I’ve been reading this interesting new blog the last few days. Its called Discrimination & National Security Initiative (which in my opinion is a very un-bloggy name). One of the bloggers, Dave Sidhu, writes,
The focus of the research is the mistreatment of minority communities during times of war (e.g., the post-9/11 backlash against Sikhs, South Asians, Arabs, and Muslims). The project will gather information (like cases, articles, statutes, reports, etc.) and also perform original research on the human consequences of this mistreatment (like Muslim families not traveling or flying, Sikh males cutting their hair, etc.).
One story that they reported on last week was this one on CNN about discrimination at Denny’s:
Seven Arab American men filed a $28 million lawsuit against a Denny’s restaurant in Florida saying the manager kicked them out and told them, “We don’t serve bin Ladens here,” their lawyer said on Thursday.
They sued the restaurant owner, Restaurant Collection Inc., and former manager, Eduardo Ascano, saying they were harassed, humiliated and refused service at the Denny’s in Florida City, southwest of Miami, in January 2004.
Lawyer Rod Hannah said the men had not ruled out an additional lawsuit against the Denny’s chain, which paid about $54 million in 1994 to settle a discrimination suit filed by black customers.
The Florida lawsuit said the men visited the restaurant early in the morning of January 11, 2004, and, after long delays, were seated, given menus and served drinks.
After waiting more than an hour for their food while later customers were served, they asked twice about their order. The lawsuit said Ascano told them “Bin Laden is in charge of the kitchen.” Asked about the reference to the al Qaeda leader, he swore and told them, “We don’t serve bin Ladens here” and ordered them to leave, the lawsuit said.
This morning a Sepia Mutiny reader, who I will call “S,” sent us an email asking us for a sanity check. We get tips all the time but nobody asks us for advice. Suddenly I felt the need to step into a phone booth, transform, and fly forth from our North Dakota headquarters and into the “real world.”
How do you KNOW that you have been the victim of discrimination and that it’s not just your “overly-sensitive” perspective skewing things, was her general query? I think most of us who grew up in the U.S. tend see the glass half full in instances of possible discrimination. I know I do. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt even in instances where a neutral third party would clearly label it as bigotry. Let’s look at her situation and see what we think.
Sorry if this is the sort of unsolicited thing SepiaMutiny considers blocking. I hate playing the racism card, but this encounter left me angry and shaking. So I’m asking around – is this just rudeness, or something more?
Around 6:30 last evening, some friends and I tried to get a table at Joya, a Thai restaurant in Brooklyn. It’s inexpensive and trendy, and I’ve eaten there a few times before, without much problem.
The host told me it would be 15 minutes for a table. We didn’t expect a wait at such an early-bird-special hour, but the place looked full, so I put my name on the wait-list, and we went outside to windowshop.
Returning 15 minutes later, I watched the host spend another 5 minutes appeasing a hip young couple that just walked in and wanted a table. I heard him ooze charm and apologize to them for the wait.
Nervous about whether our table had been given away in our absence, I approached him about whether the wait would be much longer. I’d just smiled and said “hi” when he turned to me and hissed:
“YOU’RE REALLY GETTING ON MY NERVES LADY! I’M GETTING SICK OF YOU COMING UP TO ME AND PESTERING ME!! YOU PEOPLE (my four friends – a tiny white lady, a young white guy, older Indian guy, and young Sikh with a turban and beard – were some feet behind me) ARE IN MY WAY AND CROWDING ME!! YOU’RE REALLY GETTING ON MY NERVES!! I OWN THIS PLACE!! I TRIED TO BE NICE, BUT NOW I’M THINKING YOU DON’T DESERVE A TABLE -”
At this point, in shock and on the verge of tears, I walked away. The host/owner kept leaning over me so much (I’m 5’2″) that some of his face- sweat and spit flecks hit my face. My friends saw him yelling at me, but weren’t close enough to hear, so confused, they just followed me out. I was shaking by the time I’d walked to the end of the block.
