The following is an excerpt from a report conducted by Cornell University entitled Ethnic Differences in Tipping: A Matter of Familiarity, written by Michael Lynn.
Several years ago, the owner of a Miami restaurant was widely chastised in the public media for characterizing African-Americans as being poor tippers. His comments were a public reflection of a covert but widespread belief within the restaurant industry. Many waiters and waitresses believe that African-Americans tip less than Caucasians.For example, an unpublished survey I conducted among 51 servers at a restaurant in Houston found that 48 of those servers classified black customers as poor tippers. As a result of that belief, many table servers dislike waiting on black customers, deliver inferior service to black guests on whom they must wait, and refuse to work in restaurants with a predominately black clientèle. Although anecdotal, the following quotations drawn from a discussion board at www.tipping.org illustrate what many in the industry believe are widespread views.
“…all the servers I work with hate having to wait on minorities, black people in particular (and over half of our waitstaff is black!!!). It is not uncommon to have several black tables in a night that rack up a bill of over $100 and then not tip more than $2. When I started working there, I never prejudged a table based on color. I gave outstanding service to every table and the tips were excellent, except from my black tables. After about three months, I caught on to why all of our waitstaff never wanted to wait on black tables.”
“I work in a seafood restaurant located in the Midwest. …I thought the average black person not tipping was just a regional problem; I guess it’s a national problem. I will not take black tables unless I have no other option; call me racist, but I also walk out with more money than the people who end up with them.”
“I’ve lost count as to how many black tables I’ve waited on in my five years of serving, both in the north and the south. But I can count literally on one hand how many times I’ve been left a decent (15-percent) tip. As a result, to (most–not all!) I will wait on you last and spend less time with you. Because, though I’ve tried giving considerate, friendly, and attentive service, it’s been to no avail.”
“I have worked in restaurants that attract a black clientèle, and I am done with it. I grew up in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and was not raised with any prejudices, but within the walls of a restaurant my prejudices have formed. Not only am I not treated well when waiting on them, but I am not tipped well. I have since moved to a restaurant that attracts a very yuppie clientèle, and I am treated well and tipped on every bill. It is a very frustrating cultural difference and one that I just don’t know how to deal with anymore.”
These are not rich white folks that live uptown–these are people that make their living in the service industry.
One of the main reasons why this study stuck out to me was two-fold: Another study was recently conducted on how taxicab drivers are tipped across racial lines and the findings were very similar (I talked about this study in my recent Friday Brain Dump post). The other reason is because yours truly has spent a good part of my life in the service industry and like many of you have just been wanting just to find somebody with whom I could share these same observations without being perceived as a race-hater.
As I mentioned in an earlier piece, if I am a low-wager that is employed in a position that relies heavily on tips, based on my own experience I will pass over serving my people 9 times out of 10. Unless you have worked in a similar position, I really do not expect you to understand. I love my peeps, but that love won’t pay the bills. For the record (for the racially-sensitive), I am not saying that ALL blacks are cheap when it comes to tips–just a whooooole lot of us.
Please do not buy into any rhetoric out there that would suggest the reason why we do not tip well is because of economic limitations—that is just more crap.
If you can run a bill to $100, you can afford $15.
So the next time you hear someone rattling off some study that shows disparity (seemingly the word for the hour) in pay for blacks in the service industry, ask yourself if the service was good (that last part is a biggy) “Did I leave a fair tip?” This should be done regardless of the color of the person providing the service.
So the next time you decide to leave one of those tracts that say “Christ paid it all“, please don’t go there!
Helpful tip: If you want to figure out the percentage of a number, go to google and type the following:
15% of $100 (example)
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