I’m a firm believer in the Mary Poppins philosophy: A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. Take working concessions, for example. I thought of this edict while I was working concessions to raise money for a student group earlier this year.
Bored and frustrated one morning with the thought of missing another game stuck behind a counter all day, I took it upon myself to introduce the name game to my fellow cashiers.
It began with my simply making up names for our tags. Rebecca became “Dawnuh,” and after spectators, between handfuls of popcorn, praised her “unique/lovely/interesting” spelling of the traditional Donna, the game changed into something more.
Encouraged by the response of the NU community, we thought to engage them further (read: get more tips) and created a more complex scenario: if people would respond to names, how would they respond to the addition of “ethnic features?”
Our members with straight hair, and more aquiline features were on one side, while those of us who “look” (stereotypically) our race were on another.
Matching names were doled out – Lana/Peter/Nick/Madison – to those with the aquiline features, while the rest of us got, um, unique names – Julissa/Pablo/Shakur/Lupita. To balance things, each register has a control attendant who keeps their own name.
The first time we played, the only difference we noticed was the more white bread team won the tips competition by $4.
Intrigued by what we deemed to be “severe racial profiling” we decided to handicap the “more ethnic” looking members further.
This time, we ignored specific physical features and divided ourselves between light-skinned and dark-skinned, again with names to match.
It was surprising to see the difference that a name tag and similarly-toned coworkers made. During this particular game, even a friend of mine didn’t recognize me while ordering refreshments. I kept expecting him to look me in the eye and realize who I was. He didn’t. It wasn’t until I lightly shoved him that he knew who I was.
This time, the margin in tips widened exponentially. The dark-skinned team lost by $26.
If I were a racial cynic, I would say the results were unsurprising: Most game attendees were more comfortable buying their food from the lighter-skinned team, thus they were more likely to get tips.
I’m not gonna front, this doesn’t really prove anything conclusively. Maybe for some other reason purchasing was just easier at the light-toned register.
It could be nothing, or it could be any number of things. Maybe those on the darker side were just that much more unattractive than the cashiers at the lighter register. Maybe the others were just quicker, and nicer. Or maybe, just maybe, despite all the preaching we do, we’re all a tad prejudiced.