Now, I’ve worked as a hostess. It’s a crap job. I’m always sympathic, having been on the receiving end of patron tirades that included the time a woman grabbed my shirtfront and screamed “I’m never coming back here you bitch!” But that’s the nature of the job, yeah? The patron yells, you don’t get to. But since this was the owner, I guess the rules changed?
What’s most shocking is that *I*DIDN’T* DO*ANTHING* besides quietly wait for him to finish placating the hipster couple. The bar was packed, so my friends were hanging by the walls. My friends ran to the candy jar a few times to ease hunger pangs, but really, I can’t find any further reasons to blame my group for inviting the invective that was spat upon me. It’s what we usually do, yeah? Ask, “what did I do wrong?” But with “you people” ringing in my ears, I’m feeling rather mutinous.
I spent the afternoon working on a list of suggestions for “S“. They are as follows:
1) Go to the local butcher and purchase cow’s blood. In the middle of the night draw a pentagram in cow’s blood in front of the restaurant and write “a plague on your house.”
2) Claim that you found a finger-tip in the Pad Thai and sue. For about a week their business will dive. After a week you should take a vacation to Mexico to avoid any counter-suits.
3) Call in an anonymous tip to the health department saying you recently worked there and there were cockroaches in the kitchen. Use a public phone and wear gloves and dark sunglasses when making the call.
I have more suggestions to offer “S” if she contacts me offline. 🙂
The point of this post is not to say “oh look, racism.” As you can tell from her description, the situation was more confusing than anything else. The point is to merely bring attention to the vulnerability that self-doubt causes when you just aren’t sure if you’ve been the victim of discrimination, despite your gut feeling. You tear yourself up inside wishing you could go back to the moment and logically work out what it was that happened to you. More often than not, you are willing to accept any answer that doesn’t leave you feeling like a victim.
I dunno. “You people” can be worrisome, but this doesn’t pass my personl racism smell test so much as my extremely rude owner smell test. Of course New Yorker Sepia Mutineers could test my theory by showing up at Joya in droves. But that would require giving the jerk some more business–and racist or not, he clearly is a jerk.
I recall being in a booth in TOM’s Restaurant (the outside of which is famous as the Seinfeld Restaurant) on the night the Yankees lost the World Series in 2003–which also happened to be the night Columbia celebrating Diwali. We only ordered milkshakes, so you might have considered that we were taking up the booth a little too long. Everyone but me was Indian-Indian (as opposed to Indian-American) and fairly recently arrived, and everybody but me was dressed up in a nice saris/salwars/kurta-pajama sets. The guys were particularly spiffed up, and they all had nice long chaddars. A group of surly, drunk, clearly cranky Yankees fans came up to with management asking us to leave. It wasn’t exactly being kicked out, but it wasn’t done in the most polite way either. Since we were piled into the booth it took a bit of time for all of us to slide out, and I was the last one going. I think one of the guys got his chaddar tangled up in something and as we were filing out, I thought I heard guy behind me say something to the effect of “get out of here . ..with your pansy scarves.” (I wish I could find the email that I sent in a rant to a friend immediately! the quote as I heard it is in there.) I might not have heard it properly, it might have been more of homophobic or anti-metrosexual thing than anything, I don’t know. I asked my friends in front of me if they heard them say something, but I think I realized the particular offending slang wouldn’t have yet caught their aural attention. But it gave me this icky, unreal feeling that we somehow had a lesser right to be gathering there than the baseball fans did. I think I finally settled that I was being paranoid.
And then there was the time that two of those friends were chased out of a cab and away from their groceries by a cab driver who told them to go back to their Saddam Hussein, so you know, it does happen.
Cow’s blood, huh? That sounds like something someone would use for a hate crime on a Hindu-owned establishment.
I totally think you guys need to pose for us in Super Hero costumes.
Not a direct comment, but as a Japanese American (and maybe just as an American in general), I found it interesting that the feed for the new and interesting blog is at “korematsu.blogspot.com” — Fred Korematsu passed away a little over a month ago. He was a civil rights icon. I wrote a post about his passing and the significance of his life over at ishbadiddle. I won’t lecture, but for those of you wanting a summary, he was a victim of (WWII) war-time prejudices, and was concerned with protecting the rights of those who might suffer similarly in this day and age.
