San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
WHY SOCIAL MEDIA CAN’T FIX INEQUITY
In a summer of protests, kitchen workers called out toxic bosses. Little has changed
Outing bad players on Instagram, where the same things that pull anyone to social media — the instant gratification, the gladiatorstyle demonstrations of approval or disapproval — make it a prime place for public justice.
They were saying all the right things — things that sounded like change was coming, things that mimicked the language of the queer, feminist and restorative justice movements that have gained prominence in national political discourse over the past few years: “We stand with survivors.” A search for “accountability, restoration, and reparations for everyone.” They sounded radical.
This summer, riding a wave of nationwide racial reckoning, restaurant workers had confronted their bosses on social media. Accusations of toxic and discriminatory work environments popped on Instagram. Staffers demanded a response, and a lot of times, they got it.
Some establishments like Oakland’s Nyum Bai and S. F.’ s Dandelion Chocolate acknowledged the wrongs they had committed and instituted structural changes like diversity trainings. The momentum picked up, and anonymous accusations popped up on accounts that aggregated complaints, like 86dlistbayarea. I got the sense that many of the people writing these posts, who were hoping for resolution and reparations outside of the traditional criminal and civil justice framework, were people of color and/ or people who found resonance in queer and feminist political work — the people most likely to be subject to workplace discrimination and harassment in the food industry.
It felt like a time of reckoning had come for all the bad actors in the restaurant world, even those who usually would evade public exposure because they’re not famous or powerful enough to warrant lawsuits or journalistic scrutiny.
I should have felt empowered and thrilled by all this activism. But as the accusations continued on Instagram, I felt unsettled.
For all the radical rhetoric, the Instagram callouts didn’t strike me as actually radical. The emotions that workers expressed — their dismay at companies pretending to care about Black lives, their frustration at having their concerns whitewashed — felt valid; I’d felt them myself at times during my eight years of working at restaurants. But as I reflected on everything that’s happened this year, I realized that what I really want is for this flawed industry to get better, and for the lives of hospitality workers to get measurably better. Was this really how equity and safer workplaces would come about?
As recently as six months ago, workers feeling exploited by their bosses could only see change happen with large personal investments. It meant organizing through a larger labor movement like Fight for 15 or filing a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. An aggrieved worker could also opt to file a costly lawsuit or talk to a journalist and hope for an investigation. All these processes take time and energy, and often, they require workers to make their names public and risk blacklisting or threats.
Now, whistleblowers are increasingly skipping those traditional steps in pursuit of more direct measures: Outing bad players on Instagram, where the same things that pull anyone to social media — the instant gratification, the gladiatorstyle demonstrations of approval or disapproval — make it a prime place for public justice.
On the surface, it’s easy to dismiss such actions as mob justice — no better than internet harassment. But it’s no coincidence that this summer, when Black Lives Matter protests highlighted prison abolition and critiques of the criminal justice system, marked a peak in workers’ frustration with “respectable” avenues of seeking equity. Traditional efforts toward reform frequently don’t lead to changed circumstances. For many, instances of discrimination are considered a typical aspect of the restaurant industry, as commonplace as late hours.
This year, though, American restaurant workers had little left to lose. Some 8 million have been laid off or furloughed since March. The prospect of most being hired back seems doubtful amid stalled federal aid and
looming onagain, offagain closures of inperson dining throughout the state.
The result? People felt emboldened to accuse employers of missteps, and acknowledgment was sometimes unusually swift. After a former employee took to Instagram to accuse hip Oakland Cambodian restaurant Nyum Bai of not taking workplace sexual assault nor antiBlack racism seriously ( and deleting online comments urging acknowledgment of those topics), owner Nite Yun publicly agreed to make changes at the restaurant within a week. In the wake of allegations of racial discrimination aired on Instagram, cafe chain Boba Guys hired a diversity, equity and inclusivity consultant to conduct bias training with the entire team, among other actions.
Alleging abuse via social media became one of the most powerful tools that workers had to push back against an industry where they have little leverage against their employers.
The calls moved beyond restaurant Instagram pages and into spaces dedicated to exposing misconduct in the industry, as demonstrated by 86dlist, a callout aggregator that has popped up in cities across the country. There, allegations ranged from work going unpaid to managers who simply didn’t do their jobs well. Names were named, and regardless of the gravity of the charge, the organizers of 86dlistbayarea and similar Instagram pages made it clear that they believed the alleged victims, who remained anonymous. There would be no investigating or vetting of the claims; though in rare cases, such as with the celebrated Acadia restaurant in Chicago, a post on such a list did lead to a journalistic investigation.
