisis

I noted that the group still cared about protecting free speech, just not solely in a way traditionalists would approve.

Challenging traditional views of objectivity isn’t a call to lower standards but to reexamine them

Here’s an example why that distinction is important. Tell me the best way to ensure free speech rights for this man, a black 30-something waiter with dreadlocks who lives here in South Carolina:

I met him exactly once. I was on a lunch break when I was a senior reporter and editorial page editor for The Sun News. It was a Southern-style buffet restaurant (one of a gazillion in the area). He was the only black person on the staff, at least the front-facing staff. He came up to me and quietly whispered that a white man sitting a few booths said this to him: “Boy, get me some more sweet tea.”

Boy, in that instance, felt like “nigger” to that black waiter. He told his supervisor and a few other colleagues, all of whom we were. Each of them told him to suck it up and move on, that maybe the man didn’t mean much by it. That white man, by the way, was a well-known owner of another popular local restaurant.

That’s why he turned to me - literally the only other black person in the restaurant at the time. He was clearly hurt but also felt trapped. He could not say anything to the white man who called him boy. And if he made a fuss, it would have jeopardized his job in a market where annual wages are among the lowest in the nation anyway. That’s why I’m not naming the restaurant, because it was clear that he knew raising any kind of stink about this could hurt him and his family, make it harder to pay his bills.

Can you tell me what’s the best way to ensure that people in his situation will be able to exercise their free speech rights? And I’m not taking any copout answers. Free speech defenders have long argued for the spirit of the First Amendment, not the letter of the law. They’ve argued for the freest speech possible, the broadest possible interpretation. That’s why they love it when the A.C.L.U. defends even avowed white supremacists. The broader the interpretation — even when it hurts — the harder it will be to upend the principle of free speech.

In this case, how can the A.C.L.U. or any other organization most effectively help that black waiter? I say by advocating the kind of social justice push many of the newer generation of lawyers at the A.C.L.U. are calling for even as traditionalists deem them too “woke”. Academic theories and well-crafted legal arguments in court won’t help him. Only empowering him and others like him will, and that means worker protections and higher wages and more options. Am I wrong?