Is it the Name?

[Guest]

Chris Rocks Mother Claims Restaurant Discriminated Against Her


New York Lawyer
October 18, 2006


By The Associated Press

CHARLESTON, S.C. - Rose Rock, the mother of comedian Chris Rock, claims she was racially discriminated against when she was seated but ignored for more than a half hour at a Cracker Barrel restaurant along the South Carolina coast.

Rock said Tuesday she planned to sue the Lebanon, Tenn.-based company. A Cracker Barrel spokeswoman said the restaurant chain was investigating and taking the complaint very seriously.

Cracker Barrel has in the past faced numerous lawsuits and a federal inquiry over complaints of refusing to serve black customers, discriminating against minority workers and firing gay employees. The company has taken steps to rebuild its folksy image and reach out to minorities.

Rock, who is from Georgetown, said she and her 21-year-old daughter were the only blacks at the chains Murrells Inlet restaurant in April. She said when she asked the manager about the delay she was told they could have a free meal.

He never called over the waitresses and asked, Why did these people sit here for an hour without service? she said. The only thing he said was we could have a free meal and neither of us wanted to eat.

Cracker Barrel spokeswoman Julie Davis said the company doesnt tolerate any form of discrimination.

It has always been a violation of our policies and procedures and it is neither condoned nor allowed, she said. We do not allow the type of behavior you are describing, Davis said.

Rock said she contacted the South Carolina Human Affairs Commission and was told her complaint would be handled, but nothing ever happened.

The head of the commission, Jesse Washington, said Tuesday that after initial discussions, the complaint was finalized Aug. 7 and his agency also was investigating. He would not comment on the complaint.

We get thousands of charges coming through here in the course of a year, he said. Its not out of line  the time frame on this. It is being investigated and we will be in touch with her when we have a report.

The Rev. Al Sharpton will join Rock on Wednesday in South Carolina to announce that Sharptons Action Network will finance the planned lawsuit.

Im getting reports from all over the country about Cracker Barrel, Sharpton said from New York on Tuesday.

He also said state officials are slow to act on such complaints.

When people are talking about there is no more discrimination, a lot of it is because they are not following this stuff up, Sharpton said.

Cracker Barrel, established in 1969, operates 547 restaurants in 41 states, according to the companys Web site.

Georgetown is about 60 miles northeast of Charleston.

[Twycross]

Since when does the restaurant have an obligation to serve promptly? Yeah, it's bad for business to leave customers sitting there, but she hasn't been wronged.

Good grief. She got a free meal out of it and she plans to sue?

[Monkeyleg]

If I were black, I'd have a hard time giving my business to a restaurant called "cracker."

[Perd Hapley]

You know, a cracker is a snack food.  You think Black people don't know the difference between a triscuit and a poor white southerner?  If not, they're a little hung up on words, or someone has told them a tall tale about "cracker" having something to do with whips.  

If anyone should be offended, it would be white people.  But anyway, cracker just means a country person.

[Guest]

Really what this article brought up from my own thoughts is that certain groups by legislation have more rights than others in this country.  Think to that posting abit back: ''This article will make a minority out of you'.  I have eaten at the Cracker Barrel a few times.  For some reason they have an akward seating SOP which results in an increased likelyhood of some customers being overlooked and forgotten.  
My own family got some drinks and then spent the next 45 minutes without a service visit by the staff.  We had a word with the manager, left, and have never graced them again with our custom or good word.  I think it absurd that some people have the right to make a Federal Case out of such a happening.  
From my own knowledge of the complaints in my own state's AG office. I have seen no signs of systemic discrimination and I think such targeted discrimination highly unlikely.  I think its part of the general phenemona of the protected class mentality wherien when something bad happens it must be due to being a member of a protected class.  
I don't like that legally people have more rights than me nor the twisted mentality that results when it is directly in their own best interests to think of themselves wholly within the frame of a protected group.  
While on the subjected of group/class mentality, has anyone seen the research film 'The Essential Blue Eyed'?  I continue to be highly suspicious of the arguement/justification that people have no choice but to be continuously set in a group/class mentality due to the racism/classism ect of 'society'.  I think it more often than not to simple be self fulfilling prophesy and whatnot.  Just about the only arguement I've gotten to that is that as a white male between the ages of and of the economic status of, that I am incapable of understanding.  Afterwards the arguement usually gets into just who is funneling money to terrorists (fun stories).  I've yet to find myself able to engage someone of the aforementioned mentality in meaninfull dialogue in a public or private setting.  I'm pretty much just alittle short of forever giving up on the endeavor.

