Last week I was in New York. I was in town for a meeting with CNBC, and Armando Tam was in town to meet with our local NAHREP chapters in the area. On Tuesday, we were having breakfast at the Soho Grand Hotel and were seated next to a young white couple who seemed annoyed. It turns out they had been waiting an excessive amount of time for their breakfast to arrive. Once it did arrive, they ate their food and defiantly told their server that they weren’t going to pay their bill and stormed out. The server calmly said “Ok” and proceeded to clear their table. I have to admit, I was a bit shocked because I had never seen anything like that before. The couple was so matter of fact with their declaration, and the server didn’t even blink. We’ve all been subject to bad service at restaurants before, but it never occurred to me that not paying the bill was an option. I know that not everything is about race, but Armando and I did discuss whether the restaurant’s reaction would have been different if the patrons were Black… or Hispanic for that matter. It made us think about the two Black men in Philly who were arrested in Starbucks for no reason and whether the public would have been as sympathetic if it turned out they had refused to pay their bill because of bad service. I can honestly say that I don’t know, but it’s something to think about.
Elon Musk dropped by the Real Time with Bill Maher show recently for an interview with the host. Maher, who considers himself a liberal is an obvious fan of the CEO of Tesla and Space X. The centerpiece of their conversation was their discussion regarding what Musk called the “woke mind virus” or what I prefer to call “cancel culture”.
Ye, the entertainer and fashion designer formally known as Kanye West had a disastrous week. Always outrageous, his recent antisemitic comments were apparently the last straw; prompting practically everyone to sever ties with him, from his bank, JP Morgan Chase, to his billion-dollar shoe partnership with Adidas.
Regardless of where you live you have probably heard about Nury Martinez and the circumstances that led to her resignation from Los Angeles City Council. The short story is Martinez, who was the first Latina to hold the position of president of the Los Angeles City Council was secretly recorded in a private conversation with other council members where she was heard making disparaging remarks about her colleagues and the two-year old...