Sometimes going out to eat can be a lousy experience.
Not all servers are meant to be servers.
But one bad dine out shouldn’t be able to cause rifts in friendships.
Unless there is good reason.
Case in point…
Redditor Prize-Description646 wanted to discuss her experience and get some feedback. So naturally, she came to visit the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit.
She asked:
“AITA for telling my friend that it wasn’t racism she experienced?”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“I 23 F[emale] and my friend 22 F went out to eat for dinner.”
“We went to an Italian restaurant.”
“We have been to this Italian restaurant many times before however, this time we had a terrible server.”
“Our server barely served us, and she refused to serve my friend.”
“We don’t know why and because of this we shortly left.”
“After getting home my friend claimed that it was because she was Hispanic.”
“Now my friend is Hispanic, and she was very in touch with her culture.”
“However, she is very white passing.”
“She has red hair, blue eyes and pale skin.”
“I told her that we weren’t even talking about anything Hispanic so that shouldn’t be an issue.”
“She kept claiming that it was because she is Hispanic, that the waitress hated her.”
“But I keep trying to explain that the waitress was just rude in general, and did not like either of us.”
“Even if she would serve me and not serve her, she was still rude.”
“Because of how white passing my friend is and how we weren’t talking about her Mexican culture at all I don’t think the waitress was being racist towards her.”
“I do think the waitress was being a d*ck however, not racist so I told my friend that’s not racism.”
“That’s just her being a d*ck.”
“My friend snatched back at me, saying I don’t know what racism is because I am white and have never experienced it.”
“Am I the a**hole?”
Redditors shared their thoughts on this matter and weighed some options to the question AITA:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Many Redditors declared OP was NOT the A**hole.
“NTA. All a**holery isn’t racism.”
“Calling general *ickishness racism diminishes the effectiveness of calling out actual racism.” ~ Evening_Produce1070
“I do agree with the above point – as a minority who has definitely experienced some significant racism, calling everything racism makes quite a few people doubt if racism exists at all.”
“But I’d be interested in knowing why friend thought she was the victim of racism.”
“Has she experienced before based on characteristics she has that may be obvious to others, but that perhaps you don’t see?”
“Might be helpful to have this discussion with her.” ~ EmeraldBlueZen
“This is FASCINATING!”
“I am Cuban but live in rural United States.”
“I am white-passing to lots of people but the people who CARE can sniff me out in a heartbeat.”
“I never understood how they do it.”
“Apparently, there are classes!” ~ JMe5555
“A lot of white folks assume their perceptions are similar to other white people.”
“If they think someone is white-passing, that means that person is white-passing to everyone.”
“Of course that isn’t true.”
“I have experienced this before, as a racially ambiguous-looking black person.”
“I’ve had white people express surprise when I’ve told them I am black.”
“Over the years, I have been pegged as Indian, Hispanic, Samoan, and Jewish(!).”
“But I don’t think most white people are confused.”
“They can tell I have recent African ancestry, especially when they learn my name (including surname) and hear my speech patterns.”
“I’m guessing it is a matter of familiarity.”
“If you have encountered a diverse spectrum of a particular minority group, you will be able to spot a member of that group with greater ease than someone who doesn’t have such familiarity.” ~ autotelica
“Yeah- I think it’s hard for white people to see microaggressions sometimes.”
“And I say that as a white person.”
“There are plenty of people who look like me that think if you aren’t using an obvious slur or making a direct comment about race that it’s not racism.”
“I don’t think there’s enough info here for us to really know what happened- and the friend hasn’t given us her side, so I’m not going to vote.”
“But as a personal rule, I don’t tell other people if they have/haven’t experienced discrimination.” ~ 217EBroadwayApt4E
“I’d also like to point out, as OP describes her friend as having red hair, that some people are extremely bigoted towards redheaded people.”
“I’d hesitate to call it ‘racism,’ exactly, but it’s a bit racism-light.”
“Kind of a leftover of Irish hate that people have picked up generationally.”
“Redheads are either hated or fetishized.”
“No in between.”
“We’ll have strangers touch our hair, tell us we have fiery tempers, and then mock our body hair color and call us alcoholics.”
“Bit bulls**t.”
“But that’s also possibly why the waitress decided not to help the friend?” ~ littlegingerfae
“NTA. I am a woman who likes several male-dominated hobbies.”
