Black Lives Matter: Demand they are Employed and Respected at Local Bars and Restaurants
The following post is a local story regarding a situation that happened in Upstate New York. The reason I’m posting it on this platform is because of the demographic of young women it reaches world wide. The young woman in the story could be you, a friend or relative. The situation that occurred at this specific place of business could also be a place you frequent. If you notice any similarities either personally or professionally, I hope it inspires a change.
I love Albany, New York! I’m a wellness, lifestyle, and travel writer originally from New York City who migrated here in early 2018. With its Brooklyn vibe of diversity, great food, and busy nightlife, Center Square is where I decided to lay roots. I started hanging out at local bars and restaurants up and down Lark Street and other downtown hot spots. The patrons were diverse and the bartenders and servers were friendly, but something was missing visibly on the front end (bartenders, waitress, hosts). That something was people of color (specifically blacks). One night, I struck up a conversation with a bartender and asked about the lack of black bartenders. He mentioned a guy at Savory on Lark that worked there a few years back. I asked a few more bartenders over the next couple of weeks and they all mentioned the same black guy from Savoy. “Oh yeah, I remember him, he was cool, don’t know what happened to him”. I felt like I was in the middle of my own personal ‘Finding Nemo’.
So one day, by accident I found my Nemo, who I’m just going to call M for this story. M is a beautiful young highly spirited and intelligent black woman. We met through a mutual friend, and I liked her vibe immediately. The plan was for the three of us to hang out at a bar on Lark street for the evening. When I mentioned the name of the bar, M got quiet and the vibrancy I had been experiencing all evening during our conversations disappeared. She almost looked scared! “What’s up”, I asked? M explained to me that she had been a bartender at Dawn’s Victory Sports Cafe, in downtown Albany for over 3 years. Loving her job and her fellow employees she explained it felt like a sisterhood. That love and sisterhood changed when the George Floyd incident and the Black Lives Matter protesting started happening.
M explained that she was invited to be on a group chat with 13 other people from her job including the owner of the restaurant. She was the only black person in the chat. Everyone started sharing their personal opinions of Black Lives Matter issues and no one was at all sympathetic to M being in the chat, and more importantly, being black. She was never once asked how she felt. M was so shocked by what her co-workers had to say, she left the group chat and quit her job (she did not respond to the comments, just hung up and quit). A co-worker later sent her a screenshot of the following text, which was shared after she left the chat. Here is a copy of the text message, which was pulled from Twitter after going viral.
At the end of the text, the owner Dawn replied ‘We all agree”. Since being shared on both Twitter and Instagram people (black and white), have responded saying ‘Not to Spend a Dime at Dawns Victory Cafe’. Now every time M goes out non-blacks that know of the situation stare at her or walk up to her and say “I stand by Dawn’, leaving her feeling vulnerable socially and scared on some levels to seek employment as a bartender. She was basically made to feel like the situation was her fault.
Local bars and restaurants in Albany hire who they want. In Center Square Albany and downtown, they tend to hire all white on their front ends (servers, hosts, and bartenders).
Yes, a lot of them have signs in their windows that say Black Lives Matter, but I guess they don’t matter enough to employ, and if they are lucky enough to be employed will they create an empathetic work environment.
It’s time for bars and restaurants to analyze the current demographic makeup of their front end staff and set aggressive but realistic goals to increase the diversity. We see the signs in your windows reading Black Lives Matter, but it needs to mean employment and sensitivity once employed.
If you know of any local bars or restaurants in your area that fit this topic, please leave a comment.
