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Speaking only for what my daughter has told me, she and her coworkers don't mistreat or provide lesser service to black customers. They'd get fired. There are corporate rules and protocols the servers must follow for ALL customers. It's just that when they see a black party coming in for dinner, they are prepared for the likelihood that they will be poorly tipped. Sometimes they are proven wrong, and they are happy to be proven wrong, obviously. But they still must provide the same level of service because if they don't, the customers will complain whether they are decent tippers or not, and the server will get into trouble or lose his or her job.
I was just bringing that up as a heads up for those who feel justified in treating Blacks poorly.
I've worked in the restaurant industry. Majority of my customer issues came from the elderly. I seldom had an issue with Blacks.
I've never really asked why there were Blacks that tipped poorly. I felt like it didn't apply to me. I know I will tip well. I never had that kind of curiosity to ask "why".
However, there are times when I wonder why so many people are obsessed about Blacks.
I was just bringing that up as a heads up for those who feel justified in treating Blacks poorly.
I've worked in the restaurant industry. Majority of my customer issues came from the elderly. I seldom had an issue with Blacks.
I've never really asked why there were Blacks that tipped poorly. I felt like it didn't apply to me. I know I will tip well. I never had that kind of curiosity to ask "why".
However, there are times when I wonder why so many people are obsessed about Blacks.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I think it's because we have this weird situation here in the US where we had an entire large group of people who lived a separate existence from the majority, and their culture developed separately in different ways, and the basis for this separation was simply that they looked very different from the majority population. Other groups of white people had assimilation issues at some point--Italians were not considered really white and were viewed as something less than clean and acceptable for a generation or two, the Irish had their history of discrimination related to their religion, as did the Jews, who merrily separated THEMSELVES and didn't care much about what others thought as long as they weren't being persecuted. But, these people looked an awful lot like the rest of us and so it was hard to keep them separate after a while.
So this separate, different-looking group that had been stripped of its language, religion, culture, etc., developed its own unique culture--probably the only true American-born culture. They speak differently, they worship differently, they cook differently, their music is different, even though they've been part of this country as long as the predominant northern European-descended culture.
And the majority is curious about these differences. The problem is that the curiosity sometimes morphs into disrespect or scorn of those differences.
Just my opinion. FYI, I grew up in an all-white town by parents who taught us that prejudice was wrong, but we never had to put that teaching into practice because there weren't any black people around anyway. But I was an avid reader, and in my town library there was a whole shelf full of biographies of famous Americans, including George Washington Carver, Frederick Douglass, Mary McLeod Bethune, Harriet Tubman, etc.--famous Americans that white kids weren't taught about in school in the 1960s. The beginning of my own fascination with the fact that there were two Americas began with those books.
The first time I ever had any one-on-one interaction with black kids was when as a teenager, our church pastor brought us to the nearby city of Paterson to play basketball with the black kids at a church there. (They always won.) I was terrified of saying something "wrong" and I was afraid they might hate me because I was white. They didn't. They went out of their way to be nice to us, probably knowing we were just idiots who had never been around black people before, and that was the beginning of learning that black people were...just people.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I think it's because we have this weird situation here in the US where we had an entire large group of people who lived a separate existence from the majority, and their culture developed separately in different ways, and the basis for this separation was simply that they looked very different from the majority population. Other groups of white people had assimilation issues at some point--Italians were not considered really white and were viewed as something less than clean and acceptable for a generation or two, the Irish had their history of discrimination related to their religion, as did the Jews, who merrily separated THEMSELVES and didn't care much about what others thought as long as they weren't being persecuted. But, these people looked an awful lot like the rest of us and so it was hard to keep them separate after a while.
So this separate, different-looking group that had been stripped of its language, religion, culture, etc., developed its own unique culture--probably the only true American-born culture. They speak differently, they worship differently, they cook differently, their music is different, even though they've been part of this country as long as the predominant northern European-descended culture.
And the majority is curious about these differences. The problem is that the curiosity sometimes morphs into disrespect or scorn of those differences.
Just my opinion. FYI, I grew up in an all-white town by parents who taught us that prejudice was wrong, but we never had to put that teaching into practice because there weren't any black people around anyway. But I was an avid reader, and in my town library there was a whole shelf full of biographies of famous Americans, including George Washington Carver, Frederick Douglass, Mary McLeod Bethune, Harriet Tubman, etc.--famous Americans that white kids weren't taught about in school in the 1960s. The beginning of my own fascination with the fact that there were two Americas began with those books.