Interesting. I’ve eaten at Joya several times. Most of the time it is with the blue-eyed devil wife and the son (who by the way takes a high chair and thus requires us being seated at a coveted table with three or four seats). We’ve had to wait, but never more than 20 minutes or so. Yes, it does get crowded, yes there are a lot of hipsters who come there (both from Brooklyn and Manhattan) but we’ve never received bad treatment from them. I am not discounting the fact that an exchange took place between you and the host. Perhaps your best recourse would be to call the owner/manager and tell them about it, and casually suggest you will also mention this on a “prominent” weblog read by “many” unless you get the matter resolved properly.
And yes, the Kaeng Masaman is deee-licious.
Turbanhead –
It’s the turban that makes the difference. I remember I tried to go to Peking Duck House with my family once, and the Maitre D just wouldn’t give us a table. Kept telling us that the other tables were reserved (although we waited), being rude when we asked how long the wait was, and just telling us that we should go elsewhere. Finally he said that we could have one table, right by the kitchen doors and out of sight from the entrance. It was clearly a way to get rid of us. I was livid.
So here’s how we test things – I’ll come out to dinner with you and your wife. Then let’s see what happens!
I accept your invite! We have yet to meet (Manish goes on and on about you). You must come to Brooklyn!
Frighteningly, “you people” is how my mom refers to the (other) members of our immediate family (particularly amusing since she named 1/2 of us.)
Re: S’s situation: it’s so hard to say where someone is mentally. As Saheli said, this could be just a super-rude owner, on a bad night, etc. However, I’m a BIG believer in intuition. Anyone who writes in to ask if a situation smacked of racisim isn’t the type to “play the racism card.” Thus, yeah, maybe something is rotten in Brooklyn. At very best, ridiculous rudeness.
Oddly, the worst/rudest service I get is in Indian restaurants when I go with my desi girlfriends. If someone in the group is white and/or male and/or older than 40, service improves MARKEDLY.
-D
P.S. – For Thai food in Brooklyn, I’m a big fan of Thai Sesame .
Re: the Joya incident, seems to me the ‘you people’ remark has at least some racial undertone. The owner is definitely an a-hole for getting all up in her face like that, but would he have done that if she were a white woman with her date? Don’t think so.
I’ve also noticed restaurant managers can be xenophobic jerks. Went to IHOP the other day for our monthly high-calorie fix, and as I was about to pay the bill I heard the white male manager complain — loudly enough for me and others to hear — “these foreigners just don’t know what the hell they’re doing”. This was in reference to the mostly latino and black servers who were employed there. I wanted to throw my bill in his face and walk out, but I chose not to. Sadly, I’ve also gotten very rude treatment from Indian wait staff at Indian restaurants, which is a weird form of discrimination in its own way.
Wow, considering how random the owner’s blasting was I would also attribute it to racism, but you’re right, the only way to test this is to have a whole bunch of sepia-toned people go there, especially sikhs and arabs… it’s a shame that the poster didn’t get back in the guy’s face, though. I’m all for retaliatory strikes. Furthermore, I think think that incidents like these should be highlighted in public forums like SM so that the offenders can be outed/blacklisted. The worst thing we can do is just bear it quietly.
Deepa, I’m with you on this, especially since my mom refers to me and my brother as “you people” often as well ;).
On the other hand, I do want to point out that, while service at Indian restaurants usually goes up exponentially when I’m with non-desis, in Berkeley, I’ve been treated like a queen when I’ve gone into Indian restaurants with desi girlfriends. It’s like having dinner with uncle & auntie!
If rudeness were a measure of racism, then Chinese restaurants ( small ones) would be the most racist by far. But atleast most Chinese restaurants practice equal opportunity rudeness. I have had more interesting experiences in the Indian restaurants. Except for one, most of the Indian restaurants are not rude per se, but when I go there with my white wife, the service and the politeness improves dramatically. I get a little saddened more than anything else by this servility.
In general, restaraunts seem to have plenty of complaints that deal with discrimination (how you look, who is serving vs. hosting vs. cooking and cleaning, who to serve, what kind of clientele you are trying to attract, etc.).
