Waffle House of Terror
30th April 2018 · 0 Comments
By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor
First Starbucks, now Waffle House?
Apparently, Black folks have no business sitting in coffee shops in high-rent districts in Philly or ordering waffles in the state of Alabama.
The latter became abundantly clear after what should have been a minor disagreement between a customer and Waffle House employees escalated into a full-fledged act of domestic terrorism.
Police in Saraland, Alabama responded to a call for assistance from Waffle House employees that told them that there was a Black woman who was inebriated and had allegedly brought alcohol into the restaurant.
When the police arrived, witnesses told them that Chikesia Clemons had indicated she might have a gun and might shoot people. A video shows three police officers wrestling her to the floor and arresting her while she and a friend complain loudly.
In the video, one officer is heard telling Clemons he is going to break her arm. Police say this statement was not made as a threat, but a warning that if she continued to resist, he could hurt her.
Clemons is charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest and is free on $1,000 bail.
Thus far, police and Waffle House corporate executives are defending police intervention at the restaurant.
The incident has been widely discussed on social media where it has been compared to the recent Starbucks incident in Philadelphia.
The NAACP has called the arrest troubling, and pickets stood outside the restaurant with signs April 22.
In a statement released by company spokesman Greg Rollings, Georgia-based Waffle House said it had information that “differs significantly” from claims by the woman.
“After reviewing our security video of the incident and eye witness accounts, police intervention was appropriate,” the statement said. The company didn’t provide any details about what occurred.
According to The Associated Press, police say the dispute began when Clemons and a friend disputed the company’s policy of charging an extra 50 cents for using plastic utensils to eat inside the restaurant.
Saraland Police said after reviewing the video multiple times and speaking with witnesses, they are “not choosing to take any action at this time” against the officers involved.
Police also released a photo of Clemons holding a garbage can at the police station that she had reportedly vomited in.
None of that explains, however, why police needed to manhandle Clemons and partially disrobe Clemons’ as other customers looked on.
Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump said during a recent press conference that at least one of her breasts was exposed during the encounter with police.
One has to wonder if Clemons would have been wrestled to the ground so violently, restrained in a manner that might lead to the breaking of her arm or disrobed in public by police if she had been a white woman.
I’m guessing she wouldn’t have.
The whole time I’m reading about this Waffle House incident my ears are ringing with the words of Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney who infamously said in the Dred Scott decision that Black people had no rights that white people were bound by law to respect.
It doesn’t matter whether the white people are everyday people, Waffle House or Starbucks employees or law enforcement officers.
It also doesn’t matter whether the Black person is inebriated or sober, has on a hoodie or a Brooks Brothers suit.
White is right.
How many feminists and women’s rights groups, do you suppose, will stand up for Chikesia Clemons and denounce the way these law enforcement officers exposed her naked body to casual onlookers and publicly humiliated her? How many white women will even grasp the gaping difference between the way white women and women of color are treated by law enforcement officers and others in the criminal justice system?
Where is the public outcry from mainstream America about a woman being publicly humiliated by a male-dominated, white supremacist institution like a law enforcement agency? Where’s the call for justice and the demand that these officers are held accountable for what they did in the process of arresting Chikesia Clemons?
Somewhere along the way, Black people took a wrong turn and began to see nothing wrong with pouring money into businesses that routinely disrespect and exploit us. That’s not a recipe for growth as a people or liberation.
We can’t continue to support businesses that set up shop in communities of color and treat Black and Brown people like the enemy or those who gladly take our money but offer very little to us in the way of customer service or basic respect.
“People of color should be respected and valued as customers,” attorney Benjamin Crump said last week. “If the Waffle House Corporation won’t respect customers of color, then maybe those customers of color should go elsewhere where they are respected and valued.”
Or make our own damn coffee, waffles, breakfast dishes and meals in general.
By doing so, we could get back to the business of doing for self, providing goods and services for ourselves and others who look like us and empowering ourselves economically and politically.
Wouldn’t that be something?
This article originally published in the April 30, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
