Uber Eats decided to fight racism… by doing a color-based discrimination
When corporate virtue-signaling becomes racist
Since the beginning of the George Floyd affair, the United States is torn by racial concerns, protests, and even riots in major cities. Some big companies decided to seize the opportunity.
Uber Eats recently announced that it will help people to find black-owned restaurants in the US and Canada. In this article, I will explain to you why it is a bad idea, and why it’s probably counterproductive.
It’s unfair for the other restaurants
Uber decided to bring to the fore restaurants owned by Black people to help them. Delivery fees are no longer applied to these restaurants. I think it’s not fair for other restaurants. You could say that Black people face discrimination. But do you think that other communities don’t face the same problem? Latinos and Asians can also suffer from racism (and not only from white people). On Uber Eats, Mexican, Colombian, Chinese, Korean and Japanese restaurants are still charged with delivery fees. Does Uber Eats think that Latinos and Asians are not discriminated against?
I don’t think that Uber Eats will accept to reduce its profits. I won’t be surprised if they slightly increase delivery fees for all the other restaurants. The company says that black-owned restaurants were hardly hit by COVID-19. But do they think that American, Italian, Mexican, Chinese, or Japanese restaurants have not been hurt by the corona-crisis? If these restaurants become less visible on Uber Eats to advantage Black restaurants, they will have fewer customers and their recovery will be harder and longer.
Moreover, it’s important to understand that Uber Eats is not acting to ‘help’ black restaurant owners. It’s deliberate marketing. By deleting delivery fees for these restaurants, the company is saying “look, we are helping you”.
Does the owner represent everything?
According to Uber, black-owned restaurants will be easier to find and customers won’t be charged delivery fees. Everything is just based on the skin color of the business owner. What if the owner is Black but most of the employees are white, Latinos, or Asians? What if the owner is white but many employees are black? And what about the customers? Or the delivery men?
If I want to buy burgers, I don’t care if the owner is white, black, Hispanic, Arab, or Asian. I care about the taste, the quality, and the taste. When I order Asian food on Uber Eats, I have to pay delivery fees. Perhaps the delivery man is white, perhaps he’s black, perhaps he’s Asian. The black delivery guy or the white waiter probably earns less than the black business owner of a successful restaurant.
It could push people to make racist choices
Not applying delivery fees for restaurants owned by Black people is unfair, but it’s also counterproductive. Many people may think that it’s an advantage given to their competitors. Uber Eats is not a free market with the same rules for everyone, it’s a marketplace with different rules based on the skin color of business owners. That’s racist.
If you help people to find black-owned restaurants, it can also help them to avoid them if they want. If a racist white guy wants to avoid giving money to black-owned businesses, it would be easier for them to do so. In the 1930s, in Germany, the Nazis were painting signs on some Jewish shops to tell people to not buy from these shops.
By the way, the choice made by Uber could push Black people to order food mostly from black-owned restaurants. It could push people to make choices based on skin color or community. It’s quite certain that some black people will buy from black-owned restaurants just because the owners are black. It’s quite certain that some white people will order from black-owned restaurants and make Instagram or Twitter posts to show everybody how ‘inclusive’ and ‘virtuous’ they are. Pushing communitarianism and virtue-signaling purchases is not a good way to fight racism.
Uber Eats is doing a form of ‘affirmative action’
$0 for black-owned restaurants on Uber Eats is what is called ‘affirmative action’. But it’s not gratifying for black people. Imagine you’re a black person owning a restaurant. What do you prefer? To have white, black, Latino, and Asian customers who buy your products because they like it? Or to have virtue-signaling white people buying your products because they think you’re not able to compete in the free market?
Harvard University uses skin color for its admission process. Black candidates get a bonus score because the university wants more black students. But Asian candidates are discriminated against. Why? Because they usually get higher grades. Asians candidates get penalized on ethnic criteria. It’s totally racist. If Harvard was doing the opposite (bonuses for Asians and Whites and maluses for Blacks), the mainstream media would be hurling that’s racist and unacceptable. Why are Asian students more successful? Because they work hard. Putting affirmative action for Black candidates is like saying that Black people can’t work hard enough or are not intelligent enough. By refusing Asian candidates with good grades to the benefit of Hispanic or black candidates, this admission process is very likely to create resentment about Blacks and Hispanics. Same thing on Uber Eats.
If Uber Eats wants to help black owners of restaurants and restaurants hit by the economic crisis, it should help everybody. Restaurants have employees. The people working in these restaurants need these businesses to thrive, regardless of who the owners are and regardless of skin color. When you work for a company, you need the company to be successful, otherwise, it could lose money and lay off employees. The skin color shouldn’t matter. If you want equality, treat people the same way, don’t make food a color-skin issue. Then, you’ll see things change in a positive way.
