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It’s trendy for people to point out discrimination of minorities, but reverse racism isn’t usually recognized, perhaps in part because members of the majority don’t usually visit locales of the minority. Whatever the reason, it’s worth pointing out that white people are also discriminated against.

Many months ago, a Korean BBQ restaurant named Brothers, in San Francisco, was highly recommended to me. The restaurant lies in the Richmond district of San Francisco, and regularly has a line out the door on busy nights. The restaurant has a second location in the same district, creatively named Brothers 2. In any case, some friends and I decided to eat at Brothers 2 one night, and waited in line like everyone else. The place doesn’t take reservations, so getting seated is supposed to be on a first-come first-serve basis, but apparently this rule did not apply to round-eyes. Waiting in line, my group was pushed to the wayside time and time again, as other groups of people, including those in parties just as large as ours, were seated ahead of us, even though they came in up to 45 minutes after us. Apparently, being the only group full of white people, we were a second priority.

I assumed the incident was random, and though I haven’t visited a Brothers restaurant since, didn’t sour me to Richmond district venues. Fast forward to last week, when friends and I decided to eat at Lee Hou Restaurant, a Chinese and Dim Sum restaurant also located in the Richmond. We were seated quickly, because the place was half empty, but we didn’t get any menus. I quickly assumed that most lunch visitors only wanted Dim Sum, so didn’t need regular menus, but this assumption quickly evaporated when I saw other parties come in and immediately receive them. So maybe they just forgot - it happens.

After flagging someone down and asking for menus, we were able to order our food. This ordeal was slightly agitating in itself, since the waiter didn’t appear to speak a word of English, but this isn’t unheard of in ethnic San Francisco neighborhoods. When the food finally arrived, I kindly asked for chopsticks, which were not at the tables. The waiter gave me a disgusted look, and in what amounted to very broken English, told me that there’s a fork at the table, and that I didn’t need chopsticks. He may as well have told me that white people weren’t dextrous enough to use anything but a sharp, metallic object. Nevermind that the other customers didn’t even need to ask for chopsticks - they just got them.

The frustrations didn’t end when we paid for the meal, because we received ten dollars less change than we were supposed to. The waiter himself refused to react to our concerns, and ultimately we spoke to the manager, who, after some discussion, finally gave us our correct change. To top it off, we weren’t given our fortune cookies. In exchange, Lee Hou has lost some customers, but chances are, they’d rather be without our kind anyway.

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