I grew up in the woods of East Texas and I’m white. The food I grew up eating - black eyed peas, lots of fried food, sweet potato pies - is the same kind of food that many blacks feel is part of their culture, at least among the blacks I’ve talked to about it. But it’s not that it’s black food, it’s what poor people in the South ate.
My mom tells a story about not long after she was married, this would have been around 1950, that she was talking to someone about meals, and that person mentioned that she rarely fried. My mom asked her “Well what do you eat?”
So the “black culture” in America is largely the culture of the poor South, which includes lots of fried food. Red Lobster serves lots of fried food. Many blacks like to eat there. Actually, I hadn’t noticed this correlation, because I don’t like RL and haven’t eaten there in at least 15 years, but it’s also true for KFC and Church’s. I don’t eat at those places either, but it’s quite obvious what demographic their TV ads are aimed for.
Wow. I never knew race was still such an issue in the USA, but reading this thread has been an education.
I’m British (and white, FWIW), and have never heard of Red Lobster (although from context I assume it’s a chain of seafood restaurants), but I could never imagine British people making an observation about how many black people go to a particular restaurant.
I’m not saying the UK doesn’t have problems with racism (the riots in Bradford a couple of years ago prove that it does) but the idea of a “black community” frequenting different restaurants seems very strange.
The clientele at Canadian Red Lobsters would seem to reflect the local community. I don’t see a noticeable increase in the number of black diners although I suspect Canadian blacks on average probably earn only slightly less than the average Canadian.
When a buffet contains a popular “gourmet” food crab legs, lobster, Peking duck, etc.), the people close by tend to behave very greedily. This seems to me to be true of most races.
Having lived in places with excellent seafood, I still like Red Lobster. Many of the best items on the menu are not fried. I was vaguely sad when they stopped the all-you-can-eat crab leg Monday nights here. I still prefer going there for lunch to most other chains around here and think you get reasonable value.
I think blacks just like seafood. Why does the answer have to be more complicated than that if the OP is true?
Having eaten at various places, from the sticks of Virginia, to the heart of L.A., I can honestly say that I have never taken note of the white/black ratio where I dine. In fact, I would have thought it strange to do so.
It doesn’t. It seems the OP was grounded in observed fact (at least as to some neighborhoods), and the explanations (fondness for fried/Southern/fish food; family traditions; desirability of chain restaurant and its predictable, if mediocre, quality vs. sometimes-awful inner city alternative) are on point as well.
A cynic might suspect that all the professed confusion over whether the OP was true or why anyone was “tracking” ratios of restaurant patrons was rooted more in moral narcissm ("<I> would never make such invidious racial distinctions, but that’s just because I’m naturally more fairminded.") than in any actual doubt as to whether the phenomenon existed. But I’m no cynic.
People just notice trends like this (N.Y. A.G. Eliot Spitzer, no one’s idea of a racist, just negotiated a wage settlement with the Korean Grocers’ Association – and no one condemned him for “unfairly implying that Koreans own all the bodegas and commit all the wage violations”).
You could (and some would) parse the phenomenon further and note that in some inner city neighborhoods the fairly numerous fried fish places tend to be black-patronized, but Chinese-owned – whereas in, say, the Midwest at least some of the catfish joints seem to be run (and patronized) by third- or fourth-generation black transplants from the South. Some people apparently find it interesting as a matter of armchair history/sociology/culinary studies to discern and seek an explanation for such patterns. And “people watching” appears to be common enough human behavior (in fact, I’d imagine for some it is high on the list of reasons to dine out) that I’m somewhat suspicious of an assertion that “I’d never <think> to notice the traits of my fellow diners.” Would you really not notice (and conceivably comment later to friends) if the restaurant/bar were, say, filled with attractive people of the opposite sex?
Well, I’m not going to comment on it. My wife would be eyeing me suspiciously for weeks (months?) and I wouldn’t want my friends rushing over and ruining the ratio.
Obviously, you haven’t heard of the suits brought against Denny’s and Waffle House.
Yes, and most of them have proved to be cases where some people thought that they could get a free ride by claiming (falsely) that they were discriminated against. Do you really think that now, after all that has happened, Denny’s would really let a black party stand there while seating and serving all the whites. Kinda defies any logic at all, doesnt it? For every legitimate case of discrimination, I’ll bet there are at least ten of fraud. The “its because I’m black” excuse is wearing extremely thin.
That’ll get someone riled for sure, (continuation-of-a-slight)-hijack though it may be. I can agree generically with Texican’s (implicit) assumption that “suits brought” doesn’t prove anything about anything except that someone had a $150 filing fee and could find the courthouse. “Suits settled” may have a little more relevance to the substance of what happened, though even there I’m sure others would argue that settlement reflects largely the in terrorem value of discrimination allegations against consumer cos.
