Background
>True Kitchen + Kocktails is a black owned restaurant that recently opened up in Dallas Texas. They have a DJ in the background playing music. Some black women took it upon themselves to stand up from their seats and start twerking. One woman stood from her seat, put he hands on the glass, and started twerking. One of the girls were even egging the twerking on by recording it, while playing music.
>The restaurant owner, Kevin Kelley, wasn’t pleased with the situation. If the girl would have broken the glass and hurt herself, the establishment could be facing a lawsuit for being “unsafe”. Also, from a business perspective, it doesn’t look pleasing to watch women dancing sexually around food. The owner didn’t want that reputation on his business.
>Kevin Kelley walked over to the table and politely asked them stop. A few minutes later, this incident happened again. The owner came back and asked the ladies to stop a 2nd time. After the third time, he no longer wanted to ask them nicely.
>In a viral video, he got upset and started telling them off. He told the women to respect themselves and behave maturely in his establishment. He advised them to leave if they couldn’t handle it.
>The viral video, only showed him ranting. It didn’t show the lead up to the rant. It didn’t show him conducting himself professionally the first 2 times when he asked them to stop. It only shows his angry reaction the 3rd time, yelling at them.
Reaction
>Black women took to Twitter to call the owner out for telling black women what to do with their bodies. Implying that they should be allowed to twerk wherever they want without repercussions. He was also criticized for swearing at the customers and telling them to get out, which was seen as “unprofessional”.
>Kevin defended himself. He posted the lead up to his rant on Instagram. He also went to the media to clear up the whole situation. He also questioned whether or not these women would have done this at a white owned restaurant.
>Kevin got accused of “misogynoir” and hatred of black women. Claiming that his criticisms were deeply rooted in his hatred for black women. Some women even tried to claim that the music playing is an explanation for women to twerk in a restaurant.
>Despite the social media backlash, Kelly claims that True Kitchen has actually boomed in sales. So the controversy didn’t seem to effectively hurt the business.
At the end of the day, the action and reaction of these women were completely ridiculous. Why twerk at a restaurant-as opposed to a club or at your own house? Why record an out of context video and post it for controversy? Why try to destroy his business for being told to behave maturely? Why were so many black women obsessed with tone policing him when the female customers were clearly at fault? None of their actions make sense. Luckily, this silly controversy didn’t seem to hurt his business.
HuMANity 