This spans ethnic as well as traditionally ‘American’ fare. In my experience the worst service I got were at Indian, Chinese, and Thai restaraunts catering to a certain type of customer (White or affluent). My family knows some of the owners of Indian joints and their primary complaint on Indians NOT raised here is that they treat servers and wait staff pretty shitty. Essentially, patrons do not respect their servers. Also, tips are poor too. Kinda goes on the lines of Air India flight attendents treating non-South Asians better.
This stereotype of poor tipping has caught on to other non-Indo places as well. Even if service was bad, you get “Indians don’t tip well” as an excuse.
Bottom line, if you don’t like a place, screw em and don’t give them your money. Also spread the word. Bars and clubs tend to do this also.
Whatever, its not my loss. I’ll spend my dime where I get what I want.
How suprising, its Denny’s again.
I’ve had great service at the couple of Indian restaurants I’ve eaten at in the Bay Area. Everywhere else is another matter… 🙁
Read my blog here on what I went through recently http://ftponline.blogspot.com/
I’m glad “racism” now is some dead-end restaurant waiter saying rude things to unsuspecting guests. I don’t mean to trivialize the situation, but you know, these things used to be very common and much more dangerous.
Racism used to be beatings, death, inequality before the law, and even for some (i.e. blacks) a non-human status. Sold on the market like livestock.
I think most people are properly horrified by racism now, the vast majority of us are cool with being black or having black friends, or dating or marrying black people. And I can’t help but wonder if the cause of righteous justice is not somehow dulled by crying “racism” everytime someone hurts your feelings. How do you know it’s not because you’re dressed like a gangsta and have a surly look on your face?
Anyhow, I have the subject on my mind these days, dealing specifically with the black-white aspect of it, though the experience of brown (yellow, red, etc) folks is also relevant.
I’ve just started a five part essay on it over at my blog, and I imagine the discussion will get quite heated.
So whats up with the Bay Area ? The Desis there are very self confident or what ?
personally, i think the nature of race on the west coast is different than that on the east coast. anyone else agree?
Agreed.
On the experience of “S”, based on what has been written and depicted, I would not call it racism. Racism is not institutionalized or does not have active support. It is not the same situation 30-40 years ago. However, it does exist. The case at Denny’s holds more water on a charge of racism.
Everytime an idiot says something ambigious to me, I don’t go into a spiral of self-doubt and think “Was it because of my skin color?” I leave it where it stands on facts: XYZ could have a bias, but from what XYZ said I do know he is an idiot/asshole/unpleasant person.
My general sentiment echoes what Abhi posted:
Also whats up with all the staring at the Indian restaurants ? The stares at the Indian restaurant when I am there with my wife ( different race) are almost comparable to the stares I get in small Mid Western towns.
All I know is that Saravana Bhavan has some serious canteen style South Indian food in Mountain View. It actually looks like it was beamed in by a transporter from India. Cool place no bais: Straight up solid food.
I agree, re:Berkeley restaurants. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had a real problem with any restaurant around here. Actually, I decided I was being paranoid because I had only just moved to NYC and was feeling generally weirded out by a subtle difference in race-feeling which I couldn’t quite understand, and still don’t.
My favorite recent restaurant story was actually at the CheeseCake Factory in Palo Alto. A manager overheard me talking about being vegetarian to my dinner company as the waitress was bringing me what seemed like a perfectly innocuous salad. He practically dove across the aisle to snatch the salad away from me before I put could even lift my fork. “Oh no ma’am, I’m very sorry, she’s brand new and didn’t remember that the dressing has a fish base in it. This salad is NOT vegetarian. Anything else you want is on me, and I will make sure it’s totally vegetarian.” He was just so apologetic and had such a sense of urgency, I thought that was wonderful.
My Mom always calls us You People. “Hey You People!” When we object, she says it’s because we’re Americans and Constitution refers to “We the People.” That’s a very different You People though.
My Mom always calls us You People. “Hey You People!” When we object, she says it’s because we’re Americans and Constitution refers to “We the People.” That’s a very different You People though.
