Hospitality x Abolition

What is abolitionism?

Everyone who works in hospitality should be an abolitionist.

When we hear abolition, we often think of abolishing the police, prisons, or the end of slavery. While abolishing the prison industrial complex is the ideological home of the movement, being an abolitionist expands far beyond prisons, police, and slavery. Abolitionism is praxis towards abolishing an entire oppressive system, practice, or institution. Abolitionists seek to end the sources of violence and envision a future in which we have everything we need to care for ourselves and our communities.  Anyone who wants to rid or reimagine an oppressive institution can be an abolitionist. This can include people who support universal healthcare, an end to student debt, and housing as a human right. All of these movements are necessary for our journey towards a liberated future.

White Supremacy and Capitalism

But why do people want to do away with entire systems? Because they are designed only to serve specific groups of people!  Our economic, governmental, and societal structures and institutions were all dreamed of and developed within a white supremacist capitalist context. Capitalism is both a social and economic construct--it exists within the realm of society (people), so it is inherently subject to the biases and power dynamics of that society. The fathers of capitalism lived within a white supremacist, colonialist, misogynist society, so their ideas innately replicate, normalize, and empower those same ideals. When capitalism is applied in a white supremacist context, it normalizes abuse, dehumanization, and exploitation in the name of profit. John Locke’s ideas on private property and land ownership are distinctly settler colonialist and created the justification for indigenous genocide in the name of land and wealth acquisition. Adam Smith and Milton Friedman’s “free” market only exists within a context that participants are informed, willing, and able to access it equally.  We know this to be untrue then and now.

“The racial contract in the United States contextualizes the capitalist free market system as a system that normalizes, empowers, and encourages the exploitation and abuse of nonwhite people, specifically Black and Indigenous folks. The market was constructed and functions within a white supremacist society, which means that its outcomes uphold white supremacy.” (15)

When wealth is amassed through ownership of property and the means of production (as well as through being male and white at the time of the constitution), white supremacy rationalizes violence against BIPOC bodies in pursuit of profit. Slavery at its core was an economic structure to ensure the profit of white slave owners, agricultural industry titans, and the government. The US has built an ongoing plantation-style financial system founded upon the genocide of indigenous peoples and the institution of slavery. US capitalism, then, is both informed and empowered by white supremacy.

Rebranding the Old

Because slavery was necessary for the economic success of the South, southern governments, municipalities, and landowners created new ways to maintain their free labor force after emancipation.

“...by 1860, there were more millionaires (slaveholders all) living in the Lower Mississippi Valley than anywhere else in the United States. In the same year, the nearly 4 million American slaves were worth some $3.5 billion, making them the largest single financial asset in the entire U.S. economy, worth more than all manufacturing and railroads combined.” (17)

Peonage, sharecropping, the Black Codes, and vagrancy laws, as well as flat out denying the news of emancipation, all served as methods for allowing enslavement to continue quietly.  Some methods have lasted into the 20th century preventing some folks from receiving their freedom until the 1960s. (3) That’s within our parents’ lifetime. Post emancipation, many newly liberated Black people entered into the only industries that would take them: agriculture, domestic work, and hospitality. It’s no coincidence that these industries have historically been left out of worker protection legislation and wage increase legislation. It’s not difficult to understand why there are such high rates of wage theft, sexual assault and misconduct, unhealthy and unsafe work environments, and meager pay in these industries. The power dynamics of slavery have been preserved in these industries by both law and culture.

As the 20th century carried on, the prison industrial complex grew to exact the same type of control over Black and Brown bodies, which gave both private contractors and the federal government access to free labor.  The 13th Amendment abolished slavery except in the case of punishment for a crime, and so the prison industrial complex (PIC) has swelled to control more Black and Brown bodies, more free labor, and thus more capital. The PIC exists to control, contain, and eliminate particular groups of people, but everyone is impacted. (18) Since the 1970s, the War on Drugs and resultant criminalization of Black and Brown people have been the primary way to deal with the social problems produced by racial capitalism.

