![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingOne thing I totally forgot during the pandemic is how hosts will seat you at a garbage table if they, like, think your hairstyle is stupid or don't like your shoes.
(By the way, having worked in a handful of posh urban restaurants when I was younger, let me tell you that this is absolutely A Thing. If you've ever felt that this has happened to you, it's definitely not your imagination. This is one of the many reasons why you should eat at small immigrant-owned businesses instead of paying $50 for a fancy salad and gin and tonic.)
I was meeting a group of friends for lunch in Old City the other day. I got to the restaurant first, and the host decided to seat me at a high table next to the bar. I was like, "Dude, we made a reservation for the main dining area because someone in our party has a disability and can't sit at a table like that," and he was like, "I'm sorry, but this is the only table we have available."
As more of us got there, we all said the same thing - the table wasn't going to work for our party. We leaned in, but so did the host. We were thinking about leaving, but nobody wanted to cause a scene.
So then our friend with a disability gets there, very clearly in a wheelchair. He took one look at where the host had seated us and lost his shit. Despite living with a chronic illness, he's still a straight white man, and he had the (very gay) host practically in tears. The bartender, who had been watching this drama play out, mercifully stepped in at this point and offered us free drinks. I generally think that doing things out of spite isn't healthy, but we ended up staying and having a good time and tipping well.
Anyway, the point is that, like it says in the title of the post, good allies will always do their best to support you, but you also have to have enough confidence in your dignity and value as a human being to advocate for yourself. Privilege is intersectional, and "power" isn't a simple matter of some people having all of it while other people have none.
It's totally within your right to get angry sometimes, even if the stakes seem relatively low. You have to choose your battles, of course, but I really do think that fighting small battles helps you gain experience to use in larger and more important conflicts.
(By the way, having worked in a handful of posh urban restaurants when I was younger, let me tell you that this is absolutely A Thing. If you've ever felt that this has happened to you, it's definitely not your imagination. This is one of the many reasons why you should eat at small immigrant-owned businesses instead of paying $50 for a fancy salad and gin and tonic.)
I was meeting a group of friends for lunch in Old City the other day. I got to the restaurant first, and the host decided to seat me at a high table next to the bar. I was like, "Dude, we made a reservation for the main dining area because someone in our party has a disability and can't sit at a table like that," and he was like, "I'm sorry, but this is the only table we have available."
As more of us got there, we all said the same thing - the table wasn't going to work for our party. We leaned in, but so did the host. We were thinking about leaving, but nobody wanted to cause a scene.
So then our friend with a disability gets there, very clearly in a wheelchair. He took one look at where the host had seated us and lost his shit. Despite living with a chronic illness, he's still a straight white man, and he had the (very gay) host practically in tears. The bartender, who had been watching this drama play out, mercifully stepped in at this point and offered us free drinks. I generally think that doing things out of spite isn't healthy, but we ended up staying and having a good time and tipping well.
Anyway, the point is that, like it says in the title of the post, good allies will always do their best to support you, but you also have to have enough confidence in your dignity and value as a human being to advocate for yourself. Privilege is intersectional, and "power" isn't a simple matter of some people having all of it while other people have none.
It's totally within your right to get angry sometimes, even if the stakes seem relatively low. You have to choose your battles, of course, but I really do think that fighting small battles helps you gain experience to use in larger and more important conflicts.
