Words of Enemies versus Silence of Friends

Martin Luther King once said that in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. This past weekend, I was with a group of friends and family celebrating my brother’s bachelor party. At one point in the evening, we stopped at Enoteca Roma Winebar & Bruschetteria, a small, trendy spot on the northwest side of Chicago. The air of the establishment was one that would prompt you to act prim and proper within its perimeters.

Perhaps working for the Urban League causes me to look at everyday occurrences in the context of civil rights and how people of different races and cultures interact with one another. It was very difficult for me not to notice in the entire outdoor patio, our table hosted the only individuals who were not white. Our group consisted of 6 Indians, 3 Caucasians, and 1 African American. Our waitress, Gianna, was also Caucasian.

Gianna was taking everyone’s order which consisted mostly of beer, and when she got to the African American who wanted coffee, she revealed that the coffee bar was closed. He was distraught at the unavailability of coffee and made a remark to the individual sitting next to him about why a late night spot would stop serving coffee. He asked for tea and as Gianna took his order, she was thoroughly upset. Many of the individuals at our table pondered over the reaction and we all shrugged it off and went back to the business of having a good time.

Seemingly, a server could be having a bad day, or perhaps some life circumstances would affect the level of service that may be offered. However, it is difficult to overlook the dynamics of race in these sorts of interactions. Who knows, perhaps if the African American were a blond-hair, blue-eyed jock type, she would have been tickled and humored at the irony of a late night café discontinuing the service of coffee. Or maybe Gianna has just never been exposed to different cultures and different people and different dialects. That is nothing unusual.

For the last year, I have served as the minority representative on a city commission that guides city funding among community services. Recently, I was appointed to serve on a special interest committee and shortly thereafter, another woman on the commission questioned the validity of my appointment, and further questioned my professional abilities to serve the interests of the commission. Several other commissioners came forward and expressed their discomfort with her actions, and one questioned whether the divides in our group were based on race and color. I certainly felt it. I was being attacked, and those around me questioned it.

Again at Enoteca Roma Winebar & Bruschetteria, I felt it, however no one questioned it. No one confronted the waitress to determine if there was a problem. No one pointed out that her service and treatment to one person at our table was different than everyone else on the patio. No one probed to investigate why. No one elevated the matter to the manager. In fact, one of my brother’s Caucasian friends ran after the Caucasian waitress to console her emotions during her overwhelmingly stressful encounter.

Our world is full of sheltered individuals who have never been outside a twenty mile radius of their comfort zone. Though we can not expect that everyone will have life experiences that encompass different cultures, we can expect that people will be respectful of all the different life experiences that exist in our country, all of which shape us as individual people. The days of signs in restaurant windows reading things like “Whites Only” are supposed to be long over. Therefore, public establishments need to be prepared to serve people that may not look like you, dress like you, talk like you, or wear the same skin-tone as you, or have the same ring-tone as you. This is the United States of America. Read the US Constitution if you need a refresher on what that is supposed to mean.

A conversation after the event revealed that the African American on our table actually was hurt by the treatment, just as I was on the city commission. He definitely felt that the waitress was somewhat racist. I definitely felt it. I just wish I said something at the time because as Martin Luther King said, the silence of our friends speak volumes louder than the words of our enemies.