Always remember the Golden Rule*

I was searching around today for something to inspire my writing and came across this YouTube video, check it out. After reading responses from the YouTube post, I found one that depicts it completely, “the whole POINT of skits like this is to mock the stereotype itself, not the people the stereotype represents.” Even still, it is a perfect opportunity for the topic.

My initial reaction to this video was, “Oh, great, they are going to poke fun of Olive Garden.” Overall, I think that was their intention: a comical video. However, within the first 40 seconds, all I could think about the rest of the time was what it was saying about black people.

First of all, this was an issue I wanted to touch on when I first thought of blogging, but this video gave me a way to start. When he introduces his cousin's “black girlfriend” and is then labeled as a thief, there is an underlying message of racism in our society. I’ve heard other servers complain when they get a table with African-American families many times. I've heard people say, “Oh no, they don’t tip,” or, “They work me so hard!”
Personally, I have found some of my best tips have come from tables that people label like this. This video portrays the stereotypes we have. This intrigued me to research what people actually think and say about different families and tipping.

Here’s some sites negatively talking about black Americans and tipping.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik3VQE8TS38&feature=related

http://www.topix.com/forum/afam/TA31F8467MFFGLJH4

I think that because of one or two lousy tips, there should be no need to label everyone else. There are also plenty of bad tippers who are white.
However, this being said, I found an interesting article explaining that black Americans generally tip less than white Americans.

“Jerry Fernandez, president of the Multicultural Food Alliance, which represents food servers and restaurateurs, says the expectations of a lower tip from blacks can often lead to poor service.”
“If a [waiter] says, 'I don't want to wait on that table because they're black or they're Hispanic, then they tend to give less service and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy," Fernandez explains.

If you listen to this segment, you hear them say that we know from national statistics that black families are less likely to eat at a sit down restaurant than white people are. Why is this? Because when they come to a sit down restaurant, they are treated poorly because they are given a bad label. If a person eats at a restaurant and is treated very poorly, s/he would generally tip less, and we should remember that as servers.

Every server needs to work on treating everyone (they server) in a restaurant equally. Of course some will be lousy tippers, but there are those people from all races. Remember the Golden Rule: treat others as you want to be treated. There is no reason to be bitter about a bad tip; it’s part of being a server. It’s going to be frustrating at the time, but it’s the people who tip bigger who make your night, and then everything else is forgotten.