I’ve swallowed this hard truth after watching the first of several presidential debates last night.
I can’t say it’s surprising since we do have a white supremacist Commander-in-Chief currently occupying the highest office in the land.
He’s the king of deflecting and honestly, he represents a large population of folks who skate-by in life by pathological lying and manipulating any and everyone to reach their goals.
As a country composed of more than three hundred and twenty seven million human beings, the vast majority has silently agreed that it’s cheaper and easier to just let racism ride as opposed to doing the grimey work of dismantling harmful systems to make this a more equitable society for all.
In related news,
I won’t lie, since I realized COVID-19 can’t be transmitted through food, I’ve grown tired of cooking and I’ve relied heavily on food delivery apps like Seamless, DoorDash and UberEats. The service fees aren’t cheap, but I find it comforting to support some of my favorite restaurants during this global pandemic and of course I enjoy eating delicious meals without the prep and cleanup.
UberEats is typically my go-to and I’ve largely supported this app because after the untimely death of George Floyd, UberEats vowed to waive delivery fees for Black owned restaurants and to promote these establishments for the rest of 2020. As a Black person, I was mildly impressed and started funneling my Black dollars into local Black restaurants I had no idea existed. It was such a joy for me to try new foods and drinks, most of which were absolutely delicious, and more importantly it made me happy to give my money to small restaurants I knew were probably suffering due to the global pandemic.
So I ate.
And then I ate some more.
Smoothies. Lentil patties. Brisket. Poof poof balls. Vegan breakfast sandwiches. Cranberry oatmeal cookies.
All of it FANTASTIC.
And then one day in August, I opened my UberEats app for my usual scroll of Black owned restaurants and to my surprise, I didn’t see the Black Owned restaurants carousel anymore. I couldn’t find the list of Black owned restaurants that were open and operating; I just saw McDonald’s chicken nuggets on sale, 2-for-1.
I was immediately turned off and was sure it was a mistake. Surely I needed to update my iPhone or reboot my device because UberEats CLEARLY stated they would be highlighting Black Owned businesses and waiving delivery fees for said establishments for the rest of 2020. I figured there had to have been some sort of mistake, a glitch in the my algorithm. But even as I rebooted my iPhone and searched the App Store for updates, the truth remained: UberEats had grown tired of uplifting Black owned businesses and had moved on.
I took to Twitter with a single tweet that read, “the fact that @UberEats no longer highlights Black owned restaurants in my neighborhood *pretends to be shocked*” and added a well-known GIF of a Black girl pretending to be shocked.
I received no reply tweet from UberEats but over the next couple of days, to my delight, I noticed the Black owned restaurants carousel was back on the app. “Yay!” I exclaimed! My tweet had made all the difference, I narcissistically assumed.
But then last week I noticed yet again that the Black owned restaurants carousel and filter had been removed from the UberEats platform and it really got me thinking:
- Were non-Black restaurant owners upset that they weren’t featured on the UberEats homepage?
- Were Black owned restaurants profits through the roof, thus causing UberEats to cease promotion?
- Was this an oversight? Had UberEats grown tired of amplifying Black establishments?
Regardless, this is an example of that performative allyship bullshit folks in the Black community talk about.
A huge part of being anti-racist means keeping promises made to uplift and support Black business and Black people long after #BLM stops trending on social media.
Breaking promises once the dust has settled proves that you were never “about that life” from the jump. You were simply clout chasing.
In a country where the 45th president can’t even denounce white supremacy on a national debate stage, is it even surprising that a well-known brand and largely successful company like UberEats reverted back to their old ways?
Hardly anything surprises me these days.
We’ve got healing, learning and unlearning to do as a nation.
Buckle up and get to work, America, and you too, UberEats. I don’t plan on using the app until I get answers.
(P.S. A great starting point is by dethroning a WHITE SUPREMACIST president.)
Quincy Abrams 