Several years ago something happened that’s been a splinter in my mind ever since. It seems only right that I share the interesting agony with you fine folks.
I was hanging out with a friend (who is black — this is relevant to the story) and he told me a story about a bad experience he had at a restaurant. He tried out a new place for lunch near where he worked.
The joint was nearly empty, and yet the waiter lurked behind the counter when my friend came in and stood next to the “Please wait to be seated” sign. Eventually (and begrudgingly, it seemed), this lout sauntered over and led my friend to a table.
When my friend expressed preference for a booth (again, in the near empty place), the waiter grunted disgustedly, shook his head slightly, and then slowly, petulantly, and abrasively walked him the 3 paces necessary to bring him to the requested booth.
Things didn’t get better from there. The food order was screwed up, the waiter was grossly inattentive, despite having few customers. The food was okay-ish, but the whole experience really sucked because of this crappy waiter.
“Wow, what a jerk.” I said.
“Yeah, a racist jerk.” he replied.
That line could be delivered in a joking way, but I could tell my friend was serious. Which got me thinking: How would he ever be able to tell the difference between a crappy, rude waiter (or one having a bad day) and a racist waiter?
I mean… like, literally, how could he differentiate?
Over the years, I’ve had my share of crappy waiters who gave me bad service. But unlike my friend, I have the luxury of knowing they probably aren’t giving me bad service because they resent any immutable characteristics I have.
It’s got to be galling and frustrating being a physically identifiable minority living in a place where racism is a thing. We all experience bad service sometimes, in all manner of places, not just restaurants. But most of us just know we ran into a shitty employee, not a racist one.
Minorities always have a nasty explanation for such bad service. And that’s got to ruin your day if you think that’s the reason.
And it can cut across class lines as well. Picture the way the “mean shop ladies” in Pretty Woman treated Julia Roberts. Or the classic vision of the butler to a wealthy family looking down at poor people should they have occasion to come a-calling.
I’ve experienced a tiny bit of racist restaurant service out in the wild. I am (or was) a poker player on the west coast (California, Arizona, Nevada). This almost necessitates being friends with a bunch of Asians.
(If you are unaware, gambling is yuuuuuge in the Asian community).
Because of this, I’ve often gone with Asian friends to Vegas’s tiny version of Chinatown to eat all the delicious things that come from that corner of the world. And it doesn’t happen much, but every once in a while I’d meet a waiter who treated my friends just fine, but gave me the stink-eye and the cold shoulder.
So, I know racism exists in service industries. And also classism. But of course, these specific types of crappy servers are dwarfed by people in service jobs who just… suck. Or are, again, having a bad day or something.
And very very fortunately, these types of crappy servers are dwarfed by all the millions and millions of people out there who are great at their jobs.
But still, racism exists. And over the last few years, you could even argue it’s on the uptick in America. I blame this entirely on the left, due to their obsessive focus on race, particularly in the colleges and universities over the last 2-3 decades.
So if you are a minority in a place, every time you (like we all do) run into crappy service, you could wonder if it’s because that person is a racist.
Which just has to kinda suck.
I don’t have any brilliant insight to close this with. It’s just a thought that’s been in my head for a long time, and so I’m sharing it.
If you have any wisdom to share, please do so in the comment’s section. I’d love to hear from you.
Naturally,
Adam
Having been an employee of the company with the lowest customer satisfaction ranking in America, and having the guts to wear my uniform and employee badge in public, I'm pretty sure I've eaten more than my fair share of line cook loogies. But I try not to think about it, and learned to always tip extremely well for good service. Many biases and prejudices can be overcome with money and voting with your feet. There's the old saying in customer service that one bad experience will take out 5 additional sales (or 10, depending on who's telling the story), and these days if something goes viral it can destroy a business. You might not like a group of people, but are you willing to die on that hill?
Downside is that some people won't or cannot move on. They get the state or the courts involved. They expend hours of time and thousands of dollars (millions if it goes to the Supreme Court), that could have been put to use backing a startup competitor that wasn't so racist, in an attempt to force the racist to change their stripes. And like most animals when cornered, the racist shopkeeper will strike back, instead of just giving lousy customer service.
This is one application of awareness recursion. When activists raise awareness about their issue, they put its narrative in everyone's "mirrors," where most of the time there would have been nothing there. Culture is not what people believe; it's what people believe people believe. Raising awareness of something literally creates it.