Restaurant apologizes to black minister

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10342561

Published Saturday May 24, 2008
Restaurant apologizes to black minister
BY CHRISTOPHER BURBACH
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Perkins Restaurant employees in the Omaha area and Lincoln will receive diversity and sensitivity training in response to an incident in which a white employee quizzed an African-American pastor about whether his water bottle contained liquor.

The employee, whose name was not available, was fired. A regional Perkins corporate official, Gary Kulm, apologized in writing for what he described as the employee's "tactless treatment" of the Rev. Curnell Graham, pastor of Clair Memorial United Methodist Church in Omaha.

Perkins officials said they would review their personnel records to ensure employees have undergone orientation on basic fair treatment and expectations for workplace conduct, Graham said.

Of Graham, Kulm said, "He's a fine gentleman."

Kulm, operations manager for nine Perkins restaurants in South Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa, declined to comment further.

The incident occurred May 16, when Graham and three fellow ministers went to the Perkins Restaurant at 72nd and Grover Streets about 9:30 p.m. after a revival meeting at Clair United Methodist.

FULL story at link.

[mach2]

1. Graham is a whining asshole. Sneaking booze into a restaurant is common

and how was the employee supposed to know the guy is a preacher (as if that is any guarantee he's not a drinker HAHAHA)

I call bullshit.

[stillcool]

2. read the story...

that might help.

[mach2]

3. I did read the story. I saw nothing in it to convince me that preachers never drink or cheat.

Actually nothing in ANY story could accomplish that.
If you think there would have ever been a "story" if the guy had been white, you're living in a dream world...I've had MANY restaurant employees question me about the contents of a bottle I've tried to bring in.

[rhett o rick]

4. Hey mach2, I live in a dream world, where repukes are given what they deserve.

The republican party is made up of the rich and the gullible. WHICH ARE YOU?

[mach2]

5. I quit being a republican in 1966. I'm not rich or gullible...what does that have to do with

the subject of this thread? Let's not get stupid here...there is -clearly- no reason for this preacher to raise hell except to invent a convenient venue to make a charge of racism...which does exist but he's obviously not bright enough to expose it in a genuine venue. If he wasn't looking for an excuse to bitch, he would have tossed the bottle away - by his own admission it contained an ounce or 2 of "water."

And just in case you are one of those people who view any criticism of a black person, no matter the rationale, as racism...please don't bother to respond - I really don't care to hear it.

(It just now occurred to me...I almost mentioned that I have black friends but then I remembered that anybody who ever says that around here is instantly branded a liar and a racist. How fucked up is that?)

[Tarheel_Dem]

6. You have no fucking idea about the exchange between the minister

and the employee, only what you read on the written page. I've been in this situation before at a Denny's Restaurant, and your immediate reaction of contempt for, and dismissal of the charges of the black preacher says a whole lot more about your agenda than his.

[mach2]

8. You don't have any idea either. So please refrain from opining about my "agenda"

which you don't know a fucking thing (to use your clever verbiage) about either.

All preachers no matter how dark or light they are, are guilty of taking money under false pretenses...they sell a nonexistant product to rubes who are dumb enough to give them money. And if you think being a preacher is any guarantee of morality, I direct you to the THOUSANDS of instances where they are explicitly shown to be nothing more than evil pricks. Haven't you paid ANY attention?

[Tarheel_Dem]

16. I could care less that the customer was a preacher, or what the color

of his skin was. You jumped to the conclusion that this all came about because of race. Neither of us knows what the exchange was like between the customer and the employee, aside from what's reported in the article. But, somehow, you've surmised that this is only a story because of the preacher's race. I maintain that says a lot more about you, than the preacher.

[stillcool]

7. No doubt...

with your attitude, I'd think that you were juiced too. I've worked in the hotel/restaurant business for years. Questioning what was in someone's Poland Spring bottle? Never happened.

[mach2]

9. Something you never saw cannot have happened? That sounds exactly like

the kind of "logic" employed by fundamentalist fanatics, or Donald Rumsfeld.
:eyes:

[stillcool]

14. It's my experience...

vs. you having your Poland Spring bottle checked. Did they frisk you for your crack pipe too?

[Ghost in the Machine]

10. Wow, you're a real winner, aren't you?

Are you lost?

I'm white. I quit drinking 13 years ago. I'd hit the fucking roof if some little prick accused me, or even asked me if I had liquor in a bottle I brought in somewhere. I'd tell him to go fuck himself *and* the horse he rode in on.... then I'd have to force myself not to knock the little fucker out. Sometimes righteous indignation is a beautiful thing... the nerve of some people...

BTW, I used to *own* a restaurant... I'd fire someone in a heartbeat if I'd ever heard them ask a customer something like that.

[mach2]

11. Well, not everyone is a big strong butch guy like you living in rural Tennessee.

So I guess you'll just have to recognize people behave differently in other places.
(Why the hell would you put "own" in quotes? Did you steal it?)

[Posteritatis]

12. Find something else to flame over; those are asterisks. (nt)

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Posteritatis]

17. Mm, irony. (nt)

[Ghost in the Machine]

15. You don't know me, boy...

I got your "butch" hangin'. I used to kill people like you for fun and profit. You have no clue who I am, so sit down and close your pie hole.

BTW, do you know the difference between asterisks and quotation marks? We use them around here to stress words. Go back to freeperville where you belong, troll...