A Black waitress from Indiana was lauded for confronting teenage patrons who left without tipping and scrawled an alleged racist note on the check for her.
Amira Donahue–a.k.a. TikToker @being.amira–posted a video talking about the dine and dash incident in which the teen customers wrote the word "black" instead of the gratuity amount on the check.
“I would’ve never guessed they would leave me that note,” said the 19-year-old server at an undisclosed restaurant.
She told Jam Press:
“I felt outright disrespected and angry.”
In the clip that went viral with over 6 million views, Donahue explained that a group of teenage boys came in and were "a little bit rude or whatever."
"I'm used to getting sh*tty tips from teenagers," she said but experienced something more offensive.
"This is what they left me," said Donahue, revealing the check with the word "black" on the gratuity line.
"So I'm very confused and then I look around and the kids are sitting outside just chilling eating ice cream."
"So you know what I did? I went out there."
Donahue spliced together another clip of her confronting the teens outside and demanding an explanation for what they meant by the word, "black."
You can watch the clip here.
In a follow-up video, she showed a longer version of her encounter with the young miscreants.
In it, she asked them:
"Hey guys, I just want a little bit of clarification."
"What does this mean?"
The response she got from one of the boys–none of whose faces were visible–was:
"I don't know."
@being.amiera/TikTok
When she pressed him and asked if he knew what "black" meant, he replied, "I do."
Donahue continued:
"Okay, so what did you mean whenever you wrote it on the gratuity?"
The teen said he meant he was referring to himself because he's Black.
But Donahue wasn't content with the vague excuse and asked if he thought that he didn't have to tip because he was Black.
@being.amiera/TikTok
The teen then offered to pay her a tip on the spot multiple times, but she refused to accept it and only wanted the understand the rationale behind writing the word.
@being.amiera/TikTok
The youngster then said he didn't know what he was supposed to do on the gratuity line, so his friends told him to write the word, "black."
@being.amiera/TikTok
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The clip ended with her walking away annoyed by the dead-end conversation but content in knowing she caught them off guard.
In response to a commenter who suggested she should expose the teens since she had the necessary information on the credit card, Donahue said she never planned to expose their identity because the intent behind the video was not for seeking justice.
"I feel like me confronting them was the karma that they needed."
"Whatever guilt is eating them up is probably good enough for me."
@being.amiera/TikTok
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She also explained exposing the teens' misdeeds could backfire and cost her her job.
Donahue also clarified she did not take the tip they offered after they were caught, despite it appearing to look like she did when she walked away from the teens in the video.
"It kinda looks like I took some cash from them at the end but that's the check that's in the beginning when I walk up and I'm like, 'hey, what does this mean?'"
Donahue mentioned she earns $2.13 an hour and has to tip out.
"When somebody comes into my restaurant and doesn't tip, I'm quite literally losing money," she clarified.
She added that she is frequently left without a tip but doesn't go after every customer who violates the common courtesy.
"It's just the fact that they could have just left it blank or wrote "0," but no, they chose to write, "black."
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