North Las Vegas Mayor Celebrates Black Businesses. There's Just One (Huge) Problem.

Just in time for the final weekend of Black History Month, people are virtually up in arms as segregation comes to the city of North Las Vegas — just maybe not the people you expect.

LibsOfTikTok brought to national attention this week North Las Vegas Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown's video announcement of the city-sponsored Black-Owned Business Fair. It sounds like a fun event, with a couple of food trucks — one featuring braised and grilled meat, yum! — and live music. If I were a North Las Vegas small business owner, I'd love to set up a booth there and have some good times with potential customers.

The problem is, I'm white, and the city is putting on a fair where whites at the very least won't feel welcome. "Segregation" is the word for that, and it's illegal as hell.

But Mayor Goynes-Brown is a Democrat and it's (D)ifferent when they do it, of course. But you knew that already.

Here's the mayor's official announcement that her office posted to social media, courtesy of LibsOfTikTok.

BREAKING: The Mayor of @CNLV announces the city will discriminate against white business owners.

The city is holding a fair this weekend and only black-owned businesses & vendors are allowed to operate there.

This is government sanctioned and taxpayer funded racism. pic.twitter.com/z0iEdv4xQ3
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 20, 2024

I'm not nearly as upset as some people seem to be. Goynes-Brown probably meant well (not that that's an actual excuse) and, besides, any city with a stealth bomber on its flag is going to get a whole lot of slack cut by me.

ASIDE: To her credit, LibsOfTikTok, AKA Chaya Raichik, has the Left so upset some are accusing her of virtual murder. That's a story for another column but I wanted to mention it to give you an idea of how brave Raichik is. The Left has painted a target on her back but she keeps doing what she's doing.

The online scuffle broke out early Tuesday morning. The city seems to have backed down at near-light speed, with a spokesperson telling The National Desk later the same day that "all businesses were able and welcomed to participate in the community event."

I'm trying not to be too nit-picky but that doesn't sound like much of a black-owned business event any longer.

I'm not trying to be snide, either — at least not this once. It's just that Goynes-Brown got herself into one of those completely avoidable Damned If You/Damned If You Don't situations. First, she had the city — this is an important distinction — sponsor a black-only event. If you're thinking, "There's no way that's legal," then we're in total agreement. If a private organization wants to put on an event exclusive to black-owned businesses, that's one thing. But having the government splitting us up by race is a big no-no — which, as a nation, we correctly decided six decades ago.

But now Goynes-Brown looks to her most important constituency like she backed down to the dreaded LibsOfTikTok.

The announcement of Goynes-Brown's segregated business fair comes just two months after Boston Mayor Michelle Wu got busted for her "Electeds of Color Holiday Party" after the email invitation accidentally went out to the "wrong" people. Wu was eventually forced to apologize — but only for sending the invitation to people who weren't supposed to be invited. She left out the matter of why they weren't supposed to be invited.

Having been caught in a similar trap of her own making — does Goynes-Brown not know how social media works? — the mayor appears now to be effectively celebrating Privately Owned Business Month with her open-to-all-races fair.

Really, shouldn't every month be a celebration of Privately Owned Business?