Sorrowful?
Many of these would apply to my spouse. I don’t think I would describe her as “sparse”, however.
Same here. Around here black people are called black.
For a few years there was a black Canadian in my home town.
I’m not your friend, buddy!
Buddy is the name of my black and white cat, who is also Canadian.
My understanding (gleaned from the Dope) is that US restaurant workers often operate on the stereotype that black people are bad tippers, so “Canadian” is a code word used to complain without appearing racist, in the sense of “Oh man, I’ve got a whole table of Canadians. Drinks are on someone else tonight” or “Hey Jill, don’t you dare seat those Canadians in my section.”
According to Cornell University’s Center for Hospitality Research, it’s not a stereotype, it’s an observable fact:
http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/chr/pubs/reports/abstract-13851.html
It’s not that big of deal - black people tip less, so what?
All I know is Jeanne d”Arc means “the light’s out in the bathroom.”
The first thing that popped into my mind when I read the initial post was: “I moved here from Canada, and they think I’m slow, eh.”
It’s a stereotype because the waitstaff in question is making assumptions about individuals based on a generalization about a group. You can’t know how much someone is going to tip based on their skin color. It’s a “big deal” because it’s not cool to treat people differently in service settings because of their skin color. Singling out black people for poor service, based on an assumption, is a bad thing.
I’ve heard Canadian for black in Ohio. Apparently it’s common among public servants.
As an actual Canadian, I find this disturbing. I’m not sure whether I’m more insulted that the racists are being dishonest and using ‘Canadian’ to hide what they really want to say, or that ‘Canadian’ is considered harmless enough to be suitable camouflage.
Well, waitstaff aren’t really serving individuals. They’ll serve many thousands of people of the course of a month, year, career, whatever. Taking into account statistics makes sense. If Friday nights generate better or worse tips than Thursday, then trying to get that shift makes sense, regardless of whether a particular Friday night ends up being better or worse than some particular Thursday night.
That said, it’s obviously incredibly inappropriate to give someone worse service or treat them poorly based on their race. But to ignore facts when it comes to financial decision making is just silly.
The reason I said what I did in regards to the use of term stereotype is because of negative connotations. Just because one group tips less another doesn’t make them ‘bad,’ it just makes them different. There should be no moral judgment there.
Canadian means black around here (once again Ohio) at least to my awkwardly racist parents. My mom may have picked it up from her sisters who work in the restaurant industry.
I am delighted by how common this appears to be in Ohio. as a Canadian with many, many relatives in Ohio, some of whom are awkwardly racist. I shall start signing Facebook posts with “from your Canadian cousin.” Perhaps I’d better change my picture to something ambiguous or abstract.
I’d ask them uncomfortable questions like “Do you think blue eyes and a dark complexion is attractive in Canadians?” “We Canadians sure like our fried chicken!”
You have so much potential for a colourful facebook experience.
I have cousins in Florida. I wonder whether they know about this.
I’m in Canada, and I’ve never heard of black people being referred to as Canadians. Then what do they call white Canadians who happen to be in the US?
Americans?