Not so casual racism

     One of the most hilarious/cringe inducing factors of dealing with UWSiders is the blatant snobbery that seems to run rampant in the neighborhood, and subsequently in the restaurant.  Obviously, not everybody who comes in is a total dick.  Some people are awesome. Some people are weird but harmless. Some people are just kind of annoying. And some are fucking elitist babies who manage to tread the fine line between total snobbishness and an utter and complete inability to do anything for themselves.

     Anyway. A few weeks ago I was working with my co-worker B. He's a good dude. Really easy going, decent waiter, easy to work with. I'll describe his appearance because it's relevant to the story.  Tan skin, thick black hair, almond shaped eyes.  He's originally from Guam. I know this because he told me he's from Guam. However, if I didn't know, and somebody put a gun to my head and said "Yo, C: guess that guy's nationality" I would have said, Hawaiin, Pacific Islander, etc. I may not have picked "Guam" off the top of my head because I'm not that cultured, but I can guess the general global area.

   You know what I would not have guessed? Mexican. Or Ecuadoran. Or any kind of South American.  Seriously. He looks about as Mexican as our ambiguously gay Bengali food runner(hey, remind me to write about that guy.)

     But hey, I guess all brown people look the same to people in that neighborhood. They must, or this interaction wouldn't have happened:

A snotty woman was sitting at a table (my table actually) with her family. I was occupied at the moment, and she flagged B down.

B: "Yes?"

Woman: "MAS FRUTAS?!"

B: *stunned* "Um...what?"

Woman: Oh. More strawberries please.

At this point he walked into the wait station before the conversation could get any worse.  And to clarify, this wasn't some confused native Spanish speaker. We do get a lot of foreigners in our restaurant, and I've had times when I've had a guest who speaks only German or French or Spanish, and we have to figure things out through charades...this was not that situation.   This was a snotty rich old white lady who felt that it was appropriate to yell "Mas Frutas!" at a guy who doesn't even look Hispanic. Because all brown people must speak Spanish. (Fun fact: B doesn't speak Spanish, although he was able to discern that "mas frutas" did indeed refer to fruit.)

Also, our waiters have different uniforms than our support staff. B was wearing a waiter's uniform. Why would we have a waiter on the floor who didn't speak English?

So. To reiterate:

1)Don't be racist

2) Don't be stupid

3) "Frutas" doesn't even mean "strawberries," it just means "fruit."

4) Consider yourself lucky you didn't get punched.