"Dining while black": tipping as social artifact.

with the racist sentiments going into

it do place those on their tables and on

the service that they give to them [black

American diners].

This respondent and several others appeared to recognize a self-fulfilling prophecy--that if restaurant personnel believe that black Americans tip less and are therefore less deserving of equal service, servers may then, in fact, provide inferior service (which would then, theoretically, lead to "substandard" tipping behavior. (45) One server spoke at length about that negative cycle:

The servers that are getting the bad tips

from black tables are the ones who go

into it thinking they're getting a bad tip

so they're not giving the right service ...

the best service they can. So it's like a

big cycle.... And it's really aggravating

to me because I think it just perpetuates

their opinion of black customers.... If

you give them bad service 'cause you

have that idea going into it, then they're

going to tip you poorly! I do think that

the people with racist sentiments going

into it place those on the table and in the

service that they give to them.

When they give poor service to black diners (and therefore merit a small tip), white servers are able to confirm their preconceived notions of black Americans' tipping habits. Those servers feel "burned" and contribute their experiences to the shared discourse among fellow (white) servers. Not only are these self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating stereotypes calamitous for black Americans, but they also fuel the culture of anti-black beliefs, language, and action within the backstage.

Serving Up Discrimination

As the accounts from hostesses reveal, servers expect hostesses to "respect" the servers' racist sentiment toward black American customers. In short, hostesses were not to seat black American customers in the "wrong" sections. One hostess shared an informal strategy to avoid being yelled at by angry servers: "I know this sounds terrible, but you kind of distributed the [black] tables out.... Everybody had to pay their dues." Another respondent's strategy for dealing with servers involved a more formal stance that involved reporting discrimination to management:

There's been times where I've had like

the entire serving staff come up to me

and tell me, "Don't seat me with Canadians."

So, I went, I've gone up to my manager

before and I've said, "All right,

look, I'm gonna go ahead and put, since

no server in this restaurant wants to deal

with black people, I'm gonna put a sign

on the door saying, 'No black people

allowed.' We'll go back to segregation,

because obviously no server in here

wants to serve them." And that, I think

that really made a point to my manager.

After this incident, this hostess reported that management began taking servers' racial language and discriminatory service more seriously:

And now, everybody in the restaurant,

when they are hired, they have to sign a

piece of paper that says you won't ... I

don't know exactly what it says, but it

pretty much says you won't, you know,

treat tables differently based on race.

"We are a non-racist restaurant." So that

is something that has been implemented

since I've said, made that comment to

my manager ... but it's not something

that's like readily enforced. Like ... the

"Canadian" word is still thrown around.

You know, as much as it has been.

Even after this incident and even with managers' official "nondiscrimination" dictum, we still see that the rituals and climate within the restaurant remain intact--and the supposed policy is not enforced.

One server suggested that management may in fact aid de facto discriminatory practices by adding mandatory gratuity (called "giving credit" in restaurant jargon) to black tables but not to white ones;

You have to get a manager to do it, and

otherwise you can just give them the

check if you don't credit, and actually

the majority of the people, when they're

black, they'll go ahead and give them the

credit. Because the majority of the people

who are black leave bad tips.

In this server's perception, formal policies are being bent and distorted differentially and would stand in direct contrast to the widespread rhetoric regarding diversity goals and nondiscrimination by management.

Frontstage and Backstage Interview Presentation

As Dovidio and Gaertner's "aversive racism" framework suggests, many servers may be operating under the assumption that they give equal service to black and white diners and that they are indeed nonprejudiced, even though they harbor negative beliefs about black Americans that may express themselves in unconscious discriminatory exchanges with black Americans. (46) Many of the respondents themselves stated that they always gave equal service to everyone, and most reported that they had not experienced tipping differences at all. It appeared that for this sample, tipping differences and anti-black prejudice had simply not occurred for them individually--at all. However, when the interview began to delve more deeply into respondents' personal attitudes and actions and began to share them toward the end of their interviews, the stories changed, as we explain below.

As many of the interviews progressed, respondents who had earlier stated the importance of diversity training, extolled the virtues of black Americans diners, and essentially demonized the "racist" servers who worked around them, revealed paradoxical views later in their interviews. In the slippery politics of presenting one's self as nonprejudiced, it appeared that some respondents revealed much more than they had to meant to say about their own actions and beliefs. One server who had stated earlier that diversity in the workplace was important, hedged later when she shared her views on affirmative action in hiring, as follows:

I mean, I don't know. I, I mean, I hope a

lot of people base it on their, how qualified

they are other than ... a race issue,

because that's just, I won't say it's getting

old, but I mean, I don't want to say

I'm tired of hearing it, but you know,

it's ... I don't know. It's the littlest

things, just always brought up and it's,

you know, we're ... just keep beating a

dead horse. But, you know, it's ... I

don't think they realize the situation can

be reversed. Sometimes, you know, it's

always, like, well, I'm always getting

treated bad. My ancestors were slaves,

you know?

Later in the interview, this respondent added,

Yeah, it, I mean ... everybody, I'm sure,

everybody has had bad treatment in their

life. And, or you know, poor customer

service, and you know, I don't think it

could be because of your color. I think it

could be because of the worker. And

they just don't care. And maybe they're

busy or they have something else on

their minds. So, it's always, you know,

there's always something behind the

reason why you got treated poorly.

According to this server, there are many reasons why someone has been treated poorly, yet "color" is quickly discarded. She does note that poor service could be a result of the "worker." Her comments also echo the results of this study in the sense that a worker may indeed be busy or indeed "not care" about black diners because that server adheres to tipping stereotypes and derogatory racial beliefs. This respondent's stance, though, omits any possibility of racially motivated discrimination. By stating that "everybody has had bad treatment in their life," she neutralizes the seriousness of poor treatment. At the end of the interview, this server reflected on her own comments, "Wow, that was getting a little racist there at the end." Bonilla-Silva noted that that diminutive tactic allows white Americans to "soften their racial blows" and to "cushion their views" on topics of race. (47)

Other servers reflected on their own behavior with reluctance, as one male server shared, "I ... I hate to admit, but ... I try to give everyone, um, same service, but I try to concentrate myself on tables who I know are going to tip well." This server cited "businessmen" and "middle-aged women" as those he thought would tip the most, so he would give the best service to these tables above black American diners, who he noted tipped less on average. This particular server would explain what the other servers around him would do first in his interview and then later reveal that he, too, engaged in such behavior.

Another server, who had earlier related always having positive views of black clientele, later shared that she refused to serve two black women who frequented the restaurant. She cited that she had waited only once on these two women, whom she referred to as "sistas," and that they "ran me back and forth.... They returned everything to the kitchen and were a pain." When asked why she refused to be seated with them again, she paused and exclaimed, "It's not 'cause they're black! It's because they're a pain in my ass!" By attempting to save face by stating that her refusal was not racially motivated, this server can maintain that she is just as nonprejudiced as she was at the beginning of her interview.