One chef’s social experiment: Charge minorities $12, white people $30.
Approach Tunde Wey’s lunch counter/sociology experiment at the Roux Carre market in New Orleans, and — if you’re white — you’ll have a decision to make. And it’s not just whether you want to try his jollof rice or his fried plantains. Wey serves his Nigerian food with a lesson about racial wealth disparity: The median income among African American households in New Orleans is only $25,806, compared to $64,377 for white households. According to the Urban Institute, the national average wealth of white families is $919,000, while the average wealth of black families is $140,000. Wey will share some stats with his customers, and then he’ll tell them the price of their lunch.
If they’re a person of color, they pay $12. If they’re white, he’ll tell them they can either pay $12, or they can pay $30 — two and a half times the base price, which reflects the wealth disparity in New Orleans. He tells them the profits will be redistributed to people of color, but not as charity — just to any minority customers of his who want it, regardless of their income or circumstance.
“When I tell black folks what’s happening, 90 percent of them start laughing, like, ‘For real?’ They’re tickled,” he said. “White folks, there’s this blank — ” he paused and laughed, “— this blank look. They’re like, ‘Huh, okay.’”
Wey is familiar with that look. In 2016, he traveled across the country hosting a dinner series he called “Blackness in America.” He would cook a Nigerian feast for his guests and engage them in conversation about some of the most pervasive problems facing our country, such as racism, sexism and police brutality. Black guests found these discussions cathartic, while many white guests found them uncomfortable. “White folks or privileged folks are quick to try to find a solution, or ask for a solution, as opposed to sitting in the discomfort,” Wey told The Washington Post during one of the dinners.