Abolition x Hospitality

Abolition is necessarily antiracist, anti-imperialist, and feminist. Dismantling capitalism is central to the PIC abolitionist project, as violent systems thrive under it. The PIC is a system evolved from slavery, and so it replicates and empowers the same violence and oppression.  We can trace similar patterns in the hospitality industry because it has many roots in slavery and its oppressive systems.

“Violence begets violence, that is, exposure to violence during adolescence increases the risk of later violent and non-violent crime, drug use, and intimate violence against or from a partner. Thus, the rehabilitation or corrective dimension of imprisonment is undermined if prisoners are placed in an environment that makes them more violent and more criminal than before.” (1)

This quote was taken from a text referring to the recidivism rate in the U.S. (roughly around 50-60%). Going to prison statistically increases the likelihood that you will commit a crime again because the system is designed to entrap people→ upon leaving incarceration. You are no longer eligible for many types of federal and state aid. You face massive barriers to employment and thus stable housing and healthcare. In some states, you lose your right to vote. Violent systems cannot produce healing results. Furthermore, these violent systems exploit the labor of incarcerated people, exactly mirroring structures of abuse from slavery.

Abolitionists reimagine what our future could be when we eradicate sources of violence. When we understand the very structures of our government, economic system, and society are sources of violence and exploitation, we must then creatively begin to build a future with entirely different tools, as “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” (19)

Systems of Oppression in PIC, Hospitality, and Slavery

The parallels between enslavement-era labor systems, the prison industrial complex, and the toxic structures of the hospitality industry are not coincidental. Nor is it a coincidence that the hospitality industry hires more formerly incarcerated individuals than almost every other industry.  Slavery, the prison industrial complex, and the hospitality industry were and continue to be highly lucrative industries that continuously traumatize Black, brown, and other marginalized peoples in the pursuit of profit.

“...by 1860, there were more millionaires (slaveholders all) living in the lower Mississippi Valley than anywhere else in the United States. In the same year, the nearly 4 million American slaves were worth some $3.5 billion, making them the largest single financial asset in the entire U.S. economy, worth more than all manufacturing and railroads combined.” (10)

With the nation’s most prominent “asset” liberated in 1863 (though many didn’t discover their freedom until well into the 1960s), our economic and social systems had to adapt to continue to control and exploit their labor legally. (3) Vagrancy laws, predominantly Black and brown industries like hospitality, agriculture, and domestic work left out of workers rights legislation, the evolution of the prison industrial complex, high rates of sexual assault, and gender-based violence--all of these structures are inextricably intertwined with the roots of slavery. Our hospitality industry has evolved from rotten roots, and the pandemic blew the topsoil away. The current business model for the hospitality industry perpetuates far more harm than it does good.  Beyond that, a business model predicated on a subminimum wage and the disposability of workers is a model that fundamentally doesn’t work (which is easy to see in the high rate of restaurant failures).  The brigade system, FOH vs. BOH divide, middle management, subminimum tipped wage, sense of urgency, and perfectionism are all harmful parts of hospitality that stem from white supremacy. (9) We can easily see why abuse is rampant throughout the industry when we trace these systems to their roots in slavery and exploitation for capital.

The Brigade System

“Escoffier modeled his Brigade system on military hierarchy. This system was based on a strict chain of command and separation and delegation of tasks to a host of different kitchen workers. The traditional brigade system is specialized almost to the point of dysfunction if one or two of the workers were sick. In the brigade, every man has a job, and there is a job for every man. Just as in the military, the chain of command is never brooked, and the kitchen is run with extreme precision.” (6)

