"Dining while black": tipping as social artifact.

These accounts indicate that many of the respondents in our study attempted to keep up a good frontstage and backstage presentation, even while explaining how "racist" those around them were and then later admitting to committing the same discriminatory acts. While some of the respondents may be true to the antiracist statements and actions they claim, many of these accounts indicate the relative ease with which many white Americans navigate two social worlds while employing two separate selves--the front- and the backstage.

Conclusion

This study has explored the spoken and unspoken interpersonal and organizational backstage rituals that govern the black American restaurant experience. It has explained how elements of social exchange (particularly tipping) play out in an interracial theater of action, how some personnel profess a tacit "rationality" of racial stereotypes, and how there exists a dichotomous picture of a frontstage restaurant experience governed by widely accepted modes of conduct (the "happy face") and a backstage experience that is replete with racist rituals governing how people are seated, how they are served, and how race has become a core issue in the interactions between restaurant workers and restaurant clientele.

We found that racist rituals are reflected both in the restaurant's organizational structure and interpersonal relations. Because the frontstage behavior is governed by maintaining the appearance of acceptable modes of behavior, discriminatory action is subtle and difficult to detect. Nevertheless, racist speech and action in the backstage spill over to the frontstage in many examples given by our respondents. Their comments suggest that racial rituals are more common than one would expect, given restaurants' claims to the contrary. This was evident in the respondents' vague knowledge of antidiscrimination policies, a lack of diversity training, and a notable racial dichotomy between front-and back-of-the-house workers.

The results of the study suggest that restaurant race relations are shaped by a pervasive stereotyping of customers of color by white restaurant workers. The intricate use and negotiation of racial code words and racial stereotyping indicates a strong need for diversity training, in conjunction with an aggressive hiring and restructuring effort within the industry. Organizational aspects that may be supportive of a "culture of white servers" need to be examined more closely. As some of our respondents noted, there is a certain level of informal learning that runs concurrently with formal employment training. How much this "invisible" culture molds new workers would be an interesting topic of study. Might the invisible culture transcend formal training in perpetuating racist discourse and action?

The fact that many of the servers in the study appear to feel justified in their prejudicial and discriminatory treatment of black American diners substantiates the reports of black Americans that they have experienced racial discrimination in the form of dining while black.

Areas for more research. Although the restaurant workers in our sample had been employed in many areas of the country, most respondents worked in the southeastern United States. Further research is needed to examine how servers treat racial differences in a variety of rural and urban areas. This sample was also predominantly female. Most of these women spoke extensively about sexism and sexual harassment from management, customers, and fellow employees. Some believed that the perceived status of restaurants as not being "real" places of work permitted that sexism, along with the racism that we have documented. Further work on the intersections of racism and sexism will be necessary to examine how they shape both women's and men's experiences.

Finally, many of the restaurant workers at tipping.org claim that people of color who work in restaurants also participate in the stereotyping of black customers. In contrast to that claim, our interview data reveal tight-knit groups of whites who purposely exclude people of color in their racial language and joking. The extant literature suggests that black Americans face a great deal of discrimination in the workplace and that the restaurant industry is not unique in this regard. Restaurant workers' experiences may vary greatly based on racial identity and position within the distinct organizational spheres of front and back of the house, thus shaping the restaurant experiences of all diners.

Endnotes

(1.) Joe R. Feagin, Hernan Vera, and Pinar Batur, White Racism, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2001).

(2.) Derrick Bell, Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism (New York: Basic Books, 1992).

(3.) See: Michael Lynn, "Ethnic Differences in Tipping: A Matter of Familiarity with Tipping Norms," on pages 12-22 of this Cornell Quarterly.

(4.) For example, see: Samuel Juni, Robert Branno, and Michelle M. Roth, "Sexual and Racial Discrimination in Service-seeking Interactions: A Field Study in Fast-Food and Commercial Establishments," Psychological Reports, vol. 63 (1988), pp. 71-76.

(5.) Feagin et al., op. cit.; and Bell, op. cit.

(6.) Steve Watkins, The Black O: Racism and Redemption in an American Corporate Empire (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997).

(7.) Ibid.

