Race in the Kitchen. Negro, please!

This is the second in my trinity of politically incorrect things to talk about (if you want to see the first, scroll down to my blog about the gays). The last one will be about women, but let's put that off for another day.

Race in a professional kitchen. You know there are some racist motherfuckers up in many of these kitchens. We all are racist motherfuckers up in these kitchens. Yeah, I said it. And it's true.

The funny thing is that, until 20-something years ago, white people hired black people to work in their kitchens. Until they found Latins to work cheaper. Yes, it used to be that black people who wanted a job could always get one in a kitchen. It may have sucked, and the white managers may have acted like they were Overseers from the mini-series "Roots" ("Your name is TOBY!"), but it was an honest living.

No more. Because the economy ended all that.

Now they hire the Latins. And just not any Latins, but the illegals. The ones that the Republicans whine about now, after those same Latins raised their white kids and cut their lawns. Why? Because they are cheap. One restaurant owner I worked for shifted his kitchen from all Americans to all Salvadorian in less than two years. And then had the nerve to say he paid a "livable" wage. I was standing right next to him, and I was the sous chef getting only 10-dollars an hour (and knowing that some of his line cooks were getting around 7-dollars an hour). So I looked at him, and said: "Livable where? In Nicaragua?" The owner eventually made me head chef, but he hated me. Because I acted too much like the head chef who hired me and I worshiped, then left to open his own restaurant.

Still, the face of kitchens is always changing, as the Latins are now no longer the go-to guys. Because white people are trying to get kitchen jobs as more Latins are getting pissed off at being screwed every which way but Sunday. Remember the big Latin walk-outs three years ago (was it three years?). Angry Latinos (who are almost as bad as angry black people) stayed home from work in cities from L.A. to Atlanta. Shut down more restaurants than a can't-bribe health inspector. In response to this, white restaurant owners started hiring more poor white people from the ghetto cooking schools you see advertised during “The Jerry Springer Show.”

But this blog isn't about the Latins. It's about race in the kitchen. And though the Latins I worked with had a complete arrogance about them, the funny thing was it seemed all normal in a kitchen. In other words, all the racist shit was out in the open, and everybody was cool about it.

The Latins I worked with had no problem thinking they were better than me. And I had no problem proving them wrong. Once I had to make a sauce on the fly after we opened for service (the head chef forgot to make it earlier). The Salvadoran who worked the station I was making the sauce at started to complain that I was in her way. I looked at her and quietly said: "If you can make a fucking lemon bechamel as well as I can, feel free to make it now." And I held out the spoon. She just looked at me, and backed off. Because she knew the head chef was training me to be a chef, not just some mindless line cook that pumped out food like a worker on an assembly line.

Thus was the weird...hum, what's the word...”synergy” that made up most of the kitchens I have worked in. We all were racists to some point, but we all got along with it. The Latins thought I was a criminal and barely American (one asked me when my parents came over from Africa, and I responded by telling him that Africa is not a country, it's a continent And that my family had been in America for at least 6 generations. Longer than our Irish bred head chef. And he still didn't get it). I treated them like they were illegal and stupid (with ID cards that looked like the Disney Corporation made them as a joke). And the white people didn't care, as long as the food got out and the customers were happy. The white people treated me better than the Latins because they knew I knew how to actually MAKE the food. Yet somehow, in all this open racism, we worked well together.

Then there are...the Asians.

I LOVE the Asians. They don't pull any shit. And, even though they seem quiet all the time, they will tell you what they think at the drop of a dime. They hate the Latins even more than the black people, and they really hate the white people. Yet they love to be more like the black people, who they don't like either (unless they know you. Like my past head chef who once asked the black people in his kitchen how to do the "Stanky Leg" dance. Or the Korean line cook who gave me a whole lecture of why he hated "Dirty South" rap music versus "West Coast" rap)

Why? Because they understand. They understand the complex duality of America.

They understand that here -- in the land of the free and home of the brave -- white people ignore them, black people don't like them, and Latin people aren't worth their time. So they have to do for themselves to make them happy.

Which is why they will pick and choose what to take from other cultures to assimilate (mainly African American culture) while they really don't want to assimilate. So they still rabidly hold on to their own culture (and good for them), while hating on the cultures they pick and chose from. I know, it doesn't make sense. But it's true. For example:

I worked with a Korean guy, I'll call "D." He used the N-word one day to refer to his friend, and another co-worker, who I will call "Little Thug" -- a Filipino woman --got mad (her boyfriend was black). So I go to the fry station and he says:

D: "Little Thug got pissed because I referred to my friend as 'my nigga.'"

Me: "He's your friend?"

D: "Yeah. my nigga from (previous restaurant). I didn't mean anything by it. I call him 'my nigga.' He's my friend You know I'm not about some racist shit."

Me: "I know. Because I can tell the difference, So, if you told her this, why did she get mad?"

D: "She didn't like me using the word 'nigga.' Even though I told her that's he's my friend. He was my nigga."

Me: "She needs to calm the fuck down. Getting mad over nothing. Nigga please!"

You know, the funny thing was that I never actually asked if the dude he was talking about was black (by the way, Little Thug couldn't stop telling me how much she hated white guys). Still, that's how we rolled at that restaurant. All the racist things everybody always said, but didn't mean (but kind of really did mean). Yet we all still worked well together. It is what it is, and not for the faint of heart. Hell, I once worked at a place where the head chef, a Chinese guy, screamed to his Jewish wife: “I got a white guy and a Mexican here already, and now I got a black guy. So how am I a racist if I fuck with them all?” And then he went on to rant about how he hated the Jews. In his defense, he was always drunk.

I guess that what I do love about working in kitchens. It's the only place where I can call a white guy a “cracker” and he can call me “sambo,” and we can both call our Latin co-worker a “wetback.” And yet, we all still get the job done. As co-workers and friends.