I: A Brief Study of Differential Treatment in the Restaurant Industry (Barbu, 1999)

II: Of Good & Evil: The Divine Parameters of God from the Christian and Hindu Perspective (Barbu, 1999)

III: In Memory of James Byrd, Jr., of Jasper, Texas (essay)
(Barbu, 1999)

I: A Brief Study of Differential Treatment in the Restaurant Industry
One day I was asking my fellow foodservers about the upcoming census and the fact that California was rapidly becoming so racially diverse that 'According to the U.S. Census Bureau, minorities are projected to make up nearly half of the U.S. population by 2050' (Allen, 2), when one of my colleagues, a white foodserver who has worked with me for approximately six months stated that 'the white people in California were already a goddamned minority--every time I fill out some kind of form 'White' is listed last while every other kind of minority is ahead of us'. I explained that White was probably alphabetically last on the list, but she argued that it hasn't always been that way. I realized at that moment that there was a preexisting prejudice with her, and nothing I could say would change her mind. That brought to mind the many times I have encountered other servers who were of the opinion that non-white parties didn't tip well or behave properly because of some inherent flaw, and I am left with the following question: Does racism exist in the restaurant industry?
This question is loaded, I realize, and there have to be some delineations made. First, is this racism based on a pre-existing condition with the individual, or is it a learned condition from co-workers attitudes? And secondly, is the behavior based on what I shall refer to as economic reactive behavior, or not?
From the Washington Post (5-24-93), Lynne Duke reported that on the very same day (in 1993) that a California federal court ordered the Denny's restaurant chain to stop discriminating against parties because they were Black or of other minority ethnicity, six Black United States Secret Service agents en route to a function that involved President Clinton stopped at a Denny's in Annapolis for a meal. The men arrived with other Secret Service officers, White and Black, but the six men in question sat together. All of the men ordered their meals at the same time, but the Black officers were served so slow, and their food took so long that they were in essence denied the service that the other officers enjoyed. The Black men felt humiliated, and even approached the waitress and requested their meals, but they didn't arrive in time because the officers had to leave due to a tight schedule (but the white officers had time to finish their meals). The waitress was seen by other witnesses as rolling her eyes at the officer's request for their meals, and when he asked to see the manager, her only response was that he was busy with a phone call. The officers felt as though their civil rights had been violated, and that the restaurant had shown a classic case of some kind of bias (Duke) so they pursued the matter. This year the same company again had problems with non-white customers, this time a party of Latinos who were told to wait as other parties who were white arrived after them but were served first. When the party became irate at the injustice, the restaurant refused them service and called the police to have them ejected from the premises (ABCNEWS.com/ Denny's Slapped With Lawsuit). This type of discrimination has been alleged in San Diego, San Jose, Vallejo, and Sacramento as well as other locations (Duke). In Miami, six Black prison guards were told by a Denny's manager that they didn't look right together (ABC News.com/ Guards Win Each in Dennys Case). They were then told that the 24 hour restaurant was out of food and was closed (even though there were people eating). Does this sound like America in the 1990's? I thought the days of the Woolworth's protests (where Blacks as well as others protested for equality of service) were left in the 1960's? One of the Black Secret Service Officers from the 1993 incident stated that you would never think it would happen to you, especially not in full uniform (Duke).
This paper is not an opportunity to bash Denny's. In fact, since all of this happened Denny's has been a model organization in the realm of recruiting and promoting minority leadership. R.L. Allen reports that 'Last summer Denny's (had) been cited by Fortune magazine among U.S. companies with outstanding diversity programs'(4). What happened at Denny's is indicative of the entire foodservice industry; once a problem like this gets put into everyone's living room (via the media), upper management addresses the problem as if they had just confronted it for the first time. In fact, Allen states that '...if every CEO could understand the direct relationship between diversity and profitability, it would be a front burner issue, as opposed to one which is often considered to be a purely HR issue, which it is not'(4). Over the past twelve years I have worked for several restaurants in several parts of California and I can attest to the fact that every restaurant is similar to Denny's because of a few common elements: foodservers and tips. Foodservers are human and suffer the same frailties as all people, prejudice included. The tip is the primary reason foodservers diligently cater to their parties, in fact, tip simply means To Insure Promptness. Again, is there bias in the way minorities are treated in the restaurant? If so, is it because of prejudice, or of some other determinant?
