Did the Asian bakery violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by serving me after its Asian customers?

In My Humble Opinion
1

A friend, her daughter and I went into an upscale Asian bakery for shave ice and macarons. Besides a customer already served and seated, we were the only customers present.

The layout was a display case abutted by the cashier’s station. My friend placed her order with the counter attendant over the display case, which held the selection of macarons, then sidestepped to the cashier’s stand where the listing of shave ice flavored was more visible, and ordered from it and paid. As this was going on, I was standing next to her, anticipating being served next.

However, as we stood at the cashier’s, an Asian woman had entered and was at the display case. Instead of acknowledging me, the woman behind the counter went back and took her order. OK, I assumed that the display case was the “Place Order Here” section where I should have stayed put, so I went back there and waited for the Asian woman customer to finish at the cash register.

But then as I stood there, an Asian man entered and stood waiting at the cash register. The counter attendant asked to take his order, and he pointed to me, it being obvious to him that I was there before him. At this point, I was in “this really looks like what it looks like,” and I left to join my friend.

Note: the only customers in the bakery were the six I’ve listed. It was not a crowd where one could get lost in the shuffle.

I mooched a macaron from my friend and said “I am going to so Yelp this place,” but when I did, there were already two Yelps from white customers saying the same thing.

Anyway, here’s the Accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act, written when Black diners had salt dumped in their cokes or hamburgers suddenly boosted from fifty cents to five dollars. Was there a “just suck it up, white boy, you just imagined it” sub-clause I’ve missed?

2

I cannot say the bakery was racist, but the cashier definitely was.

If the bakery has an email address, I’d send the owner a quick email telling them about your experience, many immigrants don’t have a lot of experience with living in a multicultural society so the cashier’s racism might just be a result of careless ignorance rather than real bigotry and thus would benefit from being called out on it.

If the owner doesn’t respond, then just leave a bad review on Yelp.

3

Legal advice is best suited to IMHO.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

4

I can understand why you were annoyed, but who knows why they skipped you.

Couldn’t it have been just a crappy counter person, instead of a racist one?

5

Racism, IMHO (thanks Colibri) is more likely to evoke invisibility than lynch-mob rage, in its everyday practice.

6

Highly unlikely, since you left before you could tell. Having one person go in front of you is unlikely to be a violation of the law.

Maybe the cashier thought your were with your friend, and his/her order covered yours.

7

John, she ignored me to serve two customers of her own race.

My friend stood ordering with her daughter and me, and ordered two shave ice. They went to a table as I stayed at the register, at which point the attendant shifted her interest to the newly arrived Asian customer at the display case.

And there were the other two miffed white people already on Yelp.

8

How would you tell if they were being racist? Three people having bad experiences isn’t any sort of (statistically valid) evidence of a trend.

Even if they were, I don’t think you should waste your time and money hiring a lawyer over something so trivial. Just don’t shop there again.

9

The Civil Rights Act was written at a time when Black Americans were facing massive impediments to their ability to live happy, fulfilled and dignified lives in society. while this business may technically be in violation (I’m not a lawyer), is your life really being hampered to such an extent? Seems to me the better thing would be just to let it go.

10

Why would I hire a lawyer? This isn’t a tort issue.

11

Maybe she thought you were just looking at the goods and that your friend’s order included both of you. Very commonly when I or my female relatives get ignored, the server’s response to “hey, what about US?” is “oh! OH! I thought you were with… oh!” In our case, apparently women above a certain age do not go to restaurants alone or in groups not including a male - we’ve never been skipped with a man in the group.

12

I would write a negative Yelp review and never go back to that place again.

13

The 2nd customer tried to correct her, but you didn’t stay long enough to see how it would play out. I can understand that you’re frustrated, but I don’t see how people on this MB can determine if a law was broken. Like monstro said, your best relief is a bad review on Yelp, but you could have asked to talk to the manager and that might have corrected things better.

14

Good idea, but it might be worth contacting the owner. I thought we all liked to fight ignorance?

15

Did you say anything?
If you said “excuse me, I was here first and I’m ready to order” and still got stiffed you’d definitely have a good argument.

A simple fact of human behavior however is that people tend to relate to others they feel are members of their own social group and to show those people a preference. Yeah, it’s kind of racist but not necessarily malevolent in an intentional way.

So IMHO…
[ul]
[li]yeah you got treated poorly[/li][li]but in an ethnic centered setting it doesn’t shock me[/li][li]in the future you should speak up because no one is gonna change behavior they get away with[/li][/ul]

16

It could have been motivated by racism, but it’s also possible something else was at play.

I got into a situation when I worked in fast food. We closed our doors after 10pm and only let people in who had called ahead. No walk-ins. So a Latino guy calls up around 11pm and places a carry out order. About five minutes later a group of black folks come to the door and can’t get in. I point to the sign, “No walk-in service after 10pm”. They go away, or so I thought. So the Latino guys comes to the door a few minutes later and I buzz him right in. That causes the black group to charge in and start accusing me of racism, because they were still hanging around the area. And it sure looked bad, gotta admit, although when I explained why I did what i did they were mollified.

In the end, it was a poorly thought out policy. Customers would just read the sign and then order carry out while standing outside the door with their cell phones.

17

I think this is an instance of the Fundamental Attribution Error

The cashier could be racist, or she could have thought you weren’t ready, or a bunch of other things.

Not enough data to say, although probably enough to write a bad review or email the owner.

18

I’m with zoid here.

You needed, at the VERY least, to stick around and see what happened after the man pointed out to the cashier that you were first. Not having done that, you really don’t have enough information to draw any conclusions at all.

19

Seems to me is that is exactly what the law was written for. I think that it’s a pity you weren’t around to tell Rosa Parks et al to ‘let it go’.

20

I never quite understand why people don’t stand up for themselves and politely point out that they need service. That seems to be the very basis for all sorts of misunderstandings.