That is so hilarious. You people have the funniest moms.
And I can’t help but wonder if the cause of righteous justice is not somehow dulled by crying “racism” everytime someone hurts your feelings. How do you know it’s not because you’re dressed like a gangsta and have a surly look on your face?
Abdul-Walid, while I appreciate your bracing perspective on this, I think the discussion is about NOT crying racism when singled out for poor treatment. Of wondering if it’s normal to shrug it off thinking “hey, I didn’t get beaten up, right? So it can’t be.” Is it ok to accept poor treatment because we’re grateful it’s not worse?
Re: gansta clothes and surly looks. Jonathan Letham has a great line in The Fortress of Solitude when he writes (something like) – “At what age does a Black boy realize he is scary?”
How are baggy clothes and a surly look different from a turbaned head and face-obscuring beard? You’re awfully close to saying that sporting former (and therefore the latter) invites, if not deserves, getting “feelings hurt.”
Damn. How do you code for qoutes here?
You read the FAQ.
My bad. thanks Manish.
I don’t know what you guys think – but if someone is kicked out saying – we don’t server bin ladens – that is not general rudeness, it is blatant racism. I hope Denny’s pays for it, if it is true.
How are baggy clothes and a surly look different from a turbaned head and face-obscuring beard?
Good question. But I didn’t say “baggy clothes”, I said “dressed like a gangsta.” Big difference.
But yes, if you ape a criminal look, and you go around looking like you’re about to bust a cap in someone’s ass, I’m sorry, but you ARE looking for trouble. And trouble has a way of finding you. Some people don’t like the notion that not all expressions of “culture” are equally good. But guns, thuglife, etc, are not exactly a culture worth celebrating. I’m black, but it’s good sometimes to call a spade a spade.
As for turbans and beards, they are in a whole nother class. For what it’s worth, I actually feel SAFER with Sikhs: there’s a reverence about them that I really dig.
One more thing:
Is it ok to accept poor treatment because we’re grateful it’s not worse?
No. Your point is well taken.
Saheli, you got off light at Tom’s. I’ve been physically pulled out of a booth there before. Those waitresses can be vicious… If it happens again, just point to a half-eaten dish of food and say real loud, “skaah-too-laah-kee.” That particular Greek description of their food should shut ’em up….
(Just don’t do it when that big cook is around!)
Speaking of Tom’s, are you all aware of the fact that all the floors above the actual restaurant are owned by the government? That’s right, it’s a NASA center. Spooky huh? I’ve just given away one of the government’s best kept secrets.
Good lord. I had something like that happen to me. A friend of mine (Saudi) and I were in Boston one summer, and went to the local Boston Eagle (gay leather bar, always good for a couple of laughs) for drinks after dinner. The bar was completely vacant; being good brown people, we waited politely to attract the bartender’s attention. When, after 5 minutes, he’d continued to polish the same bloody glass, we went over and asked him if he could take our order. He completely ignored us and walked over to the other side of the bar where a group of white leather daddies had entered, and spent the next ten minutes serving them their booze. If it hadn’t been for the nice young man in the chaps with a whip who started sending free drinks over to the two of us, we’d probably have ripped the fat putz a new colon.
I had a similar incident about table availability happen to me in a restaurant near Union Square (some place with an outdoor garden behind a fence…but I can’t remember the name), although with no yelling or people in turbans. I actually went back and talked to the guy about whether he was being racist until I felt reassured that he was not being so (although there’s still a slight tinge of doubt in my mind). These things are always so touch and go unless there’s physical abuse or a slur involved. Like one of the commenters above, I’d agree that if S doesn’t seem to actively be looking to rouse rabble and still felt some concern, maybe there was a little racism going into it. And probably some misogyny too. Who knows. You can’t read anyone’s mind, but you should tell SAALT anyway, given that, imo, the glass is definitely not half full.
Bourgie parts of New York do have their racists too though. I don’t know where Joya is or what this incident was about, but a Pakistani photographer got beaten up in Park Slope about a month after September 11. And I got called a “dothead” at (the horrible and thankfully defunct) XVI in the East Village and told it was okay because “You’re brown and I’m White.” which then led to a lot of stupid yelling on my part and a huge outside-the-bar fight (which I was smartly and shamefully not a part of). So it’s not just in working class neighborhoods in the outerboroughs, even though that’s where the worst $hit happens.
