Forgetfulness or racism?

[almostwitty]

The Evening Standard carries a story about a black couple, outraged that their waitress scribbled ‘black couple’ on their bill, when they were the only couple dining.

The thing is, I’ve kind of done this myself while running my parents’ Chinese takeaway, scribbling descriptive notes on their order because I have a huge tendency to forget which order belongs to which customer. I’ve even done it when there’s only one customer – after all, another one will inevitably walk in and I’ll get all confused.

I’m not so sure I’ve gone as far as just describing someone in terms of their race, but there have been other unflattering descriptions such as baldy, NHS glasses etc. But if I went to a restaurant, and saw that scribbled on my order was “fat balding Chinese man”, I’d be a tad put out to say the least.

It’s certainly racism in the sense of discrimination against or antagonism towards other races, but there are probably bigger battles to fight. Like the woman at Question Time taking Jack Straw to task over African-Caribbean versus Afro-Caribbean while one of Britain’s biggest bigots sits on a panel next to Jack Straw. And then there’s the controversy in China over a “Chinese Idol” contestant who’s half-Chinese, half-black…

Ooooh it’s complicated. But I’d rather we just end up dealing with people based on whether they’re nice to us or not…

Mirrored from almost witty.

Comments

[almostwitty]

If it's got a table where people bring your food, it's a restaurant not a takeout ;)

A takeout is purely for people to come in, pick up their food and go. There's nowhere for them to sit.

and most European places definitely don't do "Chinese" food let alone chopsticks. But hey, that means more for me. :D

[kiri-l.livejournal.com]

The restaurants do take away too. =) Well the oldest ones in town do. The newer ones don't.

The original take away place eventually put in two small tables (for people who needed someplace to eat a quick lunch cause they couldn't take it back to their work - or if it was nasty outside. Mostly neighboring businesses. ) literally it is just two very small tables and chairs off to the side and enough space to eat if you are *very careful*. In the evenings people sit there and wait if they arrive before their orders are ready. The other takeaways don't even have that afaik.

Out here it is a different ball game. You do realize I'm talking about two different regions of the country... right?