“I ride motorcycles and at the time I was commuting 90% of the time on my bike.”
“I needed some work done so I took it to a local shop knowing they could not get to it until the next day.”
“The end of the next day It had not been started.”
“I got a non-apology from them.”
“On the order of I am sorry I cannot change physics for you… totally glossing over the fact that my bike was pushed back in favor of walk-in customers.”
“I considered this was sexist… but with a bit of investigation, it turned out they were just incompetent a**holes.”
“I regretted not checking online reviews before using their services.”
“The reviews were full of similar misses from both their sales and service department.”
“If the customer was not hovering and cracking the proverbial whip constantly, little to nothing got done.”
“Sometimes a**holes are just vanilla variety a**holes.” ~ debbieae
“NTA I’m Mexican and no one would ever know it to look at me.” ~ Drayden71
Some Redditors felt differently…
“Just to preface, I’m white.”
“I’m assuming you’re white because this is a very white person thing you’re doing.”
“You don’t get to tell marginalized people they’re not experiencing racism.”
“Especially when you don’t know WHY this waiter was treating you and your friend that way.”
“Just because she passes as white to you doesn’t mean she passes to everyone else.”
“It may NOT be racism, you may be right, but what you’re effectively doing is invalidating her feelings on something you don’t really understand because you’ve never experienced it. YTA.” ~ Probably_A_ucker
“Hispanic is a person from a Spanish-speaking country, any race can be Hispanic.”
“Her friend is clearly white, unless the waitress knew her country of origin and decided to be xenophobic base on that, then it’s very likely that this person was just a rude a** waitress.”
“Any person looking at them at a table would rightfully assume they are two white girls.” ~ Zoeyoe
“YTA why are you so insistent on defending this stranger against the accusations of racism?”
“By your own account, she treated your friend worse.”
“Why are you so invested in gatekeeping if your friend experiences racist discrimination or if she is too white-passing to do so?”
“You truly have no idea what this person feels in their heart, nor will you ever know.”
“This just comes off as you shi**ing on someone who is supposed to be your friend because you think they are too white-passing to experience racism.” ~ exhauta
“NTA. Your friend views all negative experiences through the lens of being a minority.”
“You can’t change that or get her to see that sometimes people just suck no matter what your culture is.” ~ SnooBunnies7461
“NTA. If the server couldn’t identify her as Hispanic, she couldn’t have discriminated against her for this unseen characteristic.”
“Some people are just AH, maybe she was having a bad day.” ~ lola-rabbit
“NTA- I’m a ginger-bearded, green eyes, white-passing Mexican.”
“It would be silly of me to claim discrimination.”
“In fact, it diminishes those that experience real discrimination.”
“My father has a more typical Hispanic appearance, and although he speaks perfect English he has experienced discrimination in some professional environments.”
“She can put the race card back in the deck, she and I didn’t get one.” ~ whoknowsme2001
“NTA… as a black woman, I hate when the race card is played at any given moment just because it can be.”
“Unless your friend has seen some kind of behavior on the low, then I see no basis for racism, especially because it seems she didn’t give any reason for her to come to that conclusion.” ~ Ellieawi_07
“NTA. Not all bad experiences are because of race.”
“White people are treated like sh!t all the time by any number of people or professions.”
“I’d like to know exactly what the context was of the server refusing to serve her.”
“What did she actually say?”
“Did she take your order but not your friend’s?”
“Did you talk to management?”
“Exactly what happened?”
“I think of an incident at work.”
“I was outside (when I smoked) with a co-worker.”
“A car drove by and I said, ‘Nice car. What is it?'”
“My co-worker said, ‘You couldn’t afford that car.'”
“I asked how much?”
“He told me and I said, ‘I could pay cash for that car right now if I wanted to.'”
“I thought… if I was P[erson] O[f] C[olor], would I think he was saying that because of my race?”
“That he didn’t think a ‘certain race’ could afford a car like that?”
“I might then blow the whole thing out of proportion and then claim it was racism and/or a micro-aggression.”
“Lots of people are crappy and it doesn’t have anything to do with race.” ~ pittsburgpam
Well OP, Reddit is slightly torn, but for the most part they’re with you.
If this is a solid friendship then this could be a really great learning experience.