Modeling a workplace structure off of an imperialist military system imparts power dynamics that foster abuse, exploitation, and dehumanization, just as French colonialism did. With the rise of the middle class in the 20th century and the expansion of the restaurant and hospitality industry, Escoffier’s model for kitchen efficiency and table turnover (in short, more profit) created a business model in which profit and efficiency reign supreme, even over worker well-being.  When we add in the lens of history, it’s easy to understand how easily abuse grew in an industry where many newly emancipated Black people found their livelihoods. (16)

The FOH-BOH divide

The plantation economy required both field and domestic laborers, and within each division were purposefully created hierarchies and privileges to foster resentment and division among the labor force.  The parallels between these structures and Front of House/Back of House in hospitality do not end there. High rates of sexual assault in FOH, BOH often being predominantly Black or indigenous while FOH is much whiter, higher take-home pay and shorter workdays in FOH, leadership positions in both FOH and BOH occupied predominately white men, etc. Resentment between staff is fostered both overtly and covertly, such as through workplace cultures that forbid staff to discuss pay across the house. This divide serves to displace dialogue about the actual roots of these issues, such as inequitable pay and opportunity.

Middle Management Structures

Those who occupy middle supervisory roles, which correspond to higher wages, frequently hold decision-making power for those below them in the hierarchy. Data shows that higher-paid positions (such as floor managers, sous chefs) are majority white and male, meaning that they make decisions for those below them in the hierarchy who are not represented in the slightest in leadership.  This type of paternalism is a characteristic of white supremacy.

“Paternalism is the policy or practice of people in positions of authority restricting the freedom and responsibilities of those subordinate to them in the subordinates' supposed best interest; — In a paternalistic organization, decision-making is clear to those with power and unclear to those without it; — Those with power think they are capable of making decisions for and in the interests of those without power, often without meaningfully consulting the people being affected.” (9)

When those making decisions are predominantly white and male, marginalized workers continue to experience the same racist and patriarchal power structures that reinforce abuse, dehumanization, and exploitation.

Subminimum Tipped Wage

Tipping did not begin to gain prominence in the United States until after the Civil War, particularly in southern states. The Pullman train company began to employ newly liberated Black people as porters, who worked solely for tips with no wage.  By 1895, 10% of the US labor force worked for tips. In the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, the minimum wage was introduced, and a slew of other worker’s rights, yet the service and retail industries were left out. In 1966, Congress cemented a subminimum wage into law with a “tip credit” for employers to push the responsibility of the rest of a tipped laborer’s wage on to the consumer. Forty years later, in 1996, Herman Cain and the National Restaurant Association lobbied for the subminimum wage to freeze at $2.13, where it has remained for the past 30 years. Out of 25 of the lowest paying jobs, 11 of them are within hospitality. (12)

These workers are more likely to need government assistance and welfare.

“Compared to all workers, a greater share of workers who participate in SNAP are employed in service occupations and in industries such as retail and hospitality, where jobs are more likely to pay low wages and have other features of low quality.” (2)

Workers of color, representing 45% of overall restaurant workers, face exclusion from the few well-paying fine-dining jobs and higher-paid positions. With two out of three tipped workers identifying as women or femme individuals, the subminimum wage also presents a power dynamic in which sexual assault and gender-based violence rates are incredibly high. 90% of women and 70% of men report sexual abuse in restaurants, more than any other industry. (13)

“In 2014, the Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) United and Forward Together conducted a survey of 688 restaurant workers nationwide. It found that

workers in states with a subminimum wage of $2.13 an hour were twice as likely to report experiencing sexual harassment as workers in the seven states with a full minimum wage for tipped workers with tips on top, and three times as likely to report that their employer encouraged them to wear more provocative clothing (making them vulnerable to increased harassment) to earn more money in tips. The study demonstrated that the subminimum wage for tipped workers, which increases dependence on customer tips, forces a workforce of mostly women to tolerate abusive customer behavior in order to survive economically and feed their families.” (14)

The tipped wage is a source of violence. Full stop. The violence it fosters reflects its racist and sexist roots, as well as the ways our government legislates within the framework of white supremacist capitalism to the benefit of those with power and profit to gain.

