Did I tell you about the racist at Subway?

So, I'm out running errands at noon--picking up AZO, returning a library book and whatnot. I decide to stop at Subway for a quick lunch. There's a young man in line ahead of me, pretty obviously of South Asian descent, but American-raised--no accent, mostly a typical American teen, prob'ly 15 or 16. He gets to the cash register and realizes he doesn't have enough money. He asks the server if he can run across the street to get the rest of the money. Get this. The guy behind the counter--also a typical American teen, but of European descent--says "I'd let you, if you were American, but as it is I prob'ly shouldn't." The poor customer says "Well, what should I do?" One thing that struck me is that he didn't get indignant or really respond, almost like he was used to this treatment! The cashier says, "I'll just have to hold your sandwich for a paying customer." :grr:

So, I say "How much are you short?" The cashier says, "$1.09". So, I tell him to add the $1.09 to my bill, and I pay it. The customer is very grateful and apologetic. He says he'll be back shortly with the money. I tell him it's not necessary, but in a few minutes he returns with $2.00, and says his mother insists I take the full 2 bucks. Then he says, "My mother is Dr. K, and she wants you to know how thankful she is."

After a while, the server comes around wiping off tables, and says to me, "You can see how I felt. He didn't look American or anything." Me:He looked perfectly American to me. :grr:

:(

It's so easy to spot a lot of the time, but so many people (white people) seem to think that it doesn't really exist anymore. Or they think it's a minor thing that doesn't really have any significance. :(

You did a good thing. :)

but to tie it to his race, and not give him the chance to make it right, well, that blew me away.

What an ass!

And he DID play a terraist on 24 !!!111!!!!!

All the rest of us are immigrants. Yes, even the bigot at Subway. :eyes:

I wonder where he learned that shit.

BTW, mycritters2, YOU ROCK!

:yourock:

Good on you for paying the tab and speaking up. :thumbsup:

Thank you for doing the right thing, though.

If you're a person of color in America, you've experienced these "little" indignities to varying degrees.

Although it must be getting better, because I haven't heard, "You speak English really well," in years.

(I was born and raised in the United States.)

How sad that young people are thinking like this....

Oh and you are awesome for standing up for him :toast:

I wonder how many other young men there are out there who experience this sort of prejudice...

GOOD ANSWER!!! :applause:

If I had heard that, I would have done the exact same thing that you did. It's disgusting the way the cashier treated that poor kid. :grr:

Thank you!

As we get older, the younger generation has a tendency to terrify the older.

But, this current brood is especially troublesome. Hateful to their shitty core?

It seems to move down the chain doesn't it?

I always think it's why they blast the sixties in our media. Kids were active and doing progressive things.

Now it's just hateful parrots that can't think for themselves. They make 20k a year and think the fucking US of motherfucking A is the shit.

They just don't seem to realize how far off they are:(

Neither would ever do anything so hateful. Please don't paint with such a broad brush. I really believe most kids would never be that mean and racist.

I really feel our society has been turned on it's head though.

Anyone on this site should understand the frustration?

Horrendous story in the Glens Falls Post Star this morning has left me feeling ill.

A 3 year old wandering around in the middle of traffic on a very busy road was finally rescued by 2 motorists who called police and held on to her until they arrived. The rest of the motorists continued to drive around her, honking their horns. A few of them deigned to call 911 as they drove by but didn't bother to stop.

The poor little thing had been sexually abused and beaten by a 15 year old and a 12 year old, the sons of mom's boyfriend.

What has happened to us? :cry:

Really, what have we become?

Like the REAL americans?

he was working at a pizza place (which makes the story all the more ironic) when some racist asshole called and asked his name. When the person asked his name and he told them, that person commented on how he didn't have an 'american' sounding name. Since this was right across the street from a college and on a weekend night, I'd wager that person was probably drunk at the time too.

Had it been me though, I would have said something like, "My parents were thinking of going with 'Running Bull', but they settled on this one instead..." :P

the guy at the front of the line insisted that they both wash their hands in front of him. They said their hands were clean,and besides they wore plastic gloves. The guy left without buying a sandwich. The clerks were unfazed by this,maybe it's not uncommon?

That may have been a "clean" thing, a germ-a-phobe thing. One day I ought to tell some of the stories I've got from working in a health food store.

At any rate, the story from the original post is disgusting. I'm seeing that with many of the younger people and I don't understand it at all. It's like racism from all directions, not just from white bread amerikans, is on the rise.

That's horrible. Just terrible.

I'm going to ask you to do something for me. I'm going to PM you the toll-free phone # for the comments line and the corporate HQ address because I know they'll want to follow-up on this. I'd like you to call them (or write) when you have a free 10 minutes or so and tell them about this experience. I can promise you that they will have the store owner on the phone ASAP to explain why this is happening in his stores, if they don't like the answer they will act to make sure it never happens again.

They have a strict conduct policy for all employees and franchisees. This sort of conduct reflects badly on the store and the company; this little shit will think he can get away with this sort of behavior only because nobody ever calls him on it.

When he talked to you at the end, you should have asked him how bi you looked? Would have loved to see the look on his face with that one. :rofl:

Actually, it was a teachable moment, I guess. Good for you. :hi:

I was going to suggest writing the manager about this, because then a copy can go in the kid's file, and paper is a lot harder to ignore than verbal paraphrased comments, whether compliments or complaints. But, Chan has a much better idea in taking it directly to Corp HQ, that will be both more effective and more efficient. (Chan has a lot of good ideas!) I hope you will write to them, and let us know what kind of a response you get.

