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Restaurant Staff Act Like Adolescents—Grow Up!
Remember Trump’s first term as President when Sarah Huckabee Sanders was shunned and kicked out of a Virginia restaurant in 2018? Her response, no surprise, was a classy act:
‘Last night I was told by the owner of Red Hen in Lexington, VA to leave because I work for @POTUS and I politely left,’ Sanders posted on Twitter Saturday.
‘Her actions say far more about her than about me,’ Sanders said. ‘I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so.’
The owner of the restaurant, Stephanie Wilkinson, commented with a pathetic response:
Wilkinson told the Post that she asked Sanders to leave at the request of her staff.
‘I explained that the restaurant has certain standards that I feel it has to uphold, such as honesty, and compassion, and cooperation,’ Wilkinson recalled to The Post of her confrontation with Sanders. ‘I said, ‘I’d like to ask you to leave.’’
So who was actually in charge in her restaurant? And since when is an owner subject to the whims of her employees? It’s worth noting that not too much later on, the restaurant closed down.
Good riddance.
Other people affiliated with Trump in his first term were also hassled and rejected in restaurants, including Department of Homeland Secretary Kristjan Nielsen, and Senator Ted Cruz and his wife.
Recently I celebrated some potential growth in the attitudes of the Left . A part-time restaurant server, Suzannah Van Rooy, decided that she was justified in rejecting customers with whom she had political differences. Fortunately, her employer, Beuchert’s Saloon in DC, disagreed with her decision:
‘Not only do Ms. Van Rooy’s comments clearly violate our zero-tolerance policy on discrimination, but her decision to sign into our social media accounts in the middle of the night to post her own rhetoric in wildly offensive responses to comments is a further breach of conduct and protocol. She has no authority to speak on our behalf, and her comments do not reflect the positions of over twenty other people who make up our staff,’ the Friday statement read.
‘For these reasons as well as the sheer dismay and disgust we feel at her unforgivable behavior, Ms. Van Rooy has been dismissed immediately. Our staff and families (many of whom are personally offended by Ms. Van Rooy’s comments about them) are still reeling from what Ms. Van Rooy said and did, and we as a restaurant are simply horrified to be associated with base prejudice.’
I wonder how Miss Van Rooy felt as she was accused of prejudice and discrimination. Isn’t that what Republicans are accused of doing?
But my joy at hearing about this pushback was brief, overcome by the idiocy of owners of a new politically themed bar in D.C. The published statement they made and the apologies of the owners were inane. Instead of taking this opportunity to promote political maturity and thoughtfulness, they caved in. I’d like to dissect it for you (with my remarks in italics):
A newly opened politics-themed bar in Washington, D.C., was forced to remove a GOP political symbol from its building after facing community backlash.
What do they mean, forced to remove? Who owns their bar anyway?
The bar, called ‘Political Pattie’s,’ reportedly angered some locals by featuring a GOP elephant, along with a Democratic donkey, as part of its logo painted on the front of the building. Locals attacked the bar on social media, saying a business with the GOP symbol wouldn’t be welcome in an area surrounded by gay bars, according to the Washington.
Well, that attack by the locals certainly was powerful.
Just before its grand opening on Tuesday, ‘Political Pattie’s’ removed both party symbols, saying they realized the ‘red elephant”’ symbol ‘was hurtful to the community.’
The whole community? Seriously?
‘Soon after our logo was painted on our building’s facade, we realized that the representation of the red elephant was hurtful to the community,’ owners Andrew Benbow and Sydney Bradford wrote in a statement posted on social media. ‘And out of respect, we decided to change the logo, removing both the donkey and the elephant.’
This response by the owners is so pathetic and disgusting—almost as disgusting as the server at Beuchert’s Saloon. The owners had an excellent opportunity to take the high road, to encourage people to frequent their bar as a place where people could come together, have meaningful conversations and lessen the political polarization.
But they took the sycophantic route. How sad.
I guess it’s going to be a while before we see more bridges than barriers.
Published in Culture
That “socialist worker’s paradise” coffee shop (or shops… did they have 2 or 3 locations? I don’t remember now) I read about, went under. As did the book store in San Francisco where the owner supported the $20 minimum wage law.
Plus all the other less-publicized business closures etc.
Hopefully that DC “politics bar” will soon fail as well.
Along with that hairstylist who is “famously” losing business for refusing Republican customers.
When political symbols replace the normal ingredients of personal identity, such as religion, tradition, conscience etc. and if that political ideology is shallow and obviously vulnerable to reasoned criticism, then that criticism has to be heresy and its motives evil. It is an open question as to whether leftism is a mental illness or a disposition that requires mental illness as a pre-requisite.
Someone should address this as a serious question. It could also be both. You could write a post on that, OB.
Duplicate
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Which came first,
the chickenmental illness orthe eggprogressive politics?Useful to keep these episodes in mind to remind people that, despite the popular rhetoric, it is “leftists” “progressives” “liberals” or whatever the term of the week is that are the people of narrow mind, division, intolerance, exclusion, and bigotry.
I’ve seen some changes and I celebrate every one. But I think it’s going to be a slow slog.
And we have to remember they will keep trying.
At least they chose to remove both symbols, otherwise it might imply only jackasses welcome.
It’s a really bad idea to treat opposing political views as mental illness. The world has seen what that’s like, and it’s not good.
obviously a point that bears repeating.
To what are you referring? Do you mean their attacks on Trump?
The pathology is the inability to see holders of contrary views as anything other than evil and not entitled to basic respectful interaction. Favoring nanny-state solutions is a disposition or opinion that may or may not be a viable policy approach or political platform. Believing that opposition to that disposition is evil and such people deserve persecution, exclusion and punishment is pathological and diagnostic. The need to censor, caricature or subject to harassment is diagnostic.
Doing evil is what humans do. It’s not mental illness.
I meant the comment I was responding to. I don’t want my political views treated as a reason for mandatory injections and/or institutionalization, and I don’t wish that on anyone else. We need to work harder to understand where some of the weird political ideas come from, and not take the lazy way out.
We visited Lexington the summer of 2018. The Red Hen subsequently closed. There occasionally is justice in this world.
On X someone approvingly posted a political quote from an actor. I responded asking if they were trying to harm that actor as it could only shrink his audience. The “politicization of everything” is a Leftist tactic that harms anything that is not intrinsically political already.
I believe that anyone and everyone is vulnerable. Be prepared.
The childish actors (who seem to mostly if not entirely be from the left) have been doing this sort of thing for a while, mostly against police officers. Refusing service, adulterating food, etc.
At least among the publicized cases, the establishment owners seem mostly to have fired the offensive employee. I guess a few of the wanna-be offenders don’t hear the message that, “If you offend our customers, you will no longer work here” (or they don’t care).
I still remember after the late Rush Limbaugh hired Elton John to perform at Limbaugh’s wedding reception, he cited the event as an example of a benefit of “capitalism” or free markets – the desire of a customer for the best product or service, and the desire of a provider to make money bring together people who may have wildly different views on many topics, but can work together starting from a common ground. And how once together on one matter of common ground, they can discuss more rationally both what they have in common and where they disagree.
So half the country isn’t welcome in our own capital?
An untreated mental illness