Economic reactive behavior is a term that we shall use to identify, for example, why a foodserver becomes unsettled when they realize that they will have to serve a table that may not leave the gratuity that they were expecting. The stipulation is that either a party left a poor tip, the party in question has tipped poorly before, or that a pattern of poor tipping has been established as a result of numerous interactions. I have seen many servers irate because they have been given a poor (or no) tip, and regardless of the party's ethnic background, their response could easily be ERB; 'cheap bastards--I busted my ass and they stiffed me'! ERB is not the result of waiting on a party that has never been seen before; the implication here is that a general stereotype may be present, such as associating certain ethnic backgrounds with certain tipping (or lack of tipping) behaviors. Gordon Allport states that 'Economic insecurity breeds the frustration and fear that are part of the soil of scapegoating'(1948, p.53). So if a server has had a negative experience in the past, and it involved money, the tendency is to assign fear/frustration to the stereotype in question.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau (www.census.gov), median household income (using 1996 statistics) by race and origin shows that there is indeed a disparity between Black, Hispanic, Asian (pacific islander, etc.), and White. Looking at the average White household income and the Black and Hispanic incomes, the difference is approximately 37 thousand dollars for White, 25 thousand dollars for Hispanic, and only 24 thousand dollars for Black. Hispanic and Black incomes, according to survey, are roughly 2/3 of the White income levels. Jaret affirms the disparity by adding that 'A gap of 17,748 dollars exists between the average White and Black family'(426). Marable & Mullings state that 'One third of all African American families now live below the Federal Government's poverty level' (221). There is a huge disparity in the incomes between White and non-White people. But does this mean that tipped employees can seek out the good tippers and give them better service? Of course not--all people are paying the same amount for their tab and are entitled to the same treatment. All people who patronize a restaurant contribute to job creation and maintenance--server's minimum wage is still better than most of the world. Does the knowledge of economic disparity influence a server's behavior? Perhaps, but we have no way of knowing from this small study.
One reason for this paper, as was mentioned in the first paragraph, is my personal interest in the changing demographic profile of California, and that also includes the changing restaurant market. If we do have racism now, then it is logical to assume that unless serious study is done to address this issue, the racism will worsen. From the National Multicultural Institute we have the following demographic forecast: 'Over the next twenty years the U.S. population will grow by 42 million. Hispanics will account for 47% of the growth, Blacks 22%, Asians 18%, and White 13%'. Translation: a racial problem in the industry now will only be exacerbated as time marches on. In my experience (more than 12 years, 5 companies, 11 locations--both as a foodserver and a manager) I have noticed a trend that foodservice staffs tend to be a mostly White. Why? I don't know, but the issue is currently being addressed. Allen states that 'The U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics data for 1998 show that the percentage of African Americans (10.8%), Hispanics (16.1%), and Women (52.2%) in the foodservice workforce basically mirrors or exceeds their representation in the total population. But the push to develop and promote minority talent, that is, anyone who is not a White male, into positions of leadership is much newer'(2). Allen's stats do not define, however, who works in the kitchen washing dishes, and who works in the dining room bussing tables, or who serves and makes tips. Also, the push to promote non-White males is a good indicator that the majority of leadership positions are still White--most of the managers who were hourly employees before(myself included) were foodservers, not dishwashers or bussers, so the tendency for managment is to be server-sympathetic, hence the problem of race in the restaurant.
In this paper I will discuss the determinants to my thesis question, namely, what is racism, prejudice, and discrimination, and using the research of Leon Festinger, Milton Rokeach, and Gordon Allport as primary sources, I will attempt to answer the question, is there racism in the restaurant industry? Since the area of discrimination, racism, and prejudice is so pervasive in society, I will be mainly focusing on the interactions between White employees and non-White (mostly Black) customers.

