RACISM IN THE SNEAK'Y DEE'S
Last tuesday morning, March 16th of 2010, me and my roomates, had one of the most shameful experience of racism in Canada.
One of my friends was going back to Mexico and we decided to have a farewell party at Stinky Dee's , a suppose"Tex-Mex" style bar. Since we arrived, before 2 am, the bartender (I do not know his name, but he is the guy who is working monday night at the bar, you will know who is him for sure) did not want to serve me because I was not in a table. We were waiting until we asked for it, at the bar. We order two pitchers of beer for 6 people and an order of nachos. When we order the second round of Nachos (was after two, so we could not have more drinks, so we were not drunk), the waiter brougth us the bill, when we did not asked for it. We remind him that we were waiting for our nachos and we did not asked for the bill. He made a face and took the bill back.
My friend, who was departing, started to count his coins in the table, in order to exchange them with us (as you know, anytime you are travelling, at the banks nobody exchanges coins, just bills). The waiter came to us in an aggresive way and ,with an horrible sneer, he asked if we were going to pay with pennies, and we answer No. He called security and the manager and started to talk with them, looking at us all the time. We decided to have a good night anyways and keep having fun, laughing and talking in spanish, to which they answer shushing us many times. At this point, we were really pissed off and we started to talk about racism in Canada. Suddenly, the waiter changed his actitude and came to our table and asked if we wanted water (In all this time, he never came to our table to ask if we wanted somenthing, while he was running alfer other tables that came after us, smiling all time).
When we decided to go, around 2 30 am, we paid 40 dls in Bills, and the rest in coins of 1, 5, 10 and 25 cents, of a bill of 50 dollars. Of course we did not tip him, because of his dreadful service. When we were leaving the place, the manager came and shout to us, in front of all the people: "where are you going, you are paying less" , without proving that. We wait until the waiter count the coins, and we asked what was the problem. At this point, the waiter seems to be ashamed and he forgave his indiscretion, but the manager (George) behave in the worst manner, pushing away my friends, particularly, one of the girls, Perla, and one of the guys, Gerardo. This last one, the manager push him many times, taking advantage that the security personal was behind him. George ended the discussion, saying that "We" were doing always the same (in reference at all hispanic people) and he did not care if we were angry, because "we were not business for him". He invite us to leave "politely", and shout us "Malaca", who means "fuck you" in greek language, as we did not know what that means. I accused him of racist and we left the place with a feeling of impotence, that just racism can hurt.
What did we do to deserve that treatmeant? To pay a quarter of our bill with coins? Because we were laughing and speaking in spanish? We were talking a lot between us and between a lot of friends, and I just can say we did not deserved that.
I know this time, the manager George, is listening our complain, because that night he did not care about hospitality and respect of other humans beings. Seems like if an mexican style restaurant, mexicans are not welcome... at least that was the idea that we have about Sneaky Dee's.
Thank you very much,
Rocío, Perla, Gustavo, Gerardo, and Diana.(Mexicans) Adriana (Brasilian)
The Day the International of the Elimination of the Racial Discrimination is celebrated the 21 of March of every year. That day, in 1960, the police killed to 69 people in a pacific manifestation against the laws of countries of the Apartheid that was realised in Sharpeville, South Africa. When proclaiming the Day in 1966, the ONU insisted to redouble its efforts to eliminate all the forms of racial discrimination (resolution 2142 (XXI)). read more