Matthew Yglesias comments on the phenomenon of Chinese Restaurants charging more on the English menu than the Chinese menu. He thinks its no big deal. But his comment section is practically overflowing with outrage at this racial injustice!
Gatchaman says:
"So nobody here would shit a brick if a white run business was charging non-whites more? Good to know."
and follows it up with:
"Interesting, my sister-in-law, who owns a cafe in a gay neighborhood should charge the gay couples more, because it is safe to assume a gay couple with no children has more disposable income than a heterosexual couple with kids."
Right On actually spells this whole pathetic "but, what if I wasn't privileged!?" game for us:
"Would it be okay if:
(a) the Chinese people were charged more?
(b) there was a third menu, in Spanish, that charged even more than the English one?
(c) you could only order off the Chinese menu if you looked Chinese?"
If white people charged black or Chinese or gay people more at their stores, that would be a privileged majority group institutionalizing their personal prejudice against a minority group. I think we can all agree that that's bad. I don't know if I'm going to "shit a brick" or not, but it is and should be illegal.
If Chinese restaurants charged Spanish speakers more, that would be an attempt by a non-privileged immigrant group to institutionalize discrimination against another non-privileged group. It would have little impact, since unlike stores owned by whites, it is actually easy to avoid stores owned by Chinese people. This would be bad, but it is worth pointing out that, you know, it's not happening.
What matters in this sort of situation is what actually happens, and who benefitis. In this case, the effect is that a meal in Chinatown that completely stuffs my family of four costs $29 instead of the $25 they charge to first or second generation immigrants, as well as anyone who decides to devote two weeks to learning passable menu reading in Chinese. This is, as Matt said, not a big deal.
On the other hand, the result of the reverse scenario would be the creation of a second-class citizenship of Chinese speakers who would either be totally prevented from assimilating by being forced to stay in areas where other Chinese speakers owned stores, or else would find themselves paying a tax directly to everyone else for not speaking English.
One of the most subtle (and common) forms of racism among white Americans is the denial of any difference between us and everyone else. Being part of a privileged majority with higher average income and more education is not the same thing as being part of a minority that faces widespread discrimination which is often subtly (or not so subtly) institutionalized. It might be fun to pretend that those are the same if you're interested in denying your own advantage or want to minimize the hardships of others, but it puts you somewhere in the gray area between pathetic and racist, and that's just not a good place to be.
UPDATE: I realize the title of this post should have been "Forget it Jake. It's Chinatown."
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9 comments:
I'm very much with you as far as "it's not a big deal" and "people who want to make this into a big deal need to find something better to do with their time." Unfortunately, the fact that it's not a big deal does still leave us with the legitimate question of whether it's really appropriate and whether it should be legal to have price differentials based on reading knowledge of a given language. "I don't care very much either way" is a good answer if someone is outraged and demands to know what you're going to do about this injustice, but it isn't much of an answer to the underlying question of whether this really is an injustice (albeit a relatively minor one).
I actually have something more interesting and in-depth to say about this with a particular application to the Indian constitution, but I have to go eat dinner now.
That's fine. But there needs to be a legitimate argument against it that recognizes the difference between a white American a first generation non-English speaking person of color.
I'd love to hear what you have to say about India, I know the reservations(?) that they have for political issue.
Wow, whole words went missing. There should be an "and" in there and also something about castes and tribes.
It seems to me that the problem with your analysis is 1) all white people aren't rich and privileged; and 2)many Chinese restaurant owners in NY are non-discriminatory exploiters, viz the stealing of tips from their own Chinese workers and opposition to union organizing. There's something to be said for encouraging decent non-discriminatory behavior across the board. That said, I agree it's not the kind of outrage I'll lose any sleep over.
Mom's comment raises the question why (she may not be aware of this) the City Human Rights Commission is looking into this "discrimination" and not the serious labor practices she so rightly deplores.
I don't necessarily have a problem with people who disapprove of this. I just don't think the analysis used by those commenters is convincing. It's like saying, "But what if the Chinese restaurant owners were killing their white customers?" That would be bad, but it would also be a totally different scenario, and therefor has no bearing on this one.
I was wondering what the sentence meant.
Here's Article 25 of the Indian constitution, dealing with freedom of worship:
25. Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion.—
(1) Subject to public order, morality and health and to the other provisions of this Part, all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion.
(2) Nothing in this article shall affect the operation of any existing law or prevent the State from making any law—
(a) regulating or restricting any economic, financial, political or other secular activity which may be associated with religious practice;
(b) providing for social welfare and reform or the throwing open of Hindu religious institutions of a public character to all classes and sections of Hindus.
Explanation I.—The wearing and carrying of kirpans shall be deemed to be included in the profession of the Sikh religion.
Explanation II.—In sub-clause (b) of clause (2), the reference to Hindus shall be construed as including a reference to persons professing the Sikh, Jaina or Buddhist religion, and the reference to Hindu religious institutions shall be construed accordingly.
(The kirpan is a ceremonial dagger that religious Sikhs carry around -- it causes all sorts of problems at security points and so on, so that's what explanation I is about.)
Obviously, the interesting point here is 2(b); what's with this calling out specifically of Hindus? If this were written into some state law in the United States, for instance, it would be considered outrageous -- what are you doing, singling out Hinduism like that? Indeed, this is exactly how Hindu nationalists feel. To quote from the e-mail that made me look up Article 25 to begin with,
"I don't think it's hard to see why Hindus feel that they are being persecuted even in India. Discrimination against Hindus is built into the Indian Constitution itself."
Certainly, this characterization, that either the Indian constitution victimizes or is a symptom of the victimization of Hindus in India, is absurd. Hindus (as defined in Explanation II) make up between 80 and 85% of India, and are an overwhelming political block in nearly every province (only a plurality in one; 3 have Christian majorities, 2 (Kashmir, and the sparsely populated islands off the west coast of India) have Moslem majorities, Punjab is majority Sikh, and one appears to be dominated by Thai and Tibetans). And the wording of 2(b) serves a very particular purpose in making it clear that the caste system is not protected from government scrutiny. Nevertheless, it does seem to me that it is strategically poor to have a constitution that singles out a particular religion for government scrutiny. I can think of other practical reasons why it is good that the wording is as it is,* but it seems difficult to justify this construction philosophically, even though the "discrimination" of the passage is very much of the "so what?" variety.
* In particular, a more neutral formulation would be likely to open up the opportunity for the Hindu majority to impose itself in a variety of unpleasant ways on the many Indian minorities.
The Indian constitution can be found at http://indiacode.nic.in/coiweb/welcome.html ; I got the Indian religious census data from http://www.censusindia.net/religiondata/ .
Um, JBL, the relevance of that is not utterly clear. Should you start your own blog?
There is in fact a connection, it just went unarticulated. As for starting my own blog, I'm too lazy :)
People complain about discrimination against majorities (or non-majority dominant groups) under many different circumstances. Often the particular arguments used against these discriminations are disingenuous. Often the most natural response to those complaints (e.g. small overcharges at Chinese restaurants, "anti-Hindu" provisions protecting lower castes, bars with Ladies Nights) is that the people complaining should get over it. From the point of view of answering the question, "What are you going to do to address this injustice?" I find that answer satisfactory -- I would rather the Human Rights Commission concern itself with more important things. But I don't think it answers the question, "Is this really an injustice, and in general wouldn't society be better off without such injustices?"
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