II

A bargain basement definition of Leon Festinger's (1957) theory of cognitive dissonance would be that at times we are confronted (internally) with opposing ideas concurrently, of which we find it hard to decipher these diametric beliefs. Like the basis of a stereotype, where we compartmentalize items into groups in our minds because otherwise it would be a mental filing chaos; we depend on numerous assumptions because otherwise we would have to construct new scenarios and make decisions based on the whole (instead of a paraphrased, stereotypical version of) data. Lustig & Koester define a stereotype as '...a selection process that is used to organize and simplify'(305), and that '...stereotypes are often assumed to apply to all or most of the members of a particular group or category, resulting in a tendency to ignore differences among the individual members of the group. This type of stereotyping error is called the out-group homogeneity effect and results in a tendency to regard all members of a particular group as much more similar to one another than they actually are'(307). However, when we do have conflicting thoughts, we are self-motivated to reduce the conflict and remain consistent in our beliefs. If we hold certain beliefs to be core to our being, the tendency is to maintain those core beliefs. As in balance theory (see Kenneth Burke for detailed definition of Balance theory), in order for an individual to have their core beliefs changed through persuasion they have to be put into a state of imbalance, and then re-wired with the new beliefs. However, in balance theory it is usually the peripheral beliefs that are altered, not the most inner core values. Hence, the way we view the world is very hard to alter. That brings up the viewpoint of racism being brought in by the individual (foodserver), as opposed to a (racist) viewpoint being initiated to the new employee. Essed defines racism as '...cognitions, actions, and procedures that contribute to the development of a system in which Whites dominate Blacks'(Jaret 128). This is a narrower view of racism (Black-White only), but relevant to this study. Charles Jaret defines racism as '...a blanket term for that which keeps a racial group in a subordinate or minority position' (128). Essed's definition of racism fits the situation that I am aware of; White foodservers that have cognitively delegated Blacks (and other minorities as well) into a status of inferiority. Many times I have witnessed White servers saying to anyone in earshot to them 'Great! Look what I just got'! The meaning is that they don't want to wait on their new table, a minority party, and only do so reluctantly and with a degree of differential treatment.
Another employee from my restaurant experience and I were engaged in phatic communication during a shift last year when he said 'Man, the Black people here don't tip worth shit! I asked him why he thought so, and he said that his table left him less than a 10% tip. It was his first non-White table of the shift, and he was already classifying all Blacks with this one table. This server was a blond-haired, blue-eyed male. Did he assess accurately that certain ethnic persuasions tip differently? Not for the amount of time he had been at that restaurant. Either he worked in other restaurants previously, or he had brought his prejudice in from the outside. For now we will assume that he did not learn his prejudicial behavior from his current employer but had brought it in with him from outside of this individual restaurant. Andy had worked in foodservice before, and he was comparing how Black parties tipped from one region to another. Festinger states that 'A person does not hold an opinion unless he thinks it is correct, and so, psychologically, it is not different from a knowledge'(10). To Andy, it was (common) knowledge that Black people in this area did not tip well. Did he acquire his belief from his previous restaurant? It is hard to say without investigation, but we may be able to assume that Andy's prejudice developed socially. Festinger states that '...for one set of reasons or another, a number of people who are in contact with one another all suffer from the same cognitive dissonance. Under such circumstances, the striking and dramatic aspects of mass phenomena exist not because something exceptional or unique is brought into the situation, but only because social support is particularly easy to find in the pursuit of dissonance reduction'(233-4). This thought brings us to the next point, namely, socially transmittable prejudices. Jaret defines prejudice as '...an attitude--a feeling, belief, or state of mind that predisposes a person to be hostile or negative toward members of certain racial-ethnic groups'(160).
In 1990 I had a store manager who, during a server's meeting one Saturday, attempted to address the issue of prejudice with his all-White service staff; there had been ongoing allegations that non-White customers were subject to differential treatment at the hands of the White foodservers. The manager addressed the issue by saying that 'they' (meaning Black, but also Gypsy customers), he was sure, are nice people, and that we need to be careful how we treat them. There was no stern warning that discrimination was forbidden by law, and that it was a terminable offense, according to company policy. There was no leadership by example; he could have said how disappointed he was in this behavior. No, there was only ridicule for the situation. In the three years before what happened to Denny's this manager fueled the flame by addressing the issue of discrimination not in terms of how to deter it, but how to hide it. Hence, no matter what prejudices were harbored by the staff, the manager had allowed the situation to perpetuate; the behavior of discrimination was not eradicated, but was rather given approval to merely lie dormant while at work. This manager didn't respect his non-White customers enough to take a stand for them. Allen states that 'Part of respect is acknowledging that people come with cultural differences and making people feel valued for who they are' (3).