Toxic Workplace Cultures

Tema Okun’s “White Supremacy Culture” outlines fifteen different oppressive aspects of organizations and institutions and offers antidotes to those harmful characteristics. In the hospitality industry, white supremacy culture thrives in our hiring practices, power & decision-making structures, management & communication, pay structure & growth trajectories, budgeting, consumer education, community commitment, and policy & advocacy. For example, the pressure of urgency, perfectionism, defensiveness, fear of open conflict, power hoarding, binary thinking, and paternalism create workplace atmospheres in which pre-existing dynamics of power and oppression become amplified and cemented.

This can look like:

  • Employees of color being held to higher standards.

  • Employees working so hard that they don’t stop for water or sustenance breaks.

  • Employee mistakes being personal (they reflect poorly on the person making them rather than just being simple human error),

  • Criticism of those in management viewed as threatening

  • Employees not knowing how decisions are made, only who gets to make them

  • Management defensiveness when staff bring up problems or necessary changes

  • Maintaining “seniority” systems within staff scheduling, pay, staffing structures

  • Discipline involves no real improvement plan

  • Gentrifying a neighborhood with no local community members employed in the business

  • Top-down decisions with no employee input

  • Valuing profit margins over the quality of employee experience at work

  • Top leaders in the company (usually white, male) being paid a substantial amount while employees on the ground make a subminimum wage with no chance for a raise

  • Asking employees to leave their emotions or home lives at the door

  • Prohibiting discussion of pay across the house, and many subtler aspects that serve to dehumanize and even traumatize hospitality workers. (7,9)

These insidious aspects of our culture may sound familiar and not immediately harmful, but familiarity and comfort do not always mean good. (20) Many aspects of white supremacy culture in businesses are built into the very model and policy that govern the industry, so learning to see how these aspects of culture empower white supremacy is crucial to beginning to reimagine an industry without them.

Why the Hospitality Industry Should Embrace Abolitionism

At its core, hospitality is about fostering an experience for someone, sharing and collaborating, and in doing so, we build community.  This is why all hospitality workers who love this industry should be abolitionists; we should care enough about our communities to change the systems that don’t work for everyone. We don’t want to allow new people entering our industry to end up victims of the same methods that caused us trauma.

Sexual abuse is violence. Racism is violence. Poverty wages are violence. Restaurants are harming the people they employ and often marginalized guests who walk in their doors. Our industry is broken; it does not and never has functioned safely for workers and marginalized individuals. This is where abolition comes in. We need new, reimagined systems.  There isn’t one way to reimagine either, but rather a million different experiments we can try as part of our praxis towards abolition. So we must ask ourselves, “When something cannot be fixed, what do we build instead?”

When we asked our CHAAD community members what genuine hospitality looked like, we received answers such as

  • Caring and welcome - meet people where they’re at and make them more comfortable.

  • Care and mutuality

  • To make a safe and pleasant environment for everyone.

  • Caring, welcoming, and polite both from the guests and hosts.

  • Considering/anticipating others’ needs/comforts (empathy)

  • Sharing resources, knowledge, and skills, caring about the comfort of others.

This is where the future of our industry lies. We should all be abolitionists because genuine hospitality would not allow us to continue in an industry that inflicts systematic, generational, and interpersonal harm.  Hospitality establishments have often been at the center of radical change and future reimagining.  The revolutionary roots of our very country began to grow in taverns, inns, and bars.

Sharing food and beverage experiences and connecting with other people are the basis from which community is fostered, and through community, culture grows.  The hospitality industry exists as a microcosm rife with societies’ longstanding maladies, and it is where we can begin to build a new culture.  Sharing experiences is the beauty of this industry. We don’t want to see an end to hospitality. We do want to abolish the parts of this industry that do not serve us.