Online, the principle of “believe survivors” is much more commonplace than at police stations, the court system or in company human resources departments, where accusations of abuse and violence can be met with skepticism or even outright gaslighting. A big part of this current moment of racial reckoning is also a reckoning for institutions that, while supposedly meant to protect all people, often fail at doing just that. If those methods don’t serve your interests, why not bypass them?
In a world as small as the restaurant industry, it felt inevitable that I’d come across a name or two I’d recognize. My heart dropped when I read an anonymous accusation about an awkward young man I’d once worked with — and managed. He was accused of putting pornography up on the walls of the kitchen and making racist, misogynistic remarks.
Yet seeing his name didn’t
surprise me. I recalled pulling him into the office several times to have conversations about immature things he’d said, realizing early on that he needed straightforward feedback to better understand proper workplace behavior. Seeing that post, years after my last interaction with him, made me wonder if my interventions had been too naive or had any point at all. Regardless of extenuating circumstances, someone had such an awful interaction with him that they felt compelled to write about him anonymously.
Responses to the post from his coworkers tried to add context to the story: It wasn’t pornography but pictures of celebrities and wrestlers like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. The man in question had developmental difficulties that limited his grasp of social mores. It made sense to me, knowing him and knowing that kitchen. Working with him had brought me back to my days as a university teaching assistant, when I not only had to teach students with diverse backgrounds how to write but how to interact in a classroom. When we talked, I believed that he was trying to be better and more understanding.
But in the court of Instagram, any effort from colleagues to contextualize was shut down by commenters, who accused them of being complicit in abuse. It brought about questions that I didn’t know how to answer, and that the organizers of the lists didn’t want to answer either. I sent multiple requests for comment; they went unanswered. Was it fair to publicly accuse an employee like him who had little power and influence? Should he be fired? Would I have fired him if I still had the power? What would resolution and reparations look like in this case, and who was going to decide that?
While the 86dlist pages provided a glut of information, it was information that simply settled into stagnant, toxic pools of energy. The conversation began and ended at his alleged participation in an abusive environment.
Meanwhile, some restaurants that made changes after Instagram callouts notably cut off further dialogue between themselves and their customers. Boba Guys and Nyum Bai both turned off the commenting function on their social media channels: the former for five months; the latter still closed as of this writing. When confronted with the choice between affecting a personable, parasocial relationship with followers or avoiding potential PR nightmares in their comments sections, brands that have the chance to opt out may as well.
In asking for what they wanted, the accusers offered plenty of language from the restorative justice movement, which advocates a communitybased solution to crime and interpersonal harm that avoids sending people through the criminal justice system — unsurprising considering how many questioned the role of policing in justice this year. One account focused on S. F. queer bar Jolene’s and hoped to bring parties in conflict over alleged racial discrimination and sexual harassment into such a process.
“( I) ntegrating an inclusive and transparent process is a path to justice,” the anonymous account owner wrote.
Yet something about these statements felt off to me. To clarify the issue, I called up Impact Justice, an Oakland nonprofit and research center that focuses on justice reform. Ashlee George, a codirector of the organization’s Restorative Justice Project, got to the core of the problem.
“Restorative justice is about relationships: how you build them, how you nurture them, and then how to mend them when a harm has occurred,” she said. People seek restorative justice not only to right a wrong but to have the harms they’ve endured recognized by their community, as well as by the perpetrator. For restorative justice practitioners, accountability means allowing space for constructive conversation and dialogue about harm — to give someone the opportunity to own up to what they did and ask how they can make it right for the people and community they hurt.
Most important to the process is this idea of consensus, where all parties need to agree on what happened, as well as the best way to move forward.
That, I realized, was what was missing in all of this. The post about my former coworker felt absent of any of these practices. His colleagues’ perspectives on what happened weren’t received or processed seriously, and it didn’t seem like the anonymous complainant was able to work with anyone on a constructive resolution.
Similar dynamics seemed to play out for other accusations on 86dlist: A post on the Bay Area version named a manager at the restaurant Michael Mina, claiming that he was lazy, incompetent and creepy toward women. Multiple people spoke up in his defense and questioned the validity of the claims, only to have no one, neither the original accuser nor the account owners, follow up to address their concerns. ( A restaurant spokesperson said they were not previously aware of the post and are now looking into its allegations.) As far as I could tell in the case of my former workplace, nothing changed — certainly not for the better.