The scenario I have described perpetuates into further instances of latent discrimination. Hence, prejudice has a social mechanism as was shown in the above model, and it is also brought into the restaurant from the outside as was shown in the Andy model. So, how does cognitive dissonance fit into all of this?
H.A. Murray did a study of photographs that were shown to subjects to gauge how benign/malicious each person appeared to them (see Festinger 235-236). The photos were shown to the subjects after fearful as well as after pleasant experiences. The result was that people associate more negatively in fearful situations. When people are brought up thinking that certain ethnic persuasions are bad, they will hold on to those negative pictures. Gordon Allport states that 'Fear can also originate in seeing a loved one endangered, someone with whom there are strong feelings of identification'(1948, p.26). So, if a foodserver has had a bad experience with a member of a certain ethnic group, and that experience still lingers in the form of fear, then is it logical that waiting on a party of that ethnicity will elicit negative attitude? Sure it can, but that doesn't explain why people give their own ethnic group the benefit of the doubt. Allport goes on to say that, regarding other ethnic parties, '...such traumatic incidents occur so rarely that they cannot account for the widespread prejudices we find in our population'(1948, p.26). So fear is irrational when only applied to a stereotypical image of a certain ethnicity, and not to all people. Allport states that a stereotype '...reduces people and events to a few clear-cut traits' (1948, p.33). Those traits create a chasm in a person's mind as to how people really are. Festinger states that 'The existence of dissonance, being psychologically uncomfortable, will motivate the person to try to reduce the dissonance and achieve consonance. When dissonance is present, in addition to trying to reduce it, the person will actively avoid situations and information which would likely increase the dissonance'(3). In our restaurant model, one way for the server that has a negative view of certain ethnic parties to cope with their feelings is to avoid the parties overall. But since they can't do that without getting fired, they have to somehow deal with the dissonant beliefs. One way of dealing with a prejudiced belief in others is to seek constant reinforcement for those beliefs. Festinger states that since '...the belief is difficult to change...there are a sufficient number of persons with the identical dissonance so that social support is easily obtainable' (244). The belief is difficult to change sometimes because some people don't want to acknowledge contrasting data. Festinger states that 'New events may happen or new information may become known to a person, creating at least a momentary dissonance with existing knowledge'(4). Even a string of good tips won't change the opinions of some people.
Another way of coping is through proselytizing. Festinger states that 'In order to further reduce the dissonance, they tried to persuade more and more persons that the belief was correct'(250). No matter how faulty their data may be, there is safety in numbers. If enough people believe the same thing, then they can't all be wrong, can they? After all, it's harder to admit an error in your logic than it is to convince some other ignorant person that you are right.
Festinger's social comparison theory states that '...people are driven to self-evaluation through comparisons with others, especially when they lack confidence in their own actions'(Reardon, 37). This is like the old adage of if you can't say anything good about someone else, then you have nothing good to say about yourself. A server experiencing CD who receives a poor tip is more likely to blame someone for the bad tip, instead of evaluating themself and the service that was provided.
I personally see all parties as being potential good tippers as well as bad ones--the factor i equate is that of MY service as the determinant in (not) getting a tip. I believe that economic reasons and my own personal ability weighs more heavily in what kind of tip I will receive than do racial reasons. For instance, let's say that it was busy and the server had too many tables to wait on. His or her service, no matter how valiant the attempt, would be compromised and the tip will probably be less than if there were only a few parties who were afforded pampered service. That is an example of my own personal ability. Also, if a server has attitude toward someone they are supposed to be taking care of, then why should they be tipped at all? But once the bad experience happens, the stereotype is inculcated and becomes hard to erase.
