Definitely. I just came home from brunch. Not a single black person in the restaurant, not even in the kitchen.
Believe me, that’s about lack of job skills, lack of job applications, and a feeling that a kitchen job is beneath their dignity, not about their color. The reason Mexicans, Colombians and Guatemalans (and even Brazilians, many of whom are black) have done so well in the NYC kitchen world is that they will work at anything, they show up for work, don’t have attitude, and actually want to learn and get ahead. I have seen them go from being the busboy to the manager in about 5 years.
Also, all the protesters in this looked to me to be quite well dressed, probably grad students or government or union employees. If they had wanted to work in the restaurant or dine there, they could have. But the work would be too hard, and as for dining...probably a lot of them actually eat at these restaurants from time to time, which is how they knew how to pick them.