Working in the service industry as a tipped employee can feel like a struggle at times—many servers, waiters and waitresses have said so.
While working in this specific position, servers learn a lot about the people they are tasked with waiting on. Due to the wide variety of people served and how much time they have to observe different behaviors, some servers may come away from their jobs with specific ideas about how entire groups of people behave.
This has ranged from the effect of wearing their hair in pigtails to get better tips from men to one server’s conclusion that police officers do not tip well.
One server—himself a Black man—has taken the controversial stance that Black customers do not tip.
In a video posted to TikTok by user Dee Blends (@icutzhair), the poster says that in his three years of experience as a server, he did his best to provide great service to all customers, and found that on repeated occasions, it was Black customers who did not tip.
“When I started off, I tried to give everybody the same service and take care of people the same way and expect the same thing from everybody regardless of race, just because I’m like, bro, I don’t know I can’t judge somebody off of first glance,” Blends says in the video. “But after constantly not getting tipped after giving great service—and I know everybody thinks they give great service, I was an amazing server—after constantly giving great service and getting stiffed every single time, from Black people, I’m not going to lie just because I’m Black and say Black people tip.”
He says this behavior may come from never having been taught to tip, growing up.
“One time, I had a party of 31 and got $8,” he says. “I served by myself. I got $8 out of that table. From then on, bro, that showed me Black people don’t tip, and it’s because most Black people don’t grow up with people around them who tip. I didn’t see my parents tip, ever. I didn’t learn about tipping until I started serving. That’s just what it is, bro, you can’t deny, you can’t hate on it. That’s just the facts, bro.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Blends via TikTok direct message regarding the video.
Some viewers shared that they had similar experiences while working in the service industry.
“I’m a black man who served for many years… its true.. black people don’t tip,” one commenter wrote.
“I can 100% attest to this. It’s true,” another said. “And something is ALWAYS going to be sent back everytime.”
“This is so true,” a third wrote. “And I was affected by it so much after years of serving that I typically severely overtip in case they’ve been dreading waiting on me the whole time!”
@icutzhair Am I lying? #fyp ♬ original sound – Dee Blends | Dallas Barber
Others took the poster’s comments as a broad overgeneralization that might actually do some harm.
“Don’t generalize every black person, this harmful narrative can lead to us getting poorer service than other races all because people online are saying black people never tip,” one viewer said. “Which is false.”
“This ain’t it,” another commented. “To generalize all black people is crazy. Giving ppl an excuse to treat us different because they think this gon be the experience every time they wait on black people.”
“Plenty of demographics don’t tip well,” a commenter wrote. “Large groups of women usually don’t tip well, groups of teenagers don’t tip well. Blue collar workers don’t tip well. You just chose to sh*t on black people tho.”
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