Casual Racism in Restaurants

Last week a Papa John's cashier was fired after using a racial slur to describe an Asian patron of the restaurant. For the sake of efficiency and ease of identification, the receipt issued by the Harlem area pizzeria named the customer, Minchee Cho, as 'lady chinky eyes'. Unfortunately this just goes to show that the supposed liberal bastion of New York City still occasionally views Asians as if they were Mickey Rooney from Breakfast at Tiffany's. The employee might have gotten away with it too if not for one, actually issuing the receipt to the customer, and two, the customer wasn't a journalist with Pro Publica. After publishing a photo of the receipt on her Twitter page, the photo went viral leading to the dismissal of the employee, and Papa John's issuing an apology to the customer.

What was truly odd though was that the order to fire the employee ultimately came from Papa John's corporate higher ups. The manager defended the cashier, stating that in a busy restaurant it was normal for cashiers to label customers by their physical appearance, like 'guy in the green shirt', or 'woman in the plaid skirt'. Strangely enough, this is not the only recent example of Asians being treated poorly in big chain restaurants. A cashier at a California area Chick-fil-a was similarly fired for identifying Asian customers as 'Ching' and 'Chong' on a receipt. That cashier was dismissed as well.

While reading about the story on the Blogs, it occurred to me how relatively few major news outlets had covered the story. (The New York Post reported on the Papa John's incident, but with their usual tabloid/sensationalist flare.) Casual racism against Asians for the most part is still accepted in mainstream society. What would have occurred if the restaurants made similar slurs against Black customers? Or Jewish?

In 2001 Sarah Silverman caught slack for making disparaging remarks against Asians in a New York Comedy club. Silverman admitted that the joke initially was going to use an ethnic slur against Blacks, but found Asians less threatening, and thus changed the joke. While the joke caused some short-lived rancour, it ultimately blew over and Silverman's career remains relatively unfettered. Compare that to Michael Richards and Mel Gibson whose racist outbursts have all but ostracized them from the Hollywood community. To be fair there was significantly more vitriol behind the Richards and Gibson rants, but to deny the target of their hate didn't make a difference would be naive.

Ultimately the responsibility falls on Asians and Asians alone if they want to see significant change occur. Asians of course are made up of a complex tapestry of ethnicity and nationalities, but nonetheless still have to show greater political cohesion if they are to fight back the tide of casual racism. Punishing perpetrators like Papa John's and Chick-a-fil would be a start.