Never Make Black Employees Smile At White Customers

Southern hospitality may lead to perpetual code-switching

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

Southern Hospitality is real y’all. When folks come down to cities like my hometown of New Orleans, they will visit restaurants, diners, and bakeries and receive top-notch service. First, a host or hostess will greet guests at the door, welcome them inside, and guide them to a table. Then a server greets the customers and ensures they have everything they need. But there’s a sinister side to Southern Hospitality because it’s rooted in the Antebellum slave era. Even in the years that followed, Black people in the service industry got the short end of the stick.

For restaurant workers and railroad porters, there was a catch: many employers would not actually pay these workers, under the condition that guests would offer a small tip instead — Rachel E. Greenspan

“Yes, sir” or “ma’am” was more than a common courtesy — it was mandatory. During the Jim Crow era, Black Americans “were relegated to the status of second-class citizens.” And the Southern Hospitality so many have come to love is the byproduct of America’s racial caste system. White Southerners, accustomed to Black people waiting on them hand and foot for free, created a new system where they could pay Black people scraps but insist on receiving top-notch…