By HANNA GRISSEL
Local restaurant and Iowa City favorite Stella made headlines after playing a joke on its game-day customers on Nov. 12. A joke, that seems apt to some and egregious to others. But before we climb that cliff, here’s the scoop if you missed it.
Because of Stella’s proximity to Kinnick stadium, the people there regularly charge a cover on game days to deter bathroom seekers from entering. According to a video interview between Kevin Berry of local CBS2 and one of the partners at Stella (who has wished to remain anonymous), every incoming party was given a clipboard with college and political associations grouped on separate slips of paper. The prospective customer would then lift the paper to reveal the price of their cover.
Here is where the controversy arose: Donald Trump voters were asked to pay more than Hillary Clinton voters. Clinton voters, regardless of college association, paid $5. Trump voters who were Hawkeye fans paid $10, while Michigan fans paid $20. It’s also worth mentioning, non-voters were also charged $10.
Some Yelp reviewers called this “textbook bigotry” and “discrimination.” Though, Kevin Perez, a manager at Stella, spoke with Zach Berg of the Press-Citizen and “stressed that Saturday’s prices were simply a joke and said customers often changed their answers.” Which, he said, was allowed and resulted in them paying the regular $5 cover.
All contexts laid, I’ll just come out and say it: This was discrimination, but this was not “textbook bigotry.” Bigotry denotes intolerance and hindrance in some way. Stella tolerated these persons as well as allowing them to switch their answers and reap the benefits of that decision, which is a privilege that victims of actual bigotry don’t receive.
Though I can’t claim they intended this to be a social experiment, Stella’s employees did in fact carry one out that resulted in ironic findings.
The reaction from many patrons who faced discrimination, and Trump supporters in general, has been tumultuous. According to the anonymous partner at Stella, they have been receiving threats to the business. They subsequently took down their Facebook page and their Yelp page is currently under “Active Cleanup” and monitoring because of the media reports.
I’ll happily argue that the patrons who faced prejudice at Stella were rightfully outraged. Discrimination against any group for any reason is wrong. The outraged patrons apparently felt this: the feeling of being wronged.
Which is why this is so ironic to me. Let’s remember that Trump built a campaign on or around true bigotry and is now building a Cabinet whose intolerant ideologies reflect that same rhetoric. Regardless of why Trump supporters have voted for him, they were complacent with or at least capitulate to his discriminatory platform.
The “victims of prejudice” is this incident were not outraged by Trump’s discriminatory platform. Yet, they have arrived with vigor to fight discrimination only after it directly affected them. To me, this violent response to a joke proves these outraged persons are merely self-interested. This is precisely why they were able to elect a bigot to office.
What Stella’s experiment was able to show is just that: the irony of self-interest and how absolutely trifling these outraged Trump supporters are. Mothers across the world have been saying this from the beginning of time: Treat others the way you want to be treated. And nonetheless, here we are.