I funded myself through eight years of education by working as a waiter in some half-decent London restaurants. Waiting wasn’t my vocation, but I could carry plates and was good with customers. Two decades after hanging up my apron, I still feel an affinity with the waiting staff when I’m lucky enough to eat out.
This week, staff at London’s Sanderson hotel were accused of racism after a group of diners, mostly black, were allegedly told by a senior staff member: “You don’t know how to behave in a five-star restaurant.” The party of 22 racked up a bill of more than £2,000 at the swanky West End venue, but said they were “treated like dirt”. Juliet Segayi, whose birthday it was, denies they had been unruly or loud but conceded that the group had been taking selfies.
The hotel has apologised to Segayi and her group, and says it is investigating the incident. What motivated the staff member’s alleged reaction is something we can only guess at. He may well have taken umbrage to a group of young people taking gloatographs with their selfish sticks, regardless of their race. He may have simply been ensuring that other guests didn’t have their evenings ruined. But to the young members of Segayi’s group, the reason for their treatment seemed clear.
The last time I was at the Sanderson, I was with a fairly rowdy group of around 12 – which included a crawling baby. The group was almost exclusively white and we were treated very well, but it was late afternoon and the bar was fairly empty, so you could argue the staff probably felt we weren’t disturbing anyone else. I’m sure I’m not the only black diner who has enjoyed the Sanderson but this doesn’t mean the people in Segayi’s party are exaggerating.
Racism is easy to feel but hard to prove. My partner has grown tired of me playing “count the black faces” when we go to nice restaurants. It always surprises me in this upwardly mobile age that there are still so few black people eating in London’s pricier restaurants. Being part of such a dining minority means I notice things that I probably shouldn’t pay any attention to. I notice when a waiter only addresses my white partner and ignores me. I notice when I’m warned about the price of the wine I’ve ordered, and I notice when the bill is casually presented to my guest instead of me. None of these things are important enough to spoil my evening and I’m willing to accept that in some cases the slight is imagined, and I am making present judgments based on past experiences.
Even when the situation seems more straightforward, it can be hard to know what really happened. Recently two women claim they were turned away from the London nightclub Dstrkt, which is frequented by the likes of Jay Z and Rihanna, for allegedly being “too dark” and “overweight”. A promoter was alleged to have said: “If you’re going to bring dark skin girls, they need to be extra hot,” and the girls were asked to line up in the street so that the manager could judge “what sort of girls” they were. The incident has had repercussions for the club, with acts cancelling performances, while other guests shared their bad experiences on Twitter using #DoILookDSTRKT. Dstrkt is investigating, but categorically denies anyone was turned away from their club because of skin colour or size.
I spent large, frustrating chunks of my adolescence waiting outside nightclubs or “speeching” bouncers to show them I wasn’t going to be any trouble. The preconceptions that bouncers, waiters and promoters often have about black people run through society like a seam, and so navigating this sort of experience is a black rite of passage. The long-term result is one section of society seems hypersensitised while the rest languishes in defensive denial.
Proving discrimination in a restaurant or club would be like trying to prove a particular girl didn’t want to date you because of your colour. It might be true but proof would be near impossible to come by, and ultimately pointless. If she’s not into you, it doesn’t really matter why.