[Antibubba]

This is not an isolated incident for cracker Barrel.  I can't cite specifics, but I recall them getting into trouble over similar incidents within the last 15 years.    And CB has acknowledged discriminatory failings in the past, although the blame has always fallen on on a single individual.  So, either CB has a huge flaw in the screenings it does for employees, the "Cracker" part of the company name just naturally attracts racists, or the company just hasn't gotten word about the Hospitality part of Southern.


That said, if the Rocks were there on a Sunday, it is very easy to be passed over-it's like a Who concert in the lobby, except a little less noisy.

[auschip]

I waited tables at a CB, as part of my college years.  I think I would attribute the wait to a lack of staffing vs some nefarious plot.  I can't tell you how many times we had 4 waitron covering the entire floor.  Being triple sat and quadruple sat was common.  If you have an inexperienced waitstaff, or a jerk who doesn't want to work and be a team, then the floor can get royally screwed.  The worst part was when you started cutting people off the floor during a shift change.  All the sudden your entire section changes, and you pick up 3 more tables and nobody tells you.

Why anyone would want to wait 90 minutes to eat there is beyond me, but it happened almost every Sunday afternoon.

[Werewolf]

WHY DID SHE JUST SIT THERE AND WAIT AN HOUR FOR SERVICE?

Did she just sit there - waiting for someone to notice her? If a waitperson doesn't get to you in the first 5 minutes or so its time to make your presence known be you black, yellow, red or white.

How hard is it to wave a waiter over or even get up and go get one if you seem to be being ignored.

Geeeeeez! Don't just sit there like a freaking lump cuz if ya do that's how you'll be treated - especially in a really busy restaurant.

M'thinks she's one of those blacks that imagines they're being discriminated against just because the sun rises over the east side of town where the rich white folk live before it rises over the west side where the black folk live.

[280plus]

FYI the word "cracker" was derived as a derogatory slang term from references to the cracking sound of a whip. The white folk were 'crackers" because they were the ones cracking the whips in the old days.

[Twycross]

Thanks, 280plus. I was kinda wondering what all the fuss over the name was, but didn't want to show my ignorance.


Oops, it looks like I just did.

[Perd Hapley]

The common myth about cracker's etymology is just that.  Even if it were true, it is a racial slur used against whites, so Black people have no reason to be offended by it.  

Originally applied by 18th-century cotton and rice planters to corn and wheat farmers, whose crops had to be cracked before consumption.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Cracker

Speaking of "cracker," many of us in the U.S. are familiar with a less complimentary slang sense of the word, meaning "a poor Southern white," especially in the contemptuous sense of "a bigoted, ignorant rural dweller" or "redneck." Several theories have been proposed for "cracker" in this sense, the most popular being that it is a shortening of "corn-cracker," also meaning a poor Southern white person in the early 1800s. But the most likely source is actually that old "brag" or "boast" sense of "cracker," applied to boastful settlers of the Southern U.S. in the late 1700s.

http://www.word-detective.com/011502.html#crackerjack

Going along with the cracked corn theory, Delma Presley, a noted scholar, believes that "cracker" came from as far back as the 18th Century, where cracked corn was actually consumed by the Scots-Irish (Allen 50). As those settlers came to Appalachia, the practice of cracking corn to produce liquor became popular, and the term thus followed them. Then, while the Scots-Irish and several other ethnic groups populated Appalachia, cracker was applied to all of the white inhabitants.

Clarence Major, in his Dictionary of Afro-American Slang, lists two rather interesting ideas about the origin of the term. The first is that a "cracker" was a slang term used by 19th Century Georgian slaves to refer to the slavemasters. If this were in fact, true, then the term would come directly from the cracking of the slavemaster's whip. This is quite a peculiar theory, because it would immediately explain the negative connotation that the word has taken. However, there seems to be little or no support for this theory, and no other source that was studied mentions it.

http://athena.english.vt.edu/~appalach/essaysA/cracker.htm

Longer Wiki entry here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_cracker

[lupinus]

She had to wait for service and it is descrimination?

Good grief I have missed out on millions.

Its a resturant, sometimes service sucks.  I love fridays, there has been plenty of times that I have had to wait.  Sometimes I got a free meal out of it, sometimes I didn't, sometimes I never went back to that specific one of the chain and I made sure corperate knew why.