Some people simply don't have a lot of money to give a tip, or it is culturally regulated as to how much one should give, or the reason why it may even be frowned upon. In Russia, being a foodserver is equated by many to be like a prostitute. In some cultures a two dollar tip is customary. Some elderly people I have waited on have told me that waitresses in the old times would get the kind of tip that rattled, not the kind you fold, and they still managed to live off of that! Cognitive dissonance between individuals (see Festinger p. 242-243 for example) sees tipping different ways: to a prejudiced server, minorities are bad tippers, hence, they are not nice people. To a non-prejudicial server, minorities as well as White parties tip me for the service they received, for my good attitude, and if they didn't tip, then I need to improve my skills.
Another form of CD is proclaiming that you have no dislike of any person, regardless of their racial background, but when you are set a party of them in your section, you wish you could give them to some other server. I call this the NIMBY (not in my backyard) phenomenon, but it is also a form of CD. The server can easily work side by side with others from differing ethnicities, however, when they have to earn a living and wait on an ethnic party, CD shows its ugly face. Let's say for example that they do get a mediocre tip; the response according to CD would be something like Oh well, those people don't tip anyhow! If they can't get a good tip from everyone, and perhaps they simply aren't worthy of a good tip, then it's a matter of sour grapes.
Saving face is the name of the behavior one would use in order to not look stupid in front of others. Ideologically, it means holding on to a philosophy even though that philosophy may be incorrect. In CD terms, saving face entails continually maintaining the philosophy in the face of dissonance, and even becoming more rabid the further the dissonant chasm widens. Again, New events may happen or new information may become known to a person, creating at least a momentary dissonance with existing knowledge (Festinger 4). Since admitting that we were wrong is hard , imagine suddenly being confronted with the aspect of a fundamental flaw in our being! A server that is suddenly confronted with a much better than average tip from a minority party may decide to not accept this new data (the great tip), thereby holding on to the old data (minorities are lousy tippers), and at the same time manages to save face (by not admitting error).
Giving up and changing behavior. Festinger surmises that one way to reduce CD is to eliminate the dissonance by altering how a person acts: 'He might change his cognition about his behavior by changing his actions'(6). A server could change their actions and thus reduce dissonance if they were to outright treat minority parties differentially. What I mean is if a server sees minority parties as tipping poorly even though (according to the server) the server is worthy of the good tip, then he or she will refrain from giving similar service, instead giving poor service to poor tippers.

III

The works of Milton Rokeach include research on behavior, attitudes, and values, and how they affect a person's ability to see the world. Rokeach states that '...beliefs, attitudes, and values are all organized together to form a functionally integrated cognitive system, so that a change in any part of the system will affect other parts, and will culminate in behavioral change'(1970, p.ix). What a person believes will affect their attitude and what they value to be true. So if what a person believes is based on faulty or insufficient data, then their attitudes and social construction of reality are also skewed. Rokeach states that 'A belief system may be defined as having represented within it, in some organized psychological but not necessarily logical form, each and every one of a person's countless beliefs about physical and social reality. By definition, we do not allow beliefs to exist outside of the belief system for the same reason that the astronomer does not allow stars to remain outside of the universe'(1970, p.2). Hence, what a person believes to be true shapes their existence. But what if a person believes that they (and their own racial group) are better than other racial groups?
People that are ethnocentric find fault with others on the basis of their own standards, which they feel are superior to the standards of others. Jaret defines ethnocentrism as '...the common tendency of people to take a point of view in which their own group is the center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it'(55). Levinson states that 'An ethnocentric person is one who generally rejects and vilifies out-groups, and at the same time overly accepts and glorifies the in-group'(Rokeach, 1960, p.12). This self-promotion at the expense of others is easily escalated. Gordon Allport stated that 'A minor offense, overlooked in a member of our group, seems intolerable when committed by a member of the out-group'(Rokeach, Smith, & Evans, p.165). What is a minor offense? In this model, a minor offense is for someone to leave a tip for a server that the server deems inadequate. Hence, if a minority party leaves what the server deems as a bad tip, then that would be similar to offensive behavior. Once a person has branded an ethnic persuasion with a particular stereotype it is hard to alter. In fact, some people refuse to let go. Rokeach re-states a major study by Adorno, Et Al. by saying that '...persons who are high in ethnic prejudice...as compared with persons who are low, are more rigid in their problem-solving behavior, more concrete in their thinking, and more narrow in their grasp of a particular subject; they also have a greater tendency to premature closure in their perceptual processes and to distortions in memory, and a greater tendency to be tolerant of ambiguity' (1960, p.16).