One thing I’ve noticed is that the complaints about being seated often occur at places that (precisely like Denny’s and W.H.) are open all night and often the only game in town. This being so, and esp. late at night, I’d imagine they attract a wide swath of the population and lead to harried waiters and hostesses, esp. if some/many (by 3 a.m., probably most) of the patrons are in various states of lubrication. I’ve seen boisterous/drunken frat boys encouraged not to patronize IHOPs in the wee hours and other than threatening to “have your a__ fired, dude” to the manager, I don’t know that their dissatisfaction with the slights registers on the radar screen the way it would were they in a protected group.
This doesn’t seem so strange to me. As a white guy living in Tokyo, I do tend to notice the racial make-up of a crowd here. It’s not deliberate…it just sort of becomes a reflex when you’re a member of a minority culture.
Also, I don’t agree that the opinions expressed in this thread point to racial “issues.” It’s a question of culture more than anything. If the thread title were “Why to women like chocolate so much,” it wouldn’t be interpreted as making an issue of relations between the sexes.
Like it or not, there is still an awful lot of separation between white and black culture in the U.S., and it’s only natural to wonder why “the other guy” thinks or acts the way he does.
This doesn’t seem so strange to me. As a white guy living in Tokyo, I do tend to notice the racial make-up of a crowd here. It’s not deliberate…it just sort of becomes a reflex when you’re a member of a minority culture.
Also, I don’t agree that the opinions expressed in this thread point to racial “issues.” It’s a question of culture more than anything. If the thread title were “Why to women like chocolate so much,” it wouldn’t be interpreted as making an issue of relations between the sexes.
Like it or not, there is still an awful lot of separation between white and black culture in the U.S., and it’s only natural to wonder why “the other guy” thinks or acts the way he does.
How many f***ing times do I have to press “submit” before this damn thing will go through?!? Damn hamsters.
This doesn’t seem so strange to me. As a white guy living in Tokyo, I do tend to notice the racial make-up of a crowd here. It’s not deliberate…it just sort of becomes a reflex when you’re a member of a minority culture.
Also, I don’t agree that the opinions expressed in this thread point to racial “issues.” It’s a question of culture more than anything. If the thread title were “Why to women like chocolate so much,” it wouldn’t be interpreted as making an issue of relations between the sexes.
Like it or not, there is still an awful lot of separation between white and black culture in the U.S., and it’s only natural to wonder why “the other guy” thinks or acts the way he does.
This reminds me of an episode of “The Job”, Denis Leary’s wonderful yet sadly canceled show. Pip, Denis’ black partner, is having a barbecue at his house, and is bragging about the shrimp he got for the shindig. Pip tells Denis that shrimp is the black man’s lobster. Denis incredulously replies, “Why can’t lobster be the black man’s lobster?” Pip says because white people already claimed it.
I miss that show. The lady who played Jan was hot, and I loved her character’s dynamic with Leary’s.
I have to agree with Kyomara. I find it fascinating to look at the consumer behavior of groups and why those trends might be present. Questions like “Why does this car sell so well among women and so poorly with men?” or “Why does this product do so well with the over 50 demographic in the south, but so poorly in the northeast?” are all legitimate questions that don’t point to racism, ageism, or sexism, but a general curiousity as to why the trend exists. In the case of a business, figuring out these tendencies could mean the difference between success and failure in certain markets.
I am a Hispanic male who was raised in Texas. Of course. not all people who share that description are a homogeneous group, but I share a great deal of common cultural experiences with other guys like me that may have some influence on the food I eat, the products I buy, and other forms of spending behavior. Trying to figure out why is a legitimate topic of discussion and I would be happy to try to explain to someone who is not familiar with my cultural experiences. However, I do understand how a question regarding racial or ethnic preference could be used a subtle or direct insult, but we can not assume that was what the OP intended when he asked this question.
As Kyomara said, when you are a minority, it is not uncommon to be more aware of the ethnic or racial make-up of an establishment- and that does not make you a racist or wierd. There have been many many times when I have been the only Mexican American in a restaurant and it is hard not to notice, no matter how hard you try not to think about it.
In a bit of a coincidence, a few hours ago I was attending a San Antonio Spurs game. An African-American kid sitting behind me was playfully taunting his little brother over and over all night, “I’m going to Red Lob-sterrrr, Dad is taking me to Red Lob-sterrrr and we aren’t taking yooouhoo.” If I would have known this might be some sort of cultural trend, I would have asked him why he thought Red Lobster was such a big deal!!!