Let Me Tell You About The Black Woman Who Humiliated Me

It happened last week Saturday at Kobe Japanese Steak & Seafood in White Marsh, Maryland. It had been a few years since I was last at Kobe, but Toby (my cousin) came over to visit, and we were all hungry, and he asked for Kobe. He had never been there, and he really wanted to experience it. So, off we went. The wait time was forty-five minutes to an hour, and it was extremely cold, so I did not want to wait, but just in case, we still put my name down to be seated. We attempted to eat at three other restaurants, but it did not work out. Eventually, we gave up and just waited for Kobe to text us when our table was ready. By this time, it was only about fifteen minutes left in the wait time anyway.

If you have been to Kobe, then you know that a major part of its selling point is the tepanyaki grill (which I just found out that most of us have been wrongfully calling a habachi grill). The tepanyaki grill is where food is cook on a large, iron griddle with an open flame, usually getting its heat (fire) source from a propane flame. Guests sit around the grill to watch and marvel at the skills of the tepan chef. Ours, for example, threw a raw egg in the air and it ended up in his breast pocket without breaking. 

At Kobe, they would try to fill all the seats around the grill before the chef begins the cooking and entertainment. There were nine people around our grill: me, Toby, Ada Verastic, and six African-American women that came together. They spoke a lot about God and spirituality and the New Year and women connecting to God. From their conversations, I overheard them talk about a women’s ministry.

Before the chef came out, the waitress – a young Asian lady – took our drink and food orders. For the rice, we had the option of picking white rice or fried rice, but the fried rice cost two dollars more, she said. The price was in the menu, but she also told us this several times. I don’t know what the cost of the shrimp was because I don’t eat shrimps, so I really did not pay attention to the cost. The ladies ordered two or three appetizers and a few alcoholic beverages.

When the bill came, ours was $110.42 (I just logged into my bank app to confirm). Theirs was over four hundred dollars, which was reasonable, considering there were six of them, and they ordered appetizers, alcohol, and to-go plates of food. I am yet to recover from what happened next. 

One of the ladies said very loudly, “I’m not saying I can’t pay my bill or nothing like that, but I’m about to go off!” She then called the waitress and proceeded to yell at her and speak to her very disrespectfully about her bill. According to her, she was not told that the fried rice cost $2 extra, and she was not told that extra shrimps cost $11.95, and why was she only given seven extra shrimps? She told the waitress to get the fuck out of her face, called her a motherfucker, threatened to snatch the barrette off her head, and then, demanded to see a manager because “this shit is fucked up.”

I have never wanted to exit a building faster. Her fellow spirit-filled friends did not say anything in support of or against the screaming lady. One of them did say that she knew she ordered a lot and that the bill was correct. The others watched silently. It was impossible to judge how they truly felt about the drama that was unfolding. Did they agree? Did they like it? Were they embarrassed? Did they, like me, want the ground to open up and swallow them in that moment? I don’t know.

The screaming lady was loud, obnoxious, tactless, and disrespectful. There was no need at all to speak to that waitress in such a manner. And if she truly had a problem with the number of extra shrimps she was given, the time to object was sooner, rather than later when she had eaten the food and it was now time to pay. I don’t know how this story ended because it was a mad dash out of the building for me and my family. At the exit, I spotted the stunned waitress, and I apologized to her. Toby apologized to her, too.

It was Maya Angelou that said, “I come as one, but I stand as ten thousand.” At that very moment when that angry black woman was roaring like a lion, I was humiliated because I felt like she stood for me and spoke for me. In a world and in a climate where black people already get such a bad rep, I felt spoken for by someone who did not speak for me. Truly, you cannot shame the shameless. By the way, this was happening at about 10:30 PM, and the restaurant officially closed at 9:30 PM.

It’s the same way I feel about Nigerians defrauding people of their hard-earned money and making the rest of us look bad. I don’t know if anyone was recording the atrocity that was unfolding at our table, but I needed to get out of there, and I needed to distance myself from such madness and inhumanity, as soon as possible. I am not at all implying that black people should always be on their best behavior even when provoked and given reasons not to be, just because they want to look good, but while we demand grace and humanity, we have to extend the same to other people. 

After I left the restaurant, I wished I had done more. I wished I had spoken up in that moment to defend the waitress. I wish I had challenged the angry black woman and asked her where the God she spoke of so passionately only a few minutes ago was. But in that moment, I was paralyzed by shock and shame. If she was a different race, I would not have cared as much, but she was black like me, and we were seated at the same table, and now, in my head, we looked like we were together. Before long, people were starting to stare and loud whispers and wide eyes were meeting us. I don’t know if I should have done more, but I know that I felt complacent.

Bad news travels a lot faster than good news. I will not be surprised if the ordeal was recorded on someone’s phone and is now sitting somewhere on the world wide web. I am truly sorry that the waitress had to endure that, and I wish I had done more. As we celebrate Black History Month, let us do well to remember that history is created every day. Today’s story is tomorrow’s history.