Stephen Littlejohn defines attitudes as '...groups of beliefs that are organized around a focal object and predispose a person to behave in a particular way toward that object'(140). A server's attitude can vary depending upon how they feel toward a certain group/individual. From my experience, I have noticed that servers who feel they may get a good tip from a certain party tend to allow more leeway to that party (free food, bigger portions, etc.) than they would to a party that they have pre-determined to be poor tipping. In essence, the better the perceived tip, the better the attitude of the server toward the party/individual.

IV

The works of Gordon Allport include research on prejudice. Allport states that prejudice is 'A feeling, favorable or unfavorable, toward a person or thing, prior to, or not based on, actual experience'(1958, p.7). Hence, we are prejudiced merely by believing our internal filing system that groups similar entities or experiences together, and predicts how the situation will unravel, instead of creating new information for each new situation. This definition fits nicely into our restaurant model. If we assume a foodserver to be prejudiced, they could, for example, have a prejudiced reaction upon merely seeing an ethnic party. An instance I have in mind involves a White server we shall refer to as Ginny. She was given a party of Black people in her section when she approached me and asked if she could trade tables with me, because she does better with guys, meaning she wanted my table of just two (White) men. Ginny had not asked me this request all evening, even though I had several parties that were either all male, or had several males in it. Allport states that a sign of prejudice is 'An avertive or hostile attitude toward a person (or persons) who belong(s) to a group, simply because (they) belong to that group, and it is therefore presumed to have the objectionable qualities ascribed to the group'(1958, p.8). I received a higher than usual tip (based on my average overall, I wasn't implying that it was higher for a Black party) from the Black party that Ginny balked on, but her only reply was that I was lucky. Lucky? Her nature as a foodserver to make money at each table she serves betrayed her motive for not wanting the Black party--she didn't think they were worth her time because they wouldn't tip her adequately. Even after I told her that they were good tippers, she dismissed the event as an anomaly. Along these lines, Allport states that 'If a person is capable of rectifying erroneous judgments in the light of new evidence (they) are not prejudiced. Prejudgments become prejudices only if they are not reversible when exposed to new knowledge. A prejudice, unlike a simple misconception, is actively resistant to all evidence that would unseat it'(1958, p.9). Hence, when confronted with new information about non-White parties, Ginny rejected the data and held on to her prejudice.
So, when is it not prejudicial to not want a certain party or group of people? According to Allport, it is not prejudice if your judgment is based on experience(1958, p.7); individual-specific experience, as in the next example. We have a family that comes in every month or so, and when they do, two functions are utilized. They are a Gypsy family, and not very pleasant. Since they have been coming in for some time now (several years from my personal experience), it is easy to assume that the animosity felt toward Gypsy people in general by many of our foodservers has derived from this individual party. Hence, the wellspring of prejudice to a naive mind. And secondly, this party is the basis of fear (of working your ass off without being tipped), based on prior experience. Under these conditions, it is not prejudice to want to avoid contact with these known individuals, whereas it would be prejudicial to avoid other unknown persons of Gypsy ethnicity because they are being compared to a similar ethnic group party, and thus being stereotyped. Allport uses slightly different models but the spirit is the same: 'Ordinarily, prejudice manifests itself in dealing with individual members of rejected groups. But in avoiding a Negro neighbor, or in answering Mr. Greenberg's application for a room, we frame our action to accord with our categorical generalization of the group as a whole'(1958, p.8).
Prejudice felt leads to discrimination applied. In the restaurant model, when we abhor the presence of other ethnic groups we are prejudiced against them. When we treat them differentially, we are discriminating against them. Allport states that 'Discrimination comes about only when we deny to individuals or groups of people equality of treatment which they may wish'(1958, p.50).
From our Gypsy model above, it is easy to assume that animosity toward a specific group can have as its origin an incident or even more than one incident with members of the same ethnic group (see above definitions on stereotyping). Allport states that '...a single contact with a minority group member may, if it produces strong emotional response, result in hostile feelings directed against the group of which that individual was a member'(1948, p.25).