I don’t mean to discount the anger of restaurant workers this year. It is valid. Restaurant staffers are famously among the most vulnerable, exploited workforces in the country. And I certainly don’t want to be the person who nags the youth about what activism is bad and what activism is respectable. That people are feeling compelled to act at all feels positive, and it’s important that more workers now feel comfortable going public about the abuse and harassment that they face in specific and direct terms.
But for all of their progressive intentions, Instagram callouts lack the structure that can shepherd them from initial bursts of energy to practical resolution and longterm change. One reason is that the platform isn’t built for meaningful conversation: Comments are easily deleted, and it can be challenging to create an intentional space for dialogue if random users with no dog in the fight can pop in and participate. Another is that, like posts on Twitter
When confronted with the choice between affecting a personable, parasocial relationship with followers or avoiding potential PR nightmares in their comments sections, brands that have the chance to opt out may as well.
or Facebook, callouts can easily slide into public shaming and pileons, because the platform’s algorithms reward engagement — even the negative kind — with more eyeballs.
Restorative justice requires more intention. To work through the shame of being called out, people need advocates who can check in with them throughout the accountability process, Ashlee George told me. Likewise, those who have been wronged need to feel assured that pursuing justice won’t put them at personal or professional risk.
There needs to be followthrough and direct confrontation. Though shame can be the stick that prompts individuals to change their behavior, many of these anonymous callouts come off as more punitive than constructive. All we have to go on are onesided accusations and hurt feelings — a gossip rag with a veneer of radical politics.
In a similar vein, that’s why, on paper at least, people have the right to face their accusers in a court of law, and why the ethics of journalism require reporters to try to corroborate claims and ask for comment from the accused ( as admittedly flawed as these institutions are). But on Instagram, we’re currently playing a game of whackamole, waiting for the next bad manager or restaurant owner to be exposed and publicly shamed before moving our attention to the next one. Actual change — a bonedeep shift that will last beyond a single person’s tenure at her cafe — will require more than demanding accountability on a platform primarily
For restorative justice practitioners, accountability means allowing space for constructive conversation and dialogue about harm.
oriented toward entertainment.
In our conversation, Impact Justice President Alex Busansky suggested something that I’d never thought of before: What if the Bay Area hospitality industry pooled resources to create its own restorative justice center, where people could go to resolve workplace issues at no cost? Even if it’s not immediately practicable, the idea is intriguing: Longterm change can look like a process that others without social media clout, Englishlanguage proficiency or material resources could easily replicate. Busansky and George hypothesized that all it would take for restorative justice to reach a tipping point in the hospitality industry would be for one restaurant to go public about how it worked for them and benefited everyone involved.
Knowing that the problems had been resolved could be a selling point for people who have since shied away from going to places like Boba Guys or Dandelion Chocolate because of the things they’d read about them. It could also be a selling point for potential employees who want to work somewhere with an established process for conflict resolution.
My hope is that all of the restaurants and other businesses that made statements of solidarity with Black Lives Matter and other justice movements on social media can channel the energy into efforts that are more impactful for the people they serve, workers and customers alike.
Maybe it’s by speaking out against the regressive political lobbying of the National Restaurant Association, which has made so many workers’ lives tangibly more difficult. On a cultural level, putting an end to the practice and adulation of workplace bullying and abuse in the pursuit of awards like Michelin stars would have a huge, multigenerational impact on the chefs and managers who come out of those kitchens. Or perhaps it’s pushing to improve social safety nets that make life for the working class and their employers easier — better health care, better food access and security, immigration reform.
To a diner, these issues might not initially sound like they relate to the betterment of the restaurant workplace, but restaurants and their problems don’t exist in a vacuum. Advocating for something like universal basic income, for instance, would make it far easier for a line cook in a bad workplace environment to leave their job.
As for the Instagram callout accounts, some are still going, and using social media to air grievances may never go away. But the Bay Area’s version of the 86dlist has petered out, as have some other calloutspecific accounts.
Of course, this silence could mean that their cases have gone forward — just out of sight, offline. At one Bay Area restaurant whose staff talked to The Chronicle, workers who spoke up online managed to get their bosses to address their concerns in fruitful mediated talks.
The restaurant’s Instagram account, though, went dark.