Is White Pride something connected with a political agenda that can be
acted upon by the City Council?
When a older student at MCTC enrolled in a public speaking class, one of
the topics I chose was illegal discrimination by waiters at restaurants. I
opened with a question directed to the audience: Have you ever noticed that
waiters much try harder to please white customers than black customers? By a
show of hands, I got an affirmative answer from everyone in the audience except
all of the white men. One guy said that everyone gets lousy service at low to
medium priced restaurant from time to time, and that when he gets lousy
service, he doesn't assume that it's race discrimination. And another guy said
that it is irrational for someone who works for tips to intentional provide bad
service. Both of those guys made valid points: Not all bad service is
intentional and it is indeed irrational for a waiters intentionally give
preferential treatment to some customers at the expense of others. But in my
experience working in that type of job, I found that waiters of all races
talked about whites being better customers than blacks, in terms of being
likely to tip well. Could that be a self-fulfilling prophecy? How much of the
difference in tipping can be explained by the quality of service, and how much
by the quality of the customer? At my first job as a waiter, I made note of the
race of my customer, how much they tipped, and how long it took for their food
to come up from the kitchen after they placed their order. After tracking that
data for 6 weeks, I noted that all customers who got their food in 10 minutes
or less, or within 12 or 13 in rush periods tipped well, regardless of race.
The longer the wait beyond that time-flame, the less I was likely to get tipped
at all, especially from Black customers. My solution was to take steps to
ensure that everyone got their food within ten minutes or so after placing
their order. That eliminated the problem of "bad customers." Some other waiters
tried to fix the problem by only waiting on white customers, and I took on most
of the black customers who they refused to serve. On the other hand, I've
worked with waiters, usually among the more competent waiters who didn't
discriminate by race, and didn't see how it could benefit them. It was company
policy, at least in writing, to not discriminate on the basis of race, sex,
etc., but no effort was made by the management to enforce it. At one point the
general manager told me to cut back on my tip sharing with dishwashers who
helped me with the bus work during busy times. He explained that he only hired
black men with family responsibility who were "happy to work." If they make too
much money, they are not happy to work. They will call in sick when they are
sick, they will want to take days off. Whites were hired for the higher paying
positions.
Based on first hand observation and employment statistics, I have
concluded that covert racial discrimination generally benefits whites at the
expense of blacks, and is commonplace. That is why I advocate the empowerment
of the Minneapolis Civil Rights Department to detect and prosecute those
engaged in covert racial discrimination, and other forms of illegal
discrimination. An argument for not taking that step at the federal level in
the 1960s was that doing so would cause a white backlash. Change has to come
gradually. The Civil Rights Movement was an embarrassment to the US government,
it was considered politically destabilizing. A Civil Rights Act was needed to
stop the protests. The Civil Rights Act was designed to curb, not end systemic
racial discrimination.
In discussions with "anti-racist" activists, I sometimes hear an argument
against more aggressive enforcement of civil rights laws. "We tried legal
remedies and they didn't work. We have to change the hearts of white people." I
don't agree with the logic of that argument. There are class interests served
by systemic racial discrimination, and history teaches us that privileged
classes never give up their privileges voluntarily. Those who are oppressed by
the system need to use their power to end their oppression, and not wait for
their oppressors to have a change of heart. You will get no concession from
those in power without a demand. If you demand nothing, you are certain to get
nothing.
-Doug Mann, Folwell neighborhood