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Berkeley Cafe Tells A Black Comedian To ‘Scram’ For Talking To His White Wife, Claims It Wasn’t ‘A Race Thing’
6. Seconds later there is a loud series of knocks on the window of the Elmwood Cafe. They are coming from the inside of the restaurant.
7. I look up and see one of your employees staring daggers at me.
8. The employee then jerks her head to her left aggressively and I see her mouth say something to the effect of…
9. “SCRAM!â€
Seriously. That is what happened. OK. Maybe it wasn’t exactly, “SCRAM!†Maybe it was, “GIT!†Or maybe it was, “GO!†Whatever it was, it was certainly directed at me. And it was certainly the kind of direction you should only give to a dog… a dog that you, yourself, own.
When Bell’s wife heard the knocks on the window she thought someone inside the restaurant recognized her husband from his show, as often happens. I used to live in the same neighborhood as this family and once yelled to him, “Hey, I love your show!” while he was pushing his daughter on a swing. I’m sure it happens a lot. But that wasn’t what was happening. The employee was shooing him away because her brain couldn’t wrap itself around the fact that this black man belonged there, talking to his white wife and her friends.
That is when the couple spoke up and were told by the employee it wasn’t “a race thing.” Yes, it absolutely was a race thing. As Bell points out, “Ummm… actually a black man being told to leave a restaurant because the restaurant believes that his presence is harassing four white women and their kids, even though there is literally no evidence to support that is TEXT BOOK racism.”
Racial profiling is literally killing people in this country. Killing them. And if we don’t stop tolerating every measure of it — our society will continue to be a dangerous and intolerant place for all people who do not have white skin. That is not okay.
The cafe has reached out with an apology to Bell. You can read Bell’s entire retelling of the story on his website.
(photo: Twitter)
