Friday, October 18, 2013

Would You Like Discrimination With That?




“Cases like this illustrate that, unfortunately, race discrimination continues to be a barrier for African-Americans seeking employment and this is the latest in a series of such challenges.”
-David Lopez

Illinois based Rosebud Restaurant Group was recently but on blast by the media for their acts of racial discrimination. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit against the corporation. Rosebud claims that they don’t tolerate discrimination in all 10 of their Chicago area restaurants. EEOC regional attorney John Hendrickson stated, “Major restaurants in Chicago present the face of the city to the world, so it is a special shame when they present a face disfigured by intentional discrimination.”
It is a shame. Chicago is a cultural melting pot where there are different races around each and every corner. One would think that a city so diversified in rich heritages should glorify differences, right? Wrong. Chicago is one of the most segregated cities in the nation. According to Douglas S. Massey in his article Residential Segregation and Neighborhood Conditions in U.S. Metropolitan Areas, Chicago was one of seven metropolitan areas that have extreme segregation against Blacks. Massey states that an index of dissimilarity is a measurement that is used to represent levels of residential segregation. Chicago made the top of these index charts for every race.
It shouldn’t be surprising though, segregation happens everywhere so the bigger the city the more segregation. It makes sense on terms of population at least. It doesn’t matter what town, city, or district one lives in, the harsh reality is that there will be discrimination. Everyone knows that one restaurant or food place that hires only a certain type of people. Just the other day someone around me mentioned that “Oh, I can’t work there, they only hire Hispanics.” Upon asking why, they responded by saying that the restaurant wants to have “authenticity.” A good employee or cook should be determined on their skill, but if a white person cooks Chinese food, it’s not as tasty. We’ve all done it too; we get confused when we see a white sever in a Mexican restaurant or a black chef in an Italian kitchen, or an Asian hostess in a BBQ joint. But why? It’s not “authentic?”  
Back to Rosebud; despite the violations and out-lash on the company according to Peter K. Levine Law Corporation, a spokesperson for the Group made a statement: “We consider it our mission to treat our employees as a family – with honesty and respect – and we are proud of our employment record and the diversity of our work force.”  Yet, the Group takes pride on their hearty authentic Italian restaurants. Sugar coated words don’t make up for the lack of evidence however, and the Rosebud Restaurant Group was charged with “failing to hold onto employment applications for at least a year and by not filing required annual reports with the agency before 2009.”
Authenticity is a fancy word for genuine. So if a black person is genuinely good at cooking Italian dishes, then there is no need for discrimination, right? In today’s society it’s hard to distinguish which people come from what ethnicity. There are more combined races now more than ever, so who are we to determine what is and isn’t authentic.




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