So. That's what the race card looks like...

The BBQ Pit
1

Ok, me and a friend went to Subway for food because my body was about to give out after several days of inadequate food and DDR. Since our shool was far enough away that we didn’t really want ot walk the whole way back with our subs, we decided to eat there. What followed was a very shocked and possibly disturbing experience for this little girl from a small, white town (why this is even remotely relevant will be seen later).

Another guy comes in and starts ordering a salad. At this point, I was happily eating my food and quite oblivious to what was going on at the counter. Then I realise that something is going on, you do not need to order your food that loudly. So I start paying attention and this is what I hear.

“Isn’t it your job to make sure this place is clean?” Yes. “Then dont’ say it isn’t.”

Oooookay, what the fuck is going on here? Things escalate, the customer accuses teh server of being unsanitary, yadda yadda yadda, the server is being fairly calm through the whole thing, and then the customer pulls this out–

“You just don’t like me because I’m black.”

I’m sure some of you aren’t surprised at all by this, but I have NEVER heard anything remotely ressembling this before. Me and my friend just look at each other, thinking, this guy is an asshole. And of course, things keep getting heated (Though I must say, most of everything came from the customer’s side, not the staff). The server tells the girl in back to call the cops. The other guy just says, sure, call them, but make me my salad first. And have the other girl do it.

So the other worker comes out and fixes his salad (the police do get called, in fact he walked in just as the guy was paying for his food). He’s saying even more stuff, like the video surveillance had better have sound (No, it doesn’t), and I have witnesses! (Me and my friend, who would both testify in favor of the staff) Who’s your manager, what’s your name, give me a card (We don’t give names, we don’t have cards), I’m gonna call Health and Safety, your basic overreacting customer statements.

So, what prompted this? Apparently, a bacon bit got into the pickles. Hello? This is Subway, they can’t keep every damn morsel of food in the proper container all the time. Plus, no matter what you may think, You Are An Asshole, no matter what you may think, black or not.

I ended up throwing out the rest of my sub, this guy ruined my appetite. We left while the cop was still talking to him, but we’re thinking about going back tomorrow and telling the manager that we are willing to speak on behalf of the server. I’m reminded of the woman who sued McDonalds because she was burnt by a hot pickle that fell out of her hamburger. I really pity the lady who walked in in the middle of the whole encounter, and had to wait for this dipshit to finish before she could order her food.

That was very weird and disturbing.

2

What does East Germany have to do with Subway? :confused:

3

You get the likely reason the black guy had a problem with bacon, don’t you?

This is a pretty piss-weak rant so far. You haven’t mentioned what the Subway people said in response to him. Where does the sanitary / insanitary thing come into it? How is it relevant that you’re from a small mostly-white town?

4

OOMC, why?

5

Eh, everybody’s entitled to a psychotic episode now and then. He was probably just having one of those days. Sounds to me like the type of thing one might want to do if one couldn’t lash out at the actual source of one’s problems, like this guy had a racist boss or something. The best thing to do when people go apeshit is to just let them vent as long as they don’t turn violent.

Of course, he still needed a good swift kick in the nuts to drag him back into cold, unfeeling reality where your problems are of concern to nobody but yourself, but still.

6

No idea here why he might. If it was that he’s Muslim and cares that damned much that he’ll yell at the staff, then he should keep to restaurants that observe halal standards. I’m a vegetarian and don’t go ripping the poor restaurant staff’s heads off if some bacon ends up on my salad.

7

Sounds like your run-of-the-mill asshole. They come in all colors. And yeah, that was a race card he pulled out of his ass when he said “You don’t like me because I’m black”.

8

DDR is Dance Dance Revolution… essentially a big videogame where to beat it you have to dance and hit the arrows at the right time. It’s a bit of a feat at the higher levels and quite an exertion.

9

Do you ever wish that our personality had a much greater influence on our appearance? Then all of us assholes would look like assholes and the rest of you could exercise your evasion maneuvers in a more timely fashion.

Is there a tongue in cheek smiley?

10

“You don’t like me because I’m black.” Our (black) manager would get this all the time as he hustled shoplifters out the store. Or refused to take dubious returns. Or pretty much anything.

The rest of us got it too, of course.