But sometimes service sucks, fact of life.  How many white people at the resturant that day or in general got/get piss poor service?  

And the manager didn't disiplin the waiter infront of her?  Boofrickinho.  You don't need to witness what if anything happens to the waiter, I hate people like this.  I have had bosses who if the customer demanded such the manager would call them over and do something tp piss the customer off even more.  How a company chooses to disiplin doesn't need to be displayed, it's a private matter between employer and employe.

She got offered a free meal and in such a situation she probably should have.  But come on, this is BS.

No offense but to some people being part of a certian race is no longer being part of a group but is becoming an excuse for everything that doesn't go their way.

[CAnnoneer]

"We reserve the right to provide crappy service." Now, push off, ye filthy sotzie.

[280plus]

All I know is when the average black person uses the term "cracker" they are refering to whip crackers not corn crackers.  Anyhoo, I vote for the everybody gets lousy service here and there. I usually make a show of walking out of a place like that. Stirs em up real good. But I guess a racially based lawsuit would do a bit of stirring up too.

[Perd Hapley]

All I know is when the average black person uses the term "cracker" they are refering to whip crackers not corn crackers.

And a lot of whitey's, too.  Shall we move on to picnic, next?

[280plus]

Will there be crackers at the picnic?

[Perd Hapley]

Will there be crackers at the picnic?

Well, of course.  Everybody knows that "picnic" comes from the phrase, "pick a ni**er," as in "Let's pick a ni**er to lynch and then sit down and eat on the grass."  Believe it or not, a lot of people think that's true.  Now all we need is for a rumor to circulate the Cracker Barrel chain was established in Mississippi in 1921, and specialized in catering outdoor lynchings.

[280plus]

Never heard that one before...

Now all we need is for a rumor to circulate the Cracker Barrel chain was established in Mississippi in 1921, and specialized in catering outdoor lynchings.

What? Now you're saying that's not true either?

LOL...

[auschip]

Incidentally, it looks like I was correct with regard to the shift change.

http://www.eduhwy.com/?script=article.php&id=2333&PHPSESSID=4f7c01853797239593945d64a81776e2

Also, I noted that it said she was a regular diner there.  I wonder if this was the first time she experienced racism.

[HankB]

Everybody knows that "picnic" comes from the phrase, "pick a ni**er," as in "Let's pick a ni**er to lynch and then sit down and eat on the grass."

Hadn't heard that one, but I was slightly surprised on one of my trips to Africa to hear the word "pickaninny" in common use by members of all races, used to describe the young of all species, including humans of all colors. I guess you perceive what you want to perceive.

Anyway, I've received poor service as described more than once, including at Cracker Barrel, and instead of sitting there like a lump, after a reasonable wait I get up and see the manager or hostess or whoever seems to be in charge to see about what's going on.

My skin tone is obviously melanin deficient so I suppose I won't have the ACLU, NAACP, or any other group supporting me in a lawsuit . . . but on occasion I have been offered a free meal. (On the occasions I wasn't, the waitress didn't get the customary 15% tip . . . or any at all, for that matter.)

BTW, Cracker Barrel food quality seemed to take a noticeable dip about 12 or 15 years ago, so I stopped eating there. Haven't been back in a long time.

[280plus]

If you have a beard you can claim they discriminate against people with beards. The NAACP will take the case. Strange but true.

[Harold Tuttle]

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a981030.html

Dear Cecil:

Who is Jimmy, and why does he crack corn?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Tail_Fly

[Harold Tuttle]

http://www.ferris.edu/news/jimcrow/picaninny/

Buckwheat, the quiet boy with big eyes, has an unenviable distinction: his name is now synonymous with picaninny. This is due, in large part, to Eddie Murphy's depiction of Buckwheat on Saturday Night Live in the 1980's. Indeed, the term picaninny is today rarely used as a racial slur; it has been replaced by the term buckwheat.

[richyoung]

Kernal corn was routinely "cracked" - (the kernal broken into smaller pieces) before being used as animal feed  - on the theory that it would digest better in the animals stomachs.  The "cracking" process involved feeding the kernal corn into a burr mill powered by horses or donkeys walking in circles around it,  So "Jim crack corn" means that ..Jim is cracking corn, but the narrator "doesn't care" - (is not helping "crack corn" or do any other productive work, but is goofing off) because his master is dead, so there is no threat of punishment.

Think of the office on the week that the boss is gone....