If the operators of the Tavern at Phipps in Buckhead thought they were promoting Southern gentility, they had a funny way of showing it.

Former NBA player Joe Barry Carroll claims in a federal lawsuit that he and another black man were asked to give up their seats at the tavern's bar for two white women on Aug. 11, 2006. He claims it was racially motivated, noting that none of the white men were asked to do the same.

The tavern's owner argues that race had nothing to do with it and gender had everything to do with it. "That's the way we like to do business. It's a courtesy to our female guests," the owner told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution .

Was it racially motivated? We don't know, though we'd be horrified if it was.

We do know, however, that you can extend all the courtesy you like -- but it's an untenable proposition to try to coerce someone else into doing the same.

Given this nation's history with regard to race, repeatedly asking two black men to give up their seats to two white women doesn't seem like the best of ideas to us -- to put it delicately. Perhaps, instead, the barkeep could have simply announced to all the blokes at the bar that two ladies were in need of a seat. Someone might have volunteered.

But having asked the two gentlemen in question once, and having been rebuked, a gentleman might also have left it alone.

Can you force someone to be a gentleman?

And if you try, isn't that, in itself, ungentlemanly?