Posted on 11/29/2016 11:53:34 AM PST by re_tail20
I noticed the waiter lingering around my table a little more than usual. For the first time at this buffet-style restaurant, the waiter seemed agitated. Normally, he would be singing to mesmerized patrons in between busing tables and asking if customers needed any assistance in a place that is essentially self-serve.
"That man called me boy," he finally told me, unprompted, while pointing his eyes toward an older white gentleman in blue overalls.
"He said, 'boy, go get me some sweet tea,'" the waiter went on, mostly under his breath. He didn't want anyone else to hear.
"I'm a man! I'm a father," he told me. I could see that he was fighting back tears and the urge to show that man, in no uncertain terms, that he was no one's boy.
The waiter, a black man in his 30s, told his white supervisor about the incident but was told to just ignore it, that maybe the man didn't mean any harm.
But he couldn't -- it hurt too much -- and that's why he was standing at my table, commiserating with the only other black person in the restaurant. He had no other option. He couldn't confront the man directly without the potential of being called overly sensitive or, worse yet, losing his job.
I left him a larger-than-usual tip in hopes that gesture might provide some respite in an untenable situation. He needed the job. But he needed his dignity, too. He struggled, and in the end did what many had done before him -- swallowed hard and got back to work.
That was a few months ago. His was one of many stories that came back to me after election night, because it is illustrative of what many people of color are feeling as the words "President-elect...
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
Oh for pete’s sake ... Make a movie out of it why dontcha?
Who invents this second-rate cliched crap? If I read this story in an eighth-grade comp class I’d give the writer a D.
“That man called me ‘boy,’” said the lovable, self-effacing Negro waiter. “But I’s no boy. I’s a MAN.”
Gack!
Omg, here we go again. That’s all they can come up with? Puhleeze we (conservatives) have have been called so many names so many times that we’ve lost count. I spit on them for dragging this dead mule out...again.
as it pertains to the birther question....I submit the following:
Barak Obama himself, IMHO contributed to the issue by first refusing to release his college records which alleged he received financial assistance by claiming foreign student status. Second, there was no explanation offered to the absolute fact that Michelle Obama claimed in a speech that “mu husband was born in Kenya”. Third is the fact that his grandmother said he was born in Kenya.
So when one ignores all this, it becomes a farce to expect others to believe one was born in Hawaii with its’ sketchy record keeping.
Wait, wait! Lemme guess. This is fake news. I’m right, huh.
Yep.
CNN = fake news site
They fabricated this story. Bet on it!!
The correct response to someone calling you “boy” is to say:
“Boy, hell! You must call an alligator a lizard!”
...and then you just go on about your business.
More “Fake News” from the radical extreme far-left racialist CNN.
BS. More fake news by the fake media.
So did Snoopy!
Better not let Haitian-American Pierre Garçon of the REDSKINS know
Oh boy!
Great response to screaming racist
indigence (noun): A level of poverty in which real hardship and deprivation are suffered and comforts of life are wholly lacking.
Did you perhaps want to write "indignation?"
Yes, and there's no better way to "heal" someone's sense of humiliation (and to salve a Liberal's conscience) than to give him a hefty tip.
Regards,
I'm afraid that you're mistaken. From the 1800s till about the 1950s, the proper form of address for a waiter was "Herr Ober" ("Ober" being short for "Oberkellner" = "head waiter" [even if he was only a busboy]).
Waitresses, on the other hand, were addressed as "Fräulein" (= "Miss" [regardless of her true marital status]). To address a waitress as "Gnä' Frau" (= "Gracious Lady") would have been considered condescending and insulting in the extreme. (Older single ladies were actually proud of the fact that they had been able to stand on their own two feet without the help of a husband.)
Sadly, in post-war Germany, such terms of address have died out, and I am sure that I "date" myself when I "accost" a stranger on the street to ask directions and address him as "Mein Herr."
I visited the U.S. 20 years ago, and was shocked when the waiter came to take our order and addressed my wife (!) and me with "Hi, guys!" (I immediately corrected him, of course.)
O tempora, o mores!
Regards,
Did you greet people with “Grüß Gott”?
Still do! Love that old third-person imperative (obsolete long form: "Es grüsse Dich Gott!"). Dislike the more-cosmopolitan "Servus!" (which leaves open whether you are coming or going), though it is actually rather old-fashioned in meaning ("At your service!"); prefer "Zu Diensten!" Like the Latinate "Ade!" (= "farewell"), the pendant to ancient Rome's "Ave!" (= "Hail").
Regards,
Thanks! Certainly “garçon in French is Boy. The point is calling a young man who is a waiter a boy is not some new idea that is irredeemably racist. Certainly in the United States, white waiters and bell hops have been called boy in the past before blacks were hired for these positions. It had nothing to do with race.
Super helpful!
What have you done to advance our cause today?
Surely nitpicking autocorrect snipes aren’t your bread and butter?h
At the grocery store I was in line when an elderly black gentleman employed by the store was ending his shift. He said to the hispanic younger men, “you boys have a good shift. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He left.
Well, that set off the hispanic men. “Did you hear him call us boys?” I interrupted and told them he was being fatherly and did not intend to insult them. I said that obviously they are men but to an old man like that they are young.
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