Teaching & Learning Guide for: ‘Because they tip for shit!’: The Social Psychology of Everyday Racism in Restaurants

Abstract

This guide accompanies the following article: Sarah E. Rusche and Zachary W. Brewster, ‘“Because they tip for shit!” The Social Psychology of Everyday Racism in Restaurants,’Sociology Compass 2/6 (2008): 2008–2029, 10.1111/j.1751‐9020.2008.00167.x Author's Introduction The context of the article is very relatable to students, many who have worked in restaurants and most who eat in them. Sociologically, this article taps into three major topical areas: racism and discrimination, social psychology and workplaces. This research shows how racist discourse in workplaces shapes servers’ discriminatory behavior toward African‐American customers. This article also exposes students to important concepts of social psychology, such as: status beliefs, stereotype activation, cognitive bias, attribution errors, performance expectations, and self‐fulfilling prophecies. Author Recommends: Bonilla‐Silva, Eduardo. 2002. ‘The Linguistics of Color‐Blind Racism: How to Talk Nasty about Blacks without Sounding “Racist.”’Critical Sociology 28: 41–64. According to the author, color‐blind racism constitutes the primary racial ideology of the post‐civil rights era. This ideology is characterized by linguistic practices surrounding whites’ discourse about race‐related issues in the United States. The author outlines five components of the post‐civil rights racial ideology: (1) as a result of the current normative climate most whites, avoid directly expressing their racial views; (2) whites cautiously express their racial views using a variety of ‘semantic’ moves that conceal their racial prejudices (e.g., ‘I'm not prejudiced, but ..., ‘I am not black, so I don't know,’‘Yes and no, but ...,’); (3) whites tend to project racial motivations onto blacks and in doing so they are able to avoid taking responsibility for their own sentiments and actions (e.g., blacks don't want to be friends with us); (4) whites often use diminutives in color‐blind racetalk. For instance, whites rarely say that they are opposed to a racialized matter, such as interracial marriage, but instead express such views by prefacing their position with a diminutive (e.g., ‘I'm a little against interracial marriage’); (5) when whites are pushed to discuss sensitive racial topics they often become incoherent and incomprehensible. The author concludes by discussing the potential for race‐neutral policies to emerge out of research that fails to consider the rhetorical tools that whites utilize to preserve the false and socially constructed perception of color blindness. Dirks, Danielle and Stephen K. Rice 2004. ‘Dining While Black: Tipping as Social Artifact.’Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly 45: 30–47. The authors locate the documented racial tipping differential within the context of everyday racism that African Americans, in particular, continue to encounter. The authors’ qualitative analysis reveals the existence of what they describe as a ‘culture of white servers’ within restaurant establishments. Indicative of such a culture are anti‐black sentiment...

Montessori educators' knowledge and perceptions of critical race theory (CRT) and their receptiveness to incorporate CRT into curriculum and teaching practice

“…A vital understanding of CRT is the premise that knowledge is constructed from human experiences and perspectives. While describing the phenomenon of social schemata, Rusche and Brewster (2009) propose that "perceivers actively construct their own reality through the creation and interpretation of meaning." They go on to say that "schemas become real to those who hold them."…”