The first time I ever had any one-on-one interaction with black kids was when as a teenager, our church pastor brought us to the nearby city of Paterson to play basketball with the black kids at a church there. (They always won.) I was terrified of saying something "wrong" and I was afraid they might hate me because I was white. They didn't. They went out of their way to be nice to us, probably knowing we were just idiots who had never been around black people before, and that was the beginning of learning that black people were...just people.
Looks alone can make people stick out. But even African immigrants coming here today don't have the same narrative as Black Americans. Black Americans do have a far different narrative, and in some ways, this has produced a different culture. On the other hand, some aspects of the culture are found in Southern culture. Consider the speech patterns used by some Blacks. Words like "we be" or "axe"(which is really ask). This dates back to the Scotch-Irish who moved to the South from the borderland regions of England/Scotland.
As for the curiosity. I never had that much of a curiosity growing up. I was taught about Black History and some of the things that came along with that, and I was encouraged to learn about Dr. Charles Drew, Hariett Tubman,etc. However, as far as certain cultural aspects, I never had a real curiosity. I remember times asking "why do I talk differently from other Black kids?", because I didn't sound like other Black kids I knew. Other than that, I never had a deep curiosity for certain things. Like you said in the last sentence, people are people. I liked learning about different culture from other parts of the globe. I never looked at anything from a "Why" perspective. I just took it as it was and accepted it.
I moved around when I was a kid. But I spent my middle school/high school years in a predominantly White town outside of Atlanta. It was around 92% White when I moved there. It was an adjustment being the only Black kid in my home room. More Blacks started moving there towards the end of the 90s and early 2000s. There were some racial tensions in my high school. I could tell you a few stories about it, but I won't. One thing living in the town I lived in taught me was this: I wanted to get away from racial tensions and racism. I also wanted to be around a more open-minded place.
I think there is a difference between true curiosity and just trying to spite people. In this particular case with this thread, I think it was meant to spite people. When I mentioned obsession, what I meant was that there were people constantly complaining about Black people.
A bit off topic but I mean this in jest. If you're not familiar with my family (from my descriptions on this forum), let me first say that in my IMMEDIATE family (parents, siblings, kids, grandkids) we have white, AA, Asian, and Hispanic, so we joke about and discuss race issues all the time.
One thing my daughters and I have noted is how different ethnic/racial groups handle child discipline. We've noticed that when we're out shopping, here's how it breaks down when it comes to whether or not kids are well behaved (by kids, I mean small kids - stroller or shopping cart sized kids):
1. AA kids are absolutely the best behaved.
2. Next come Asian kids - though once in awhile one really goes the extra mile to try to disprove our theory
3. Plain ol' white kids are next - sort of a mixed bag when it comes to behavior - they're all over the board.
4. OMG - Hispanic kids - what is the deal???? It's like there's no control over them at all - running up and down the aisles, screaming, etc.
Now, before anyone bites my head off - these are just our personal observations - the result of decades of shopping in Texas and observing kids, nothing scientific about it. But sometimes I do want to stop those AA parents and ask them, "What is your secret when it comes to controlling your kids in public?" They've got it down pat.
Looks alone can make people stick out. But even African immigrants coming here today don't have the same narrative as Black Americans. Black Americans do have a far different narrative, and in some ways, this has produced a different culture. On the other hand, some aspects of the culture are found in Southern culture. Consider the speech patterns used by some Blacks. Words like "we be" or "axe"(which is really ask). This dates back to the Scotch-Irish who moved to the South from the borderland regions of England/Scotland.
As for the curiosity. I never had that much of a curiosity growing up. I was taught about Black History and some of the things that came along with that, and I was encouraged to learn about Dr. Charles Drew, Hariett Tubman,etc. However, as far as certain cultural aspects, I never had a real curiosity. I remember times asking "why do I talk differently from other Black kids?", because I didn't sound like other Black kids I knew. Other than that, I never had a deep curiosity for certain things. Like you said in the last sentence, people are people. I liked learning about different culture from other parts of the globe. I never looked at anything from a "Why" perspective. I just took it as it was and accepted it.
I moved around when I was a kid. But I spent my middle school/high school years in a predominantly White town outside of Atlanta. It was around 92% White when I moved there. It was an adjustment being the only Black kid in my home room. More Blacks started moving there towards the end of the 90s and early 2000s. There were some racial tensions in my high school. I could tell you a few stories about it, but I won't. One thing living in the town I lived in taught me was this: I wanted to get away from racial tensions and racism. I also wanted to be around a more open-minded place.
