Racism and anti-semitism
It seems these are au courant topics right now. It makes me think of all the incidents in my life.
You can find anti-semitism and racism without even searching for it.
Chambers of Commerces are supposed to represent the best interests of the business communities in their areas. My buddy and I were small businesspersons who published magazines, directories and guides. We set up meetings to discuss doing business directories with three Central Florida Chambers Of Commerces. I should mention these meetings were in the mid-90s and not the antebellum south. Even though a lot of time has passed I will omit the names of the ones where i heard the bigoted comments. I will not omit the one where the Executive Director acted professionally and didn't make disparaging remarks about anybody. That was Deltona, where i grew up...
In one Chamber of Commerce we were told that we would probably be unsuccessful because a lot of the merchants have names that end in precious stones and they would be too cheap to buy advertising.
In another Chamber of Commerce we were talking about clubs to the secretary who was about our age at the time- lates 20s, and she said she used to go to the ABC in her town but the clientele became too dark so she stopped.
We still talk about it today, some twenty years later, as "remember when we called on those Chambers and heard all those racist and anti-semitic comments.