ABC’s hidden camera, ethical dilemma series What Would You Do? ruins the meals of ordinary people by putting them in incredibly awkward social situations where sociopaths publicly declare the sorts of racist, misogynistic, and homophobic things you’d expect to hear at a frat house kegger. This week they decided to crash land at Norma’s Cafe—a 50s style greasy spoon located in Farmer’s Branch, Texas—and demonstrate just how pissed off Texans can get when a waitress starts running her mouth instead of serving wing dingers.
The show calls Farmer’s Branch a conservative part of Texas, but I assure you, there are no actual farmers in Farmer’s Branch. It’s mostly just mini-malls and suburban homes located at the end of a long strip of clubs, bars, and restaurants called Addison. It’s also just north of Dallas which votes almost 50% democrat.
Plus, the claim that Texas restaurants can refuse gays service is both true and misleading. Though Texas lacks public accommodation laws protecting its LGBT citizens and an El Paso taco joint once kicked out a gay couple for kissing and acting like “ballerinas”, each establishment invokes the right to refuse service to anyone mostly to kick out loud, drunken assholes rather than lezmos spoiling their kids on ice cream.
I’ve been to Norma’s Cafe. It’s usually filled with obese older folks washing down fried pickles, fried chicken livers, and southern fried salads with liter-sized cups of cola and large slices of Mile High Pie. Yeah it’s cool that 23 out of 54 Texas bystanders voiced their support (especially when you consider that less than 12 cold-hearted New Yorkers stood up against homophobia—blue state, my ass). But even the haters at the National Organization for Marriage think the customer reactions have more to do with the waitress acting like an asshole than with the diners supporting gay anything:
How about we take this to the next level?
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No boss, and no customers would tolerate [the waitresses’ behavior]. Not even in the “conservative” towns of Texas. Good news for American common sense…
The insidious propaganda point from ABC News is the suggestion that millions of good Americans who believe marriage means a man and a woman because children ought to have moms and dads, would or are behaving like this.
Texas has bigots sure, but from my experience very few of them feel adamantly enough to ruin a community business and everyone’s lunch by broadcasting such hysterical views loud enough for an entire restaurant to hear.
I actually suspect that if the male couple had been poor and Hispanic, that even less people would have cared. But even the video agrees with me when I say that most of the 23 in this case probably defended the the lezmos because hungry Texans hate shitty service.
David
Don’t agree w/this comment at all. I’m the first one to call my homestate out on it’s ridiculous lack of open-minded people, politicians and laws but this is also one of the first times I’ve been proud of it too.
Don’t use the scapegoat that “hungry Texan’s hate shitty waiters.” That makes you sound lewd and ignorant. If you can find a better excuse..I MIGHT jump on your “Hate Texas” bandwagon.
ShowMeGuy
First, you have to compare apples to apples. People in New York know that if they get involved in a situation…..the rest of their day will be wasted providing police with an official statement. People in Texas are more laid back and if police need 15 minutes of their time, so be it, no big deal, we got all day.
As for the Texas edition, other customers; time and again, informed the waitress or the *rude customer* that the gays/lesbians/inter-racial couples have the right to dignity and respect as any other customer. Bystanders actions were clearly NOT about their own experience being ruined by the waitress.
kernelt
@ShowMeGuy: No I don’t agree with the argument at all. It is like you’re trying to justify those in NY for their lack of sympathy and tolerant/doing the right thing to TX for being having time to do what is right.
Those excuses are weak and pathetic.
And to @David, I couldn’t have agree more. Though I am conflicted by discriminatory laws of TX even though Most people I know *Houston are open-minded and are accepted of GLBT.
Red Meat
NY is just as full of bigots as any state. Sure the big cities around the U.S have the biggest GLBT communities but thats all it is: proportions. Its harder in small towns to have enough GLBT people to make a 24/7 living community. In NYC there are millions of people that the sheer numbers is the key. There are j even more haterade going around in NYC.
Daniel S
While I don’t agree with your assessment, I understand what you were saying, and I would be interested to see the same situation played out somewhere a little further from the big city. I am still very proud of how these people reacted. It makes me proud to be a Texan. That guys note pissed me off because it made me start crying like a baby, I wanted to hug him too.
asa1973
@Showmeguy: Your first paragraph is too ridiculous to even offer a rebuttal.
@Everybody who posted so far: I sort of agree with this article. As a Texan (transplanted in Chicago), I am extremely proud to see how many people stood up to the waitress. I have spent 15 years explaining to non-Texans about the decent, liberal-mined, compassionate, and courageous people residing in that state who grew up in the face of adversity and know how to aptly stand up to a bully – in the personal, social, and political arenas. But I can’t help but also feel that we Texans are taught from birth not to be rude in public. I think that at least a percentage of the 23 responded to her lack of manners rather than her distaste for gay parenting. Were they given a chance to vote, I’m pretty sure some of these “heroes” would pull the lever in favor of discrimination. But maybe I’m just being a pessimist. I’d love to believe they were all truly on our side.
I’d like to see more subtle scenarios on this increasingly hyperbolic show – episodes that are more likely to occur. Like the “bad waitress” being overheard telling a co-worker to serve the table because she is too disgusted by it. John Quinones should interview some gay people and find out the ways in which we experience discrimination from people everyday that is undoubtedly noticeable by others but not always so over-the-top.
Also…yes, had the gay parents been two Latino men (specifically two men of Mexican decent), that number of heroes would have dramatically dropped.
Amanda
I was really impressed with the people in this video. Good on ya, Texas.
Chris Mittens
We throw around words like bigot (which of us 100% free of prejudices?) and then when people behave well, we cynically guess at baser motives for their good deeds. What does that imply in us except bigotry about these people’s apparently collective nature? This article is just more of the same oversimplification that feeds the poisoned well of false dichotomy. Until we start to acknowledge people as individuals and complex creatures besides, progress is off the table for everyone. I could just as easily conclude from this author that being gay doesn’t render one inherently open-minded, but even that would be more of the same…