(8.) Ibid.

(9.) Kirkus Reviews, Review of The Black O: Racism and Redemption in an American Corporate Empire, by Steve Watkins (Athens: University of Georgia Press, September 15, 1997).

(10.) Steve Watkins, "Racism Du Jour at Shoney's." Nation, October 1993, pp. 426-27.

(11.) Feagin et al., op. cit.

(12.) Ibid.

(13.) Ibid.

(14.) For example, see: Philomena Essed, Everyday Racism: Reports of Women from Two Countries, (Claremont, CA: Hunter House, 1990); Joe R. Feagin, "The Continuing Significance of Race: Antiblack Discrimination in Public Places," American Sociological Review, vol. 56 (1991), pp. 101-16; Joe R. Feagin and Melvin P. Sikes, Living with Racism: The Black Middle-class Experience (Boston: Beacon, 1994); and Janet K. Swim, "African American College Students' Experiences with Everyday Racism: Characteristics of and Responses to These Incidents," Journal of Black Psychology, vol. 29 (2003), pp. 38-67.

(15.) Feagin and Sikes, op. cit.

(16.) Ibid.

(17.) John B. McConahay, Betty B. Hardee, and Valerie Batts, "Has Racism Declined In America? It Depends on Who Is Asking and What Is Asked," Journal of Conflict Resolution, vol. 25 (1981), pp. 563-79; and John F. Dovidio and Samuel L. Gaertner, "The Aversive Form of Racism," in Prejudice, Discrimination, and Racism: Theory and Research, ed. J. F. Dovidio and S. L. Gaertner (Orlando: Academic Press, 1986), pp. 61-89.

(18.) Cynthia Willming, "Leisure-travel Behaviors of College-educated African Americans and Perceived Racial Discrimination" (unpublished dissertation, University of Florida, 2001).

(19.) A National Report Card on Discrimination in America, ed. M. Fix and M. A. Turner (Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 1998).

(20.) For example, see: Emily D. Noll and Susan E. Arnold, "Racial Differences in Tipping: Evidence in the Field," on pages 23-29, of this Cornell Quarterly; Michael Lynn, "Black-White Differences in Tipping of Various Service Providers," Journal of Applied Social Psychology (in press); and Michael Lynn and Clorice Thomas-Haysbert, "Ethnic Differences in Tipping: Evidence, Explanations and Implications," Journal of Applied Social Psychology (in press).

(21.) Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, "The Linguistics of Color-blind Racism: How to Talk Nasty about Blacks without Sounding 'Racist,'" Critical Sociology, vol. 28 (2002), pp. 41-64.

(22.) Robert Rosenthal and Donald B. Rubin, "Interpersonal Expectancy Effects: The First 345 Studies," Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol. 2 (1978), pp. 377-415; Mark Snyder, "On the Self-Perpetuating Nature of Social Stereotypes," in Cognitive Processes in Stereotyping and Intergroup Behavior, ed. D. L. Hamilton (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1981); Mark Chen and John A. Bargh, "Nonconscious Behavioral Confirmation Processes: The Self-Fulfilling Consequences of Automatic Stereotype Activation," Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 33 (1997), pp. 541-60; and Lynn and Thomas-Haybert, loc. cit.

(23.) Snyder, op. cit.; and Chen and Bargh, op. cit.

(24.) Kristen Myers and Passion Williamson, "Race Talk: The Perpetuation of Racism through Private Discourse," Race and Society, vol. 4 (2001), pp. 3-26; van Dijk 1984; Teun Van Dijk, Communicating Racism (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1987); and Jeff Greenberg, S. L. Kirkland, and Tom Pyszczynski, "Some Theoretical Notions and Preliminary Research Concerning Derogatory Ethnic Labels," in Discourse and Discrimination, ed. G. Smitherman-Donaldson and T. van Dijk (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University, 1988), pp. 74-92.

(25.) See: Teun van Dijk, Prejudice and Discourse (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1984); and van Dijk (1987), op. cit.

(26.) Myers and Williamson, op. cit.

(27.) McConahay, Hardee, and Batts (1981, pp. 182-212); McConahay (1986); Dovidio and Gaertner (1986).