Last week, Cracker Barrel reached a civil rights agreement with the Justice Department after the government concluded that black diners have faced discrimination in roughly 50 Cracker Barrel restaurants over a five-year period. According to the government, some black customers were segregated, while others were refused service altogether by white waiters.

I can’t say this is implausible. All you have to do is drive around the South and notice where Cracker Barrels are located: Usually just off the interstate, adjacent to areas almost exclusively filled with, well, crackers. And while the malfeasance was probably limited to the local employee level – “We don’t want your kind around here!” – those at the Cracker Barrel corporate level had to know something was going on. But in another example of the non-justice the South is so historically good at, Cracker Barrel avoided prosecution by agreeing to institute a program to prevent discrimination from ever happening again, the same discrimination that they say never happened in the first place.

Now, I know it's 2004, and black folks obviously have the right to eat wherever they want to, but, at the risk of sounding insensitive, I think it’s important to point out that the restaurant is called Cracker Barrel.

CRACKER Barrel!

It should be obvious that those who named the restaurant chain did not have the wishes of black people in mind. Perhaps if they’d named it “Honky House,” all confusion might have been avoided.

And all this confusion raises probably the biggest (and most important) question:

Is it OK for a business to target white people?

Virtually every race and nationality has its own specialty shop. Except white people.

When something is geared towards white people, it’s immediately deemed insensitive, racist, hateful, etc. But the fact remains that there are some things that (for the most part) are only liked by white people.

The last time I checked, I don't remember seeing many black people in a mad rush to buy an Andy Griffith cookie jar, a John Deere figurine, a Gone With The Wind jigsaw puzzle, or one of those big, corduroy dresses with apples or strawberries sewn on them that your second grade teacher used to wear. Not that they can’t buy those things if they so choose.

Come to think of it, I haven't seen many white people down at the Hair Wonder Beauty Supply buying Beverly Johnson signature hair extensions, at the Soul Man Shop buying Kangol hats, or at the corner of Germantown and Brainerd buying bootleg Lil' Kim CD's. Not that white people can’t buy those things if they so choose. (OK, so the hair extensions would look a little bizarre on any white person other than Kenny G…)

It’s all about marketing, and money knows no color. Different businesses target different people, and Cracker Barrel (whether they know it or not) targets white people who like to drive for hours and hours and then sit in a rocking chair next to some other white people for another hour while they wait for a table so they can go inside with even more white people and be served a meal by a (usually) white waiter or waitress wearing a brown apron.

But some black folks like to eat there, too, and I find it ridiculous that anybody has a problem with that.

Luckily, our local Cracker Barrel restaurants seem perfectly happy to serve their down-home goodness to anyone dumb enough to wait around that long to eat it.