Retail Redlining: One of the Most Pervasive Forms of Racism Left in America

[Redfairen]

David Mekarski, the village administrator for the south Chicago suburb of Olympia Fields, told a startling story this week at the American Planning Association's annual conference about a debate he recently had with a restaurant official. Why, he wanted to know, wouldn't quality restaurants come to his mixed-race community, where the average annual household income is $77,000, above the county average?

The reply: "Black folks don’t tip, and so managers can’t maintain a quality staff. And if they can’t maintain a quality staff, they can’t maintain a quality restaurant.”

A gasp then rippled through the room in front of Mekarski. "This is one of the most pervasive and insidious forms of racism left in America today," he says.

There's a term for the phenomenon he's describing: retail redlining. The practice is a more recent and less studied variation on redlining as it's been historically recognized in the housing sector. In the context of retail, grocery stores, and restaurants, redlining refers to the "spatially discriminatory practice" of not serving certain communities because of their ethnic or racial composition, rather than their economic prospects.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2013/04/retail-redlining-one-most-pervasive-forms-racism-left-america/5311/

[Scuba]

1. Just post a sign in your restaurant: "We Pay Our Servers a Living Wage. No Tipping Necessary."

[BlancheSplanchnik]

2. Zing! n/t

[skydive forever]

3. excellent answer Scuba

[snort]

10. Yes.

[spinbaby]

4. I used to be a waitress

It was certainly not my experience that black people don't tip. Religious groups and especially the Amish were notorious for not tipping.

[blackspade]

6. Same here.

I'd add about 50% of the wealthy to that list as well.

[blackspade]

5. African-Americans don't tip?!

Where the fuck does that bullshit anecdote come from?

[cbdo2007]

7. I've heard many servers say this but a particular friend said

that it isn't that they don't tip but they'll just leave like $1 on a $20-$30 check or something. And she's a white woman married to an African-American guy so I'm pretty sure she's not a racist.

[AnneD]

16. That has been my experience too...

when I worked for tips. I don't know why, but it just what I experienced. Old people were in the same category-tipped but very little. You just don't get upset when they leave you dimes or quarters. That was good money back in the day I guess.

Religious groups as a whole did not tip at all. In order to keep staff working on Sunday, he instituted a 10% gratuity on all tables of over 10. Boy did we hear from those cheapskates.

Wages for people are so low ($2.13 -slightly better than the $1.35 when I waited over 40 years ago) and figure in to that some places charge the waiter or waitress for tables that walk out without paying. Forget about health care.

Either living wages should be paid or massive education as to tipping. Frankly, I think a living wage is the best.

[cbdo2007]

17. I would much rather they go to a "living wage" because the tipping has become such a gray

area in many places nowadays. Not when you eat in a sit-down place with a server, but even when you pick up take out from somewhere now they get mad if you don't put in a couple of bucks for a tip in the tip line, or other restaurants where you pick up the food in one place but go sit down and eat it without their further help like Chipotle or the coffee shop.

[AnneD]

18. ITA....

I tip for sit down service-everything else is fast food. But I have been known to tip in a drive through now and again.

[greiner3]

8. Remedy;

To ALL upscale restuarants;

ADD 15%-20% to the cost of the meal to cover the 'poor slobs', the wait staff, who make $3/hr, at least here in OH.

[kelliekat44]

9. That is the one of many big lies told about blacks. Many whites don't tip either. A lot

of times poor service is the reason for anyone not tipping. But I can tell you this, I have never eaten at a restaurant with black people who didn't tip and in most cases over tipped..being able to identify more easily with service employees. I have eaten with blacks in all levels of restaurants from high end to low end and especially in casino restaurants where it is very easy to not tip the person bringing just drinks to buffet patrons and I have never had any of my friends wealthy-working poor not tip.

[Cleita]

12. This is why an 8% gratuity should be added to the check to cover the taxes the

server is going to have to pay on that at least. This makes the cheapos leave a tip. If others, more generous want to add to that, fine. But my experience as a server and bartender has been that good service has nothing to do with the tip you receive. Some people are generous and others are cheap. No amount of great service will loosen the wallets of the cheapos if tipping is voluntary.

[ieoeja]

11. I always tell about my experience when I hear this.

African-American group comes into the bar/restaurant. Waitress delivers round of drinks. Waitress delivers food and a second round of drinks. Waitress does not return to table.

They stop me, the busboy, as I wander by. I take their drink order to the waitress. This repeats several times that night. At the end of the night waitress says, "sure enough, they gave me almost no tip."

I pull a $50 out of my pocket and state, "that's funny, they gave me 50 dollars!"

A busboy is never, ever allowed to accept tips. As I often had to clean around a tip left on the table, the no tip rule lowers the potential for confusion and theft. And, of course, we were paid at least minimum wage.

So the waitress took this up with management. When I told them what had transpired they had a great deal to say to her on the subject.

I got the $50.

[Cleita]

13. When I was a manager I fired servers who didn't give the same quality of service to

all customers regardless of whether they were good tippers or not. We usually had a station where we put the bad tippers who were regulars. We always put the new guy on that station. They were still expected to give good service until the day they got "promoted" to better tipping stations. I still would have preferred to add the gratuity to the check and be done with it. My servers would really have had to concentrate on excellent service then.

[justabob]

15. yep

I've had that scenario play out for me as well. I get a tip for actually fetching what they need while the actual waiter bitches about being stiffed while actively ignoring his station/table. A lot of my former coworkers would write off women and other-than-white tables all the time. I would happily take those tables and pocket that money.

[gvstn]

14. Not a restaurant

But as to grocery stores, from my very little experience I saw the owner of the store I worked at open a new store in his very lower income hometown and it was a real struggle compared to his suburban store. He was not ready for it.

The customers at the new store had very little discretionary income and therefore did much less impulse buying. So less sales volume and much harder to move large quantities of product and thus harder to generate "extra" sales and therefore get better prices from suppliers. Also many customers walked to the store so even less impulse buying since you can only buy what you can carry. After that experience I sort of understand why some retailers don't want to open stores in areas that have very little discretionary income. It is just harder to make a profit. You can do it but it is harder, so most will open somewhere else.

This doesn't excuse profiling customers by race but profiling by income seems a legitimate way to decide where you want to open a business that must generate sales. Going where the money is seems to make sense if you are in it for profit rather than serving the community as your primary goal. Which is what motivates most businesses.