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Underneath the cacophony of the watershed year that was 2017 in America, one ugly racial incident escaped mainstream media attention. From New Orleans, a white married couple wearing blackface broadcast a Facebook Live video of themselves getting ready for a Mardi Gras event. At this particular celebration, called the Zulu parade, wearing blackface constitutes acceptable behavior. But Ann and Paul Tuennerman took a step too far.
According to the local press, Ms. Tuennerman captioned her video: “Paul G Tuennerman interviewing me on Mardi Gras Morning from the Zulu Den. As he said ‘Throw a little Black Face on and you lose all your media skills.’ He did his best as the interviewer.”
Under different circumstances, the moment may have passed quietly. However, the Tuennermans had positioned themselves as leaders of the 21st-century cocktail movement by founding and running the internationally influential Tales of the Cocktail (TOTC) educational conference and company since 2002.
“There was utter and complete outrage,” says Katie Loeb, a seven-time attendee of the conference. “I saw long and absolutely scathing Facebook posts from a lot of the more prominent people in the spirits community.”
"What was worse (than the blackface) were all of the people who tried to make it seem like it was either a joke or just part of someone’s heritage. The incident ended a lot of 'friendships.' People of color in this country know: racial jokes are a prelude to violence; that’s this country’s heritage," emails Jackie Summers, the Brooklyn-based creator of Sorel Liqueur.
After years of whispers about their board’s lack of transparency and diversity, the Teunnermans subsequently sold the company to a pair of New Orleans investors who, two months after taking over and turning Tales into a non-profit foundation, officially announced Monday that they plan to focus on confronting the social ills that acutely affect workers in the bar, restaurant and liquor industries: lack of diversity and inclusiveness, sexual misconduct and inequality, and addiction and substance abuse.
“These are leading issues in our industry, and we are developing platforms for them to be diligently addressed as well as offering significant resources across these areas. It is important to us that you know that we are passionate about working with you to generate best practices in these areas,” executive director Caroline Rosen wrote in a statement.
These problems go too often unspoken by those both in and out of the industry but the community does feel them deeply , whether it realizes it or not. For example, Business Insider magazine reported in 2011 that bartenders were the most likely professional group to die from alcohol abuse in the U.S., with death rates more than twice as high as the national average. In 2014, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United found that restaurant workers of color live in poverty at almost double the rate of white workers and make more than 50% less money. The same study found that female restaurant employees earn 11% less than their male counterparts.
The recent #MeToo movement has outed celebrity chefs like Mario Batali and New Orleans’ own John Besh as accused perpetrators of sexual misconduct and harassment in their restaurants. Scattered corporate bar/restaurant groups have announced or initiated staff diversity and harassment training programs and a few bars are beginning to promote “safe words” for women to use with the bartender if they feel threatened by their dates. Resources found on the Internet serve to guide bar and restaurant workers suffering with alcoholism or drug abuse.
But no one thinks change will come quick to the centuries-old profession .
“The bartending industry is dominated by white males,” says Loeb, a Philadelphia-based mixologist and author of the cocktail book, Shake, Stir, Pour-Fresh Homegrown Cocktails: Make Syrups, Mixers, Infused Spirits, and Bitters with Farm-Fresh Ingredients-50 Original Recipes. “Most definitely women have it rough from the get go. You gotta work twice as hard to get half as much, and the guys and the cute girls get promoted, while there are people who choose to use ‘other means.’”
"Violence comes in many forms, the most insidious being economic. The disparity of wealth distribution in the liquor industry is a direct result of baking systemic racism into our institutions. No one expects the new owners of TOTC to solve this, but they are attempting to take a leadership position," adds Summers, who served on a short-lived diversity committee under the old leadership and has met with Rosen and the new ownership group as one of many meetings executives have held with bartenders and owners, reporters, liquor suppliers, past attendees and critics.
To start stepping up, Tales organizers have just opened up a grant-application process to fund educational campaigns dedicated to promoting education and a healthy work environment for hospitality industry members and students in New Orleans and around the globe. They’ve pledged $250,000 this inaugural year. They expect to roll out two dozen initiatives for 2018 that’ll include a free speaker series for the bar business and a sober area at the upcoming annual conference in July.
Beyond that, Rosen says in an email, “We are letting the industry tell us. We are rooted with three main goals around our foundation. To educate, support and advance. With those efforts as our goals, we hope to see what the spirits community sees as the focus going forward.”
Summers says he believes in sincerity of their stated commitment and their promise to encourage other industry leaders to join in. He recommends first hiring employees and board members of color and next establishing programs to provide tools and training for people of color to advance in their careers.
“They’re fully aware of the damaged trust and seem to be willing to go above and beyond to restore faith, and they’re aware this will be an on-going process,” he says. “Nothing gets solved overnight, and the trueness of their words will be borne out in actions.”