One phenomenon associated with assigning certain people as an out-group is that of group cohesion, or the in-group. Susan Isaacs reports that 'The existence of an outsider is in the beginning an essential condition of any warmth or togetherness within the group' (Allport, 1958, p.40). and this designation of an out-group can become more than just in-group cohesion. Allport states that 'Hostility toward out-groups helps strengthen our sense of belonging' (1958, p.41). Since the majority of my present foodservice staff (as has been the case no matter where I have worked in this industry) is White, it is easy to find a group cohesiveness among them. for example, of the thirty foodservers currently employed, there are two Asian, one Black, one Jewish, two Latino, and three homosexual males (who more strongly identify with White-ness). The remainder whom see themselves simply as White. Hence, a new (White) foodserver will quickly come up against the dominant ideology in this particular restaurant, and either conform or be like myself, going against the grain. Allport states that 'It is possible...to be devoid of prejudice...yet through contact with the attitudes of others, feel it necessary to conform to their behavior'(1948, p.27).

V

So, how does this all add up? Is there racism in the restaurant industry? From the Denny's model in section one it certainly looks like there is, especially since I said that Denny's is not an isolated case, of which I have given personal examples from my own restaurant.
But what about the communication theories utilized in this report? Do they allude to racism in the restaurant industry? From section two, Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance, as it applies to this model, looks at categorizing and stereotyping various knowledges to make the mental process more efficient. But is it racist? I don't see racism as much as I see ignorance by using this theory.
From section three, Rokeach's work into behavior, attitudes, and values goes further into the core of the person and reveals the belief structure, but again, what I see is an explanation for a person's ideological shortcomings, and not how they would actually persecute someone on the basis of race.
From section four, Allport discusses the nature of prejudice and the application of that prejudice--discrimination. According to Allport, I have to say that the phenomenon of racism can begin to be analyzed.
After analyzing the various communication theories and applying them to racism in the restaurant industry, I have no choice but to say that there is racism in the restaurant, but my attempt to answer the question in this paper has not been adequate. In the future, what is needed is some serious quantitative study to poll more people directly involved (restaurant employees, customers), as well as to examine much more theory in communications, psychology, or whatever applies to people in a multi-racial environment.
What about future implications? Considering that we are getting less White in the U.S., it is necessary that we address this issue aggressively. Racism is a difficult problem to undertake since it is so pervasive. But in my restaurant experience, I find it easy to see each person as being not so much bound to their ethnicity as they are to their individuality. Fisher & Urey believe that the best way to avoid this dilemma is to separate the person/people from the problem--evaluate each individual on their own merit and not on the merit of any group that they may belong to (see p.17). Ball-Rokeach and Loges state that 'Experience, education, maturity, and any number of other personal attributes can profoundly affect the beliefs one has about a broadly defined group of people'(11).
But there is hope. Allen states that 'Data from the EEOC show that the number of race-related complaints filed against eating -and-drinking establishments has declined somewhat over the past decade. In 1988, the commission recorded 1055 race-related complaints. In 1998, 877 such complaints were filed. In general, the total number of complaints filed with the EEOC has been on the decline since 1994' (4). Remember 1994? It was the beginning of the Denny's nightmare, or at least the time that it really began to hit the fan! Any good manager can tell you that it is easier to take care of problems in-house before it reaches corporate or EEOC. I believe that 1994 was the time in which discrimination at zero tolerance was born--for no other reason than to save the companies from lawsuits. Again I reiterate Allen's statement that '...if every CEO could understand the direct relationship between diversity and profitability, it would be a front burner issue' (4).
I will end this paper with a passage from W.E.B. Dubois (453) and the hope that the research I have done provide an heuristic basis to continue toward the goal of the total equality of all people:

The middle age regarded skin color with mild curiosity; and even up into the eighteenth century we were hammering our national manikins into one, great, universal man, with fine frenzy which ignored color and race even more than birth. Today we have changed all that, and the world in a sudden, emotional conversion has discovered that it is White and by that token, wonderful!