Racialized Workplaces, Contemporary Racial Attitudes, and Stereotype Endorsement: A Recipe for Consumer Racial Profiling

Abstract

Negative stereotypes are widely assumed to underpin the mistreatment that black Americans sometimes experience while engaging in everyday consumption activities like shopping or dining away from home. However, studies that directly observe the relationship between service providers’ endorsement of racial stereotypes and the nature of their interactions with black consumers are rare. In response, this study presents results from a factorial survey experiment designed to assess a theoretically grounded causal process leading service providers to racially profile consumers. In two independent samples of restaurant servers and bartenders we show that consumer racial discrimination in the context of full-service restaurants is a function of servers’ endorsement of racial stereotypes depicting blacks as undesirable customers who are dishonest, uncivil, demanding, and bad tippers. Furthermore, we show that servers’ endorsement of such stereotypes and their resultant tendencies to discriminate against black diners increases as a function of contemporary anti-black animus and employment in workplaces characterized by explicit expressions of anti-black biases.

Expressions of Anti-Black Biases, Job Satisfaction, and Turnover Intentions in the Full-Service Restaurant Industry

“…Studies that aim to identify and test potential boundary conditions of the mediation model presented in this exploratory study are also encouraged. In previously published analyses of these data servers harboring prejudicial attitudes toward Black Americans were shown to be more likely to report endorsing context specific anti-Black stereotypes (e.g., Black restaurant customers are difficult to wait on and do not tip well) and as a result were less likely to report that they would give these clientele their optimal level of service (Brewster & Nowak, 2019, 2020). Given these extant results, the strength of the mediation effects that we report in the current study might logically be weakened as a function of respondents’ anti-Black attitudes.…”

“…1 Furthermore, roughly a quarter of Brewster and Wang’s (2020) respondents agreed with or expressed ambivalence about statements indicating that explicit expressions of anti-Black biases are common in their workplace. Notwithstanding related extant studies that have linked such explicit expressions of anti-Black biases in restaurant workplaces with servers’ endorsement of anti-Black stereotypes (e.g., Black customers don’t tip and are rude and demanding) and race-based discriminatory service delivery (Billingsley, 2016; Brewster & Nowak, 2019, 2020; Brewster & Rusche, 2017; Dirks & Rice, 2004), there have been limited efforts to advance our understanding of the broader consequences associated with working in a restaurant wherein Black customers are routinely observed to be stereotyped, denigrated, and mistreated.…”

“… 4. See Brewster and Nowak (2019, 2020) and Brewster and Wang (2020) for additional details regarding the data analyzed in this study. …”

Organizational Directives and the Persistence of Racial Discrimination in U.S. Public Accommodations

“…Of the existing studies of racial discrimination in public accommodations, most point to the reality that it has become subtler over time (e.g., Feagin 1991; Harris, Henderson, and Williams 2005) and now manifests through less obvious behaviors like poor service (Feldberg and Kim 2021), secret surveillance (Pittman 2020), shadowing patrons around establishments (Gabbidon and Higgins 2020), excluding patrons using dress codes or fake guest lists (May 2022), or more passive-aggressive behaviors such as intentional spatial distancing (Purifoye 2015). Such inequities are frequently dismissed by dominant groups via race neutral or colorblind logics (Bonilla-Silva 2010), blaming everything from the personal deficiencies of the customer to their alleged racial paranoia (Dalmage 2018; May 2018; Rivera 2010; Rusche and Brewster 2008).…”

Exploring the Use of Exclusionary Practices Against African American Participation in Urban Nightlife

“…And yet, recent research found that, for example, restaurant servers who harbor antiblack attitudes are likely to discriminate against black customers(Brewster and Nowak 2020), thereby lending some credence to the idea that racists operate within public accommodations and the service industry.106May…”