I think there is a difference between true curiosity and just trying to spite people. In this particular case with this thread, I think it was meant to spite people. When I mentioned obsession, what I meant was that there were people constantly complaining about Black people.
Yes, I know that, and I find that fascinating (my daughter has a degree in linguistics, and I suspect she got the curiosity about language from me). I also have black coworkers who don't "sound black" at all. Neither does my next-door neighbor, who grew up a town away here in central Jersey, or my brother-in-law, whose family has been in NJ and upstate New York for at least 150 years.
As an adult, I work in a very multi-cultural setting. I would not like to live again in a one-dimensional environment. First of all--there's the food.
Unfortunately, you are correct. There are people who just want a way to air their racism by disguising it.
As far as this thread goes, it caught my eye because my daughter mentioned that she had discovered this phenomenon recently while working as a server. Prior to this job, she worked in another city at a bank in a ghetto area. She had some scary customers, mostly black, one of whom they had to get the police to remove from their bank because he was threatening them for not cashing his check made out to someone else when he had no account or identification. But, she doesn't think all black people are that way. She knows it was specific to the high-crime area in which she worked.
The whole tipping thing is completely ridiculous anyway. The blacks are the ones who have it right. Most other countries don't even tip, or the customers tip very small amounts. If someone gives you such fantastic service that you feel so inclined to give them a little tip, great. But I can't even remember the last time I got fantastic service. tipping has become automatic. People even tip for subpar service. They might not give 20% but they will still tip a waiter for giving bad service! It doesn't make any sense. And the justification for it is equally appalling "these people don't make that much so we need to help them out," so now everytime I go out to eat I'm expected to give to charity? Ridiculous.
The whole tipping thing is completely ridiculous anyway. The blacks are the ones who have it right. Most other countries don't even tip, or the customers tip very small amounts. If someone gives you such fantastic service that you feel so inclined to give them a little tip, great. But I can't even remember the last time I got fantastic service. tipping has become automatic. People even tip for subpar service. They might not give 20% but they will still tip a waiter for giving bad service! It doesn't make any sense. And the justification for it is equally appalling "these people don't make that much so we need to help them out," so now everytime I go out to eat I'm expected to give to charity? Ridiculous.
And you're probably the tenth person who has said this same thing on this thread.
However, the fact STILL remains that it is the norm in this country in the restaurant industry to tip servers and that the customer, in effect, pays their salary. They get paid $2.13 an hour by their employers, most of which goes to taxes, and they make their salary by the tips. If everyone decides they aren't going to tip them, there will be no one to bring you your food. It's not charity. It is you paying for a service. If you don't want to pay, eat at home or get your food in a paper bag from McDonald's. That's the way it currently works. End of story.
If there is some huge movement that changes the industry so that servers are magically paid $10 or more an hour, you will pay for that in the increased food price at the restaurant.
And you're probably the tenth person who has said this same thing on this thread.
However, the fact STILL remains that it is the norm in this country in the restaurant industry to tip servers. They get paid $2.13 an hour by their employers, most of which goes to taxes, and they make their salary by the tips. If everyone decides they aren't going to tip them, there will be no one to bring you your food. It's not charity. It is you paying for a service. If you don't want to pay, eat at home or get your food in a paper bag from McDonald's. That's the way it currently works. End of story.
If there is some huge movement that changes the industry so that servers are magically paid $10 or more an hour, you will pay for that in the increased food price at the restaurant. What's the difference?
You are wrong. I live in California and waiters must get paid at least the minimum wage. Restaurants only started paying 2.13 because customers were tipping so much they knew they didn't even have to pay their employees anymore. If people stopped tipping, the restaurants would start paying people real wages.
Yup. Old news and common knowledge, no waiter ever wants to wait on a table full of African Americans... even African American waiters.
Also at banquets and weddings , if it's a black event, count on the guests to arrive very very late for a sit down dinner and not be apologetic about it.
And African nationals treat waiters like servants.
What was that I was just reading about the world's smallest violin?
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) I was terrified of saying something "wrong" and I was afraid they might hate me because I was white. They didn't. They went out of their way to be nice to us, probably knowing we were just idiots who had never been around black people before, and that was the beginning of learning that black people were...just people.
