Are BLACKS bad Tippers???

Some of the names in this story have been changed in order to protect the guilty… and the cheap.

This is a true story…

Somewhere in L.A. County on a brisk and sunny afternoon, three Black “professional” males sit out on the balcony of their favorite local sandwich joint. The waitress gives a quaint and polite smile as she lays the bill down on the table.

Slaus: $ 40.00 for 3 sammiches, soup, and sodas. They do know it’s a recession right?


Mike: Fo realz!! Man, we gotta start bringing our lunches yo! I’ll get the bill this time though. Yall can get the next one.


Cesar: Man you make, over $40,000 a year. You can cop a couple of sandwiches for the homies.


Slaus: Sho can!. Pay that bill, brutha!


Mike: : snickers as he reaches for his cash :: Least yall janky folks can do is pay the tip then.


Slaus: Tip should be no less than $8.00 then. A good 20%


Cesar: Man what? 20%?? I ain’t leaving her no 20% tip. That’s crazy.


Mike: Bro, 20% is the average tip. That’s $4 from each of y’all.


Cesar: Man, average for white folks and boojie bruthas like you! She can be cool with 10%, or a man need to get another job! Holla.

After that incident I had to wonder… , are we bad tippers? Fo real? “We” as in Black people that is. Seriously, I had to think back and wonder about all the times I had been out eating with friends of different ethnicities, and trying to figure out if there was some truth to it.
Is it true? Are Blacks as a whole bad tippers? Yeah I know a lot of you are sitting there saying: “Hey, I’m a great tipper, this can’t be true.” Well some like to say” iiiim not like that”, as if that is supposed to all of a sudden be the norm. Well, a bee that doesn’t sting defines NOT the way of the swarm. If a pack of lions come running up the street, I'm not sitting there thinking about the one that ain’t gonna bite me, I’m thinking about the rest of those that are about to be dining on my left thigh.
Stereotypes save time.
OK im just crazy with yall, cuz we all know gross generalizations never tell the full story either. So I decided to look into stuff further.
I figured I would reach out and take a poll of 50 some odd people over the past two weeks(many of you were included), where I asked a series of questions regarding Tipping and the negative stereotype towards blacks in regard to dining out. So lets explore the results.
50 people, split down the middle between the habits of Blacks and whites in regards to tips. Yeah I know this world aint just Black and white, but you know what man? Do your own study studies.

When you go out to eat? What percentage of the bill, do you think makes a good tip.
Blacks: The vast majority 10-15% where as about 10% said 20%+
Whites: The vast majority 20-25% where as a lil more than 10% said 25%+

One of my fav answers:
When I dine out, I tip at least 15% which incidentally is the minimum suggested. If the experience is great then I go a bit higher, maxing out at around 25%. If the experience is lacking, and it is the kitchen’s fault, I complain to the manager and ask for the bad food to be taken off the bill, HOWEVER I tip the waitress as if the item was still on the bill. If the experience is horrible and it is the waiter’s fault, I give the customary insult tip of $1. My tipping also doubles as a teaching tool, for I am kind.

Do you think Blacks would tip a Black server more then they would another?
Blacks: Nope.
Whites: Yes
One of my fav answers:
Yes because Black people stick together no matter what. How else do you explain crazy Al Sharpton.
I find that Black folks are harder on Black servers, like they expect some extra fabulous service because they share pigmentation.

When you go to pick up take out from your favorite restaurant ( no McDonalds, n stuff) do you tip the person at the register? If so what percentage
Blacks: near 95% of you said: “H” to the nawl! The other 5% were consistent with 10%
Whites: Across the board it was believed that you have to tip. Generally no more than 10%. This sentiment was shared by the majority of persons online as well.
One of my fav answers:
For real dude? Tipping for take out? What the heck am I tipping them for? For turning the heck around and reaching behind them? For taking 20 steps to go get my stuff? Man, ill just come back there and get it my “own self”.

If you are black, have you ever gotten bad service at a restaurant and felt it was because you were black. If so, did you tip anyway?
The answers here were very consistent. Just as it was stated during the research online, many blacks felt that servers regardless of color, generally brought their C game when waiting on them, as if the server felt that since they were probably not going to get a good tip from a Black table, there was no need to over serve them. To no surprise, these same actions by the servers actually were the catalyst for bad tips in many situations. See the vicious cycle? But then again, if you are pretty sure you are going to get a bad tip, why not spend more time on a table where your odds are better. Peep this great example here at the blog intelligent ignorance.

If you are black, do you tip extra, in hopes that you are breaking a cycle of perceived/factual belief that blacks do not tip well?
It was split right down the middle on this question. A good number of folks thought it was their duty to try and turn around any and all bad stereotypes regarding Black people, where as other’s gave a resounding “H” to the nawl.
It was also pretty interesting that there are a good number of folks who also want to debunk this thought.
I found a great article about how this young white woman was a waitress in an establishment where everyone believed that Blacks were horrible tippers, and no one ever wanted to wait on them. Being disgusted with this way of thinking, she set out to give all of he Black patrons better service than she would give anyone else that walked through the door. Going above and beyond for her black customers. But sadly after a few months of doing this and finding herself with horrible tips from her black customers, she found she began to feel like everyone else who worked there.
Fact of the matter is, we learn by example from those around us. When I was younger, I was always told to leave a 10% tip or no more than $5 on any bill regardless of the amount. But since my younger experience was with clueless folks, this is what they thought was the good thing to do. It wasn’t until much later when I began meeting more “wordly” folks that found themselves elevating to higher tax brackets and learning from those new people in their surroundings that in fact a 10-15% is actually looked at as a bad tip, and typical of Blacks.
How do we change this? Do we even care to? Perhaps it depends on your social circle or your situation. But I thought it was important to kick it with my people on this topic, give them the data, then let them decide what they wanted to do with the info.
So you tell me “Oh but No” brutha… are Blacks GENERALLY, bad tippers? Do you ever find yourself going out with some folks who don’t want to tip at all? Hopefully this educates folks!