11

Reminds of an event at my school yesterday. Some friends and I were working on an assignment for our journalism class in the library. Nearby there was a group of mostly black students chatting (note that this is a high school library, and as long as people are fairly quiet, they are allowed to socialize).

This group was being quiet, and the noise was at its usual level, but then one member of the group became loud and obnoxious. The librarian warned him to keep it down, and he did for maybe 45 seconds. Then he became loud again and was again asked a bit more firmly to be quiet.

Again, after a very short period of time, he becomes loud, and when the librarian finally asks him to leave, he stands up to go, and says, “it’s because I’m black, ain’t it?” Librarian just looks at him, so he feels he must repeat his argument. At this point she informs him that she is not inclined to “even dignify that with a response.”

I’m glad I had the good sense to keep my mouth shut when I really wanted to say, “no, it’s because you’re an asshole.” I glanced around as he was leaving–almost everyone’s jaw was on the floor, including his companions who had not been asked to leave.

12

What’s even funnier is when someone plays the race card *wrong. I recall one time a constant scam artist was complaining to Hamish’s boss because Hamish was not letting her get away with it. (The boss was wise to it as well.) She said she thought it must be because she was Arab and Hamish was Jewish.

Hamish isn’t Jewish. :slight_smile:

13

“It’s because I’m black, isn’t it?” is a household catchphrase in the Biggirl household.

“Ma, can I have a 5th cup of ice cream?”
“No.”
“It’s 'cause I’m black, isn’t it?”
The Biggirl household is a sit com without the cameras.

14

Ah. So his beef was with the pork.
Okay, okay, I’m leaving.

15

Chicken!

16

Laughs drunkenly for five minutes

17

The race card has been a running gag for me since high school. It’s lost some of its bite since I started going to a predominantly black college, but it’s still fun.

18

This guy’s problem isn’t being black, it’s being a maroon. :slight_smile:

My “idiotic race card” anecdote: So I’m in a tourist information center in a small city in Germany, and it’s just turned 5:00 (closing time) and I’ve got my info and I’m leaving, and this businessman type comes bursting in demanding assistance finding a hotel or something. The staff tell him politely that they’re closed and he’ll have to come back tomorrow. This is Germany, after all, and a closing time of 5 PM means that the door is locked by 5:01, okay? Well, Mr. Tourist apparently isn’t aware of that, and he simply loses it, fuming at the top of his lungs in broken English “You are just hassling because I am Chinese! You don’t like Chinese! You are just asshole!”, etc. Staff remains polite but inflexible, and I scurry out onto the sidewalk before the polizei get involved.

Underneath I feel kind of sorry for people like that, because I bet they really have had to deal with unpleasant discrimination at times (much more than I have, certainly), which is totally unfair. But hey, mister, most of the people in your same ethnic group have had to deal with the exact same problem without letting themselves become paranoid and obnoxious about it, okay? Grow a spine, and a brain, and learn the difference between genuine racism and the ordinary random unfairnesses of everyday life.

19

“No, I don’t like you because you’re gonna get me killed!” From Die Hard: With a Vengeance

20

We have a few customers who ask us to respect their dietary restrictions, and we accommodate them.

If someone comes in and asks for a “100% vegetarian product”, we immediately change our gloves. We get a new knife. We always use deli paper as a buffer between the sandwich and the cutting boards, no matter who we’re making a sandwich for. We change the liner paper in the microwave.
Halal or kosher is more difficult. We will still do all the same things we do for vegs, but we can’t guarantee that the knife we use has never been in contact with a pork/seafood product. We can’t even guarantee that the insert the cucumbers are sitting in has never been used to hold bacon or seafood.
Some people follow stricter dietary guidelines than others. For some, it’s ok that something in our cold table may have come into contact with crab or pork at some point in the distant past, and has since been thoroughly washed and sanitized. If it isn’t ok, then we welcome you to try the halal restaurant down the street, or the Jewish deli across from us.

Most Subway products actually come with little encircled “K”'s, “U”'s, “MKs” and "DK"s on the packages (even the cookies!).

This customer obviously followed very strict dietary guidelines. If it wasn’t enough that the offending foodstuff was removed from his meal, then there was nothing more the Subway employee could have done for him. Put bluntly; he shouldn’t have been eating at Subway at all.