Sources from part I and II

  1. Fagan, AA., (2005) The relationship between adolescent physical abuse and criminal offending lower an enduring and generalized cycle of violence. Journal of Family Violence,  20(5):279–290. https://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/249193/Prisons-and-Health,-4-Violence,-sexual-abuse-and-torture-in-prisons.pdf

  2. Brynne Keith-Jennings and Raheem Chaudhry, et al. (2018). “Most Working-Age SNAP Participants Work, But Often in Unstable Jobs.” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/most-working-age-snap-participants-work-but-often-in-unstable-jobs#_ftnref29.

  3. Harrell, Antoinette, (2018). “Black People were Enslaved in the US Well into the 1960s.” Vice News. https://www.vice.com/en/article/437573/blacks-were-enslaved-well-into-the-1960s

  4. Kaba, Mariame, (2021). We Do This til We Free Us, Haymarket Publishing.

  5. Ransom, Keith L. (No Date). “The Economics of the Civil War,” EH Net.

    1. https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-economics-of-the-civil-war/

  6. Jones, G. Stehpen, (2014). “Escoffier Kitchen Brigade System Then and Now,” Reluctant Gourmet. https://www.reluctantgourmet.com/escoffier-kitchen-brigade-system/

  7. Clare, E.Y., Briones, E., Page, K., Angers-Trottier, P. (2019). “White Supremacy Culture in Organizations.” https://coco-net.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Coco-WhiteSupCulture-ENG4.pdf

  8. Restaurant Opportunities Center & Benner, C. (2015). “Racial and Gender Occupational Segregation in the Restaurant Industry.” https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/pdf/2015/racial-gender-occupational-segregation.pdf

  9. Okun, Tema. (1999). “White Supremacy Culture,” Dismantling Racism Works. https://www.dismantlingracism.org/uploads/4/3/5/7/43579015/okun_-_white_sup_culture.pdf

  10. Blight, David W. Beyond the Battlefield: Race, Memory & the American Civil War. University of Massachusetts Press, 2002.

  11. DSA Restaurant Project, 2021.  https://www.instagram.com/p/CK4G4wpFNQS/

  12. Doyle, Allison. (2020). “The 25 Lowest-Paying Jobs in America,” The Balance Careers. https://www.thebalancecareers.com/top-worst-paid-jobs-2061699

  13. Johnson, Stephanie & Madera, Juan. (2018). “Sexual Harassment is Pervasive in the Restaurant Industry, Here’s What Needs to Change,” Harvard Business Review.  https://hbr.org/2018/01/sexual-harassment-is-pervasive-in-the-restaurant-industry-heres-what-needs-to-change

  14. One Fair Wage, MacKinnon, Catharine, & Fitzgerald, Louise. (2021). “The Tipping Point: How the Subminimum Wage Keeps Income Low and Harassment High.” One Fair Wage. (https://onefairwage.site/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/OFW_TheTippingPoint_3-1.pdf

  15. Nguyen, Cara (2020) "The Relationship Between White Supremacy and Capitalism: A Socioeconomic Study on Embeddedness in the Market and Society.," SUURJ: Seattle University Undergraduate Research Journal: Vol. 4 , Article 6. Available at: https://scholarworks.seattleu.edu/suurj/vol4/iss1/6

  16. Dorsey, Jenny (2021). "Anti-Intellectualism in the Restaurant Industry: Why an Equitable Future Requires Overhauling the Brigade System," Instagram. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/CF2iB3ZjTyI/

  17. Ransom, Roger (2020). “The Economics of the Civil War” Economic History Association. https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-economics-of-the-civil-war/

  18. Critical Resistance (2021). “What is the PIC? What is Abolition?” Critical Resistance. http://criticalresistance.org/resources/abolitionist-tools/

  19. Lorde, Audre. (2018). The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House. Penguin Classics Publishing.

  20. Drive Change NYC: Hospitality for Social Justice Workshop 2. (2021).

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