You could do a whole sit-com episode on the difference in meaning between the “you people” idiom in American English and Desi English and the misunderstandings it causes; my mom has been repeatedly corrected by Black people she works with for using it–I think she gets away with it because she’s small and nice and doesn’t get it.
I always assumed the desi “you people” came from a overly literal rendering of “aap log” somewhere back in the past, but maybe there’s a cunning linguist out there who knows better than I do.
While service at desi restaurants may improve if you have White folk with you, have you tried going with Black people? Especially if you’re a desi girl with a Black man?
I went with a black friend of mine to eat at a desi restaurant in Philly and they refused to seat us at first, then did a come hither motion and tried to give us seats near the kitchen door (the restaurant was otherwise pretty empty). They took forever to serve us, and wouldn’t let us start the buffet (I was afraid of what they would do if we orrdered food from the menu), they would pass by and fill my glass of water, but not my friend’s. The worst though was that there was this other group of patrons who started loud conversation in Hindi about how spoiled American desi girls, were forgetting their roots, hanging out with Kala’s (Black people), and on and on (It’s too vulgar to think about). The manager and waiters then started joining in in Hindi and basically saying vulger things about me and my friend. They also made mention plenty of times of how I was so stupid that i probably didn’t understand what was going on around me.
I was livid and it was only because of my friend’s calm that I walked out of there without giving them a piece and then some of my mind. I went back later and asked to speak to the manager or owner, and told him of my experience. His response, “You’re making it up.” I told all my friends about it, and although they loved the food there and missed it, they never went there again.
There’s more:
The Thai restaurant where they seated a white couple who arrived after us (I was with a desi male at the time)
The Greek restaurant where the owner came ranting and raving at us (a group consisting of 7 desi girls and a desi guy) after we left the restaurant because he thought we hadn’t left a tip (we had, but only 10% because we thought the service and been slow, or non-existant), and then proceeded to yell racist BS at us.
It makes my blood boil just to think about it. I can definitely relate to S when she said she was shaking from the experience.
While service at desi restaurants may improve if you have White folk with you, have you tried going with Black people? Especially if you’re a desi girl with a Black man?
Sofie and I eat out all the time, all over the city and elsewhere, and we haven’t had such problems yet. Knock on wood.
(I have had problems with bad-tempered waitstaff, while dining on my own (never at Indian restaurants though, where they’ve never been anything less than solicitious, even though they do stare), but I figure this is due to either to the stresses of the restaurant business or the perception, mistaken or not, that black folks don’t tip. I’m scrupulous about leaving 20%, especially when I get bad service.)
“Kala”, eh? Interesting word…
Deepa, does your Mom speak Hindi? In hindi “op log” is used in place of “op” when referring to more than one person. It literally translates as “you people”. Whenever I visit India I’m always a little taken aback by their “you people”s. Takes a little getting used to as it sounds incredibly rude to “we people”.
I have to disagree about ‘you people’ being a racist remark. I suppose if someone is very sensitive they may perceive it as racist as they might perceive just about anything as racist. ‘You people’ might be in response to a group of teenagers, a group of slow walking pedestrians in a mall holding up a busy/angry person trying to get through (and the group being full of non-compartmentalised people) or a Catholic congregation. None of these have to do with race. Usually ‘you people’ is regarded as negative, but not always. It could be used in humor, and I have heard stand-up comics in my hometown making fun of people seeing this comment as negative already. I’ve decided to not fall into the trap of being as angry or close-minded about the saying as the people who not only use it but who get angry about its use. Really, I have better things to do with my life and this post is the last I’ll ever say of it.
i love that in the world, insensitive comments are only considered harassment if they come with intent. intent to what? physically harm? injure? more often than not, insensitive comments let loose the floodgates of emotional harm.
how about if a comment strikes you as being off-color and highlights the fact that you are of a different race in a negative way, then it is racist?