And, thanks for taking a stand. Both of those kids will remember how you helped them for a long time. One of them may never appreciate it, however.

:hi:

If I was the kids parent I think I would be finding me a lawyer if I didn't already have one. That kid was humiliated for no reason. All the kid was asking for was to run across the street to get the couple of dollars he was short. All the clerk had to do was hold the sandwich until he came back with the money. How fucking difficult is that. That's why people like the clerk will be working for minimum wage their entire life. They are too stupid to use critical thinking skills most people learn by the third grade.

This clerk isn't a racists, he just a fucking idiot.

And I don't want to hear from the people about how there is nothing wrong with working for minimum wage when your 40. Please fucking spare me.

that you felt the same way..cause he "didn't look American or anything"...:grr:

The converse - that people who don't look like them couldn't possibly connect with them and/or understand their point of view - is also often assumed.

Call it a modern form of tribalism, I guess. :shrug:

when a white guy near me was having a conversation and when he got to a certain point he looked around furtively to see if there was anyone of color nearby before he said the word 'nigger'.

... because every white person there is fine with that. Sure.

I didn't say anything to the guy mostly because I was just so surprised that he had no problem saying it in public loud enough to be heard... just as long as he thought nobody would kick his ass for saying it. I just kinda hit a 'deer in headlights' moment and froze up.

Not that any area is totally free of bigotry, but at least I don't get total strangers confiding racist bullshit to me just because I'm a fellow honky. :P

but we were up closer to the city, which I think is a more blue area. Huh. I dunno. I just moved here in November and I've been too busy to really take stock of the social climate here, I don't know the dynamics that well.

another person because they have a different skin color, it stands to reason that they'd judge me because I have the same skin color... so they'd assume that the 'other' people are one way, and I'm the same way they are.

Of course what they can't tell by my skin color is the fact that on one side of the family I've got native american blood, and on the other Polish jews who lived there in the late 1890s and early 1900s. If they hadn't emigrated to South Africa, they'd have been around during that whole pesky WWII thing. (and yes, I'm aware of the irony of escaping persecution only to go to a place where their skin color put them in charge and left others persecuted.) So despite the fact that I look as white as they do, I REALLY don't like racism. Side effect of having half of your family tree belonging to groups that white people tried to eradicate from the face of the earth.

I've mentioned a few times that I'm 25% Lebanese. I don't look it, I take after my father's Scottish roots...tall, stocky, blue-eyes pale, and reddish-light-brown hair. Both of my younger brothers are dark-eyed, coarse-dark-haired and kind of olive-tan...they look Arabic.

It's a bit after 9/11 (few months maybe) and my brother and I are in line at the hardware store. The asshole in front of me in line sees him and starts ranting to me about these "f$%king Muslims, we should nuke the whole f%^king Middle East, wipe them off the face of f%^king Earth..." and on and on and on. So I let him keep going...finally he says "Terrorist f%^k is probably not even here legally. Just came here to blow us up."

I respond: "Nah, he was born here. And he's Catholic. And my brother."

That shut the fucker up.

People that ignorant usually take PRIDE in their own stupidity. :eyes:

If someone had said something like that about my brother, he'd have woken up a few days later, either in a back alley if he hadn't been discovered, or in a hospital if he had.

I had 100 lbs and 6" on the guy easy. Folks round these parts don't look to kindly on you killing people, even bigots, in the hardware store.

Edit: My brother is more than capable of defending himself. I was trying to avoid a fistfight.

but I'm a scorpio, and we tend to get riled up when it comes to the people we care about. :evilgrin:

Since I look like Richie Cunningham, people assume I'm a conservative, all-American boy. It drives me up a fucking wall.

I love the way they say, "Have a good night my friend!"

by South Asians. I wonder if the racist kid would've been willing to work for someone who "doesn't look American".

signing your paycheck. :shrug:

that was completely unacceptable behavior

The only thing more disgusting than racism is that it's the default attitude in much of the country.

Bravo to you for doing the right thing, and that all-American cashier can shove the Washington Monument up his ass.

aside from the racist assumption, with it travels monumental ignorance.

I also ate in a Subway the other day that was a family-run business of south Asian Muslims. Great service.

in Los Angeles you can find what ever ethnic food you could like, and it is all cooked by angry Mexicans ....

and the truth is, not necessarily angry, but many restaurant kitchens have people cooking cuisine that has nothing to do with their ethnic background, including us.

http://waiterrant.net/">This guy talks about that a lot in his blog, he mentions a few times how it's funny (funny interesting, not funny haha) how the people who come to the fancy restaurant he spent so long working at seem to have a mental picture of the 'chef' being an italian stereotype or something of the sort, when the man who actually did the virtuoso work that they are complimenting afterwards is from El Salvadore. And if they knew that, they'd be complaining that it the food was horrible, just because it wasn't prepared by the stereotype they thought it was.

wtf, "if you were American" I just don't understand the way some people think

:woohoo: :woohoo: :hi: :hug:

The second he said "if you were American," I'd have snapped at him.

What an asshat.

I'd have a hard time immediately giving my business to someone who condoned such an environment.

Didn't think of it at the time. Too busy feeling bad for the kid--and dealing with my own UTI.

They emigrated from Jordan. They are very creative when it comes to their pizzas. This shop also served great seafood dishes. I will have to get a dish again very soon.