Orient-Al Sharpton

Racism as a Marketing Tool

Not all of us speak with an exaggerated accent, nor are we all innately blessed with the ability to karate chop a cement block or run up walls.  Though many of us do pursue a career in engineering or science, there are plenty who go into the arts and languages.

Our families do not all run convenience stores, dry cleaning services, restaurants or nail salons.  There exists Asian parents who go into management and are the reason you can still afford to melt Velveeta over your blue box mac ‘n cheese.

Not all of us have insane academic standards set by our families that we must surpass.  Have you ever considered that we personally don’t desire, in our future, to chase after diaper-clad children named Whiskey and Tango while comparing our spouses to the elegant guests on the Jerry Springer Show?

We don’t think it’s funny when you mock another language, especially when you can’t even master the only one that you know.

We’d like to point you to this:

Who says only Asians do nails? Gone are the days of smelling steamed fish and acetone in the air.

…

Have you ever wondered what all the Asian girls were saying? It goes a little something like this: You are sitting in your chair, getting your nails done and your nail girl and a few other girls are talking in their native language, then all of a sudden they begin to giggle while they all turn to look at you, “Ha ha ha very funny  Ming-li, but it’s not polite to talk about people in front of their face. We can’t understand a thing you are saying.”

…

Anyway, gone are the days of asking your nail tech to repeat what she said. Gone are the days of explaining what you want 5 times or paying for mediocre service. Hell,you wont have to listen with intent and then try to scrabble what was said. Nope, at MINGLE you are in a different world. You can have an actual conversation in English (I didn’t say Engrish’) ENGLISH.

You know, I’m a pretty fair person. I don’t think it’s acceptable to review a place if one has never visited that establishment, nor do I think it’s appropriate to write a review just because of an establishment’s beliefs. So, with that being said, let me emphasize that I visited Mingle Nail Salon in Pacific Beach, CA, without any prior knowledge of their attitudes towards race.

Mingle Nail Salon is decorated in dark, contrasting colors, reminiscent of a non-Las Vegas strip club, where the patrons are 18 year old boys with twenty cents in their pockets.

At Mingle Nail Salon, the patrons are 18-35 year old orange girls with twenty different hair colors on their head.

The owner doesn’t quite fit that description. She’s an attractive, blond woman who looks to be to the right of the age range, thus eliminating any attempts to excuse her behavior as immaturity.

When I walked in that slow, exceedingly warm Sunday afternoon, everyone grew quiet. The owner, who had moments earlier pleasantly phoned to provide directions to her salon, stood behind the counter, eyeing me warily as she cleared her throat.

“Um… can I help you?”

Since there were only four other people in the salon who were already preoccupied, I knew she had to be speaking to me.

“Yes, I’m here for the mani/pedi.”

“Oh!  You were the one who called?”

“Yes. I just spoke with you about a minute ago.”

The owner looked down, hesitating before speaking. “Oh, well, um, OK. The magazines are over there and go ahead and pick a color.”

The two nail technicians smiled at me, kindly, while I walked over to peruse the selection of nail colors.

Turquoise. Sparkly turquoise. Bubblegum pink. Silver glitter.

I finally settled on a deep, plum-cherry red.

I sat down and fingered through a magazine with Christian Bale on the cover and listened to the owner talk about the latest dating show.

“Ooh! Did you hear about that new TV series? It’s like the Bachelor, but for fat people!”

“Oh ew, gross!”

Girls giggled. The owner snorted.

“Can you imagine? Hot tub party every night!”

The owner guffawed at her own joke.

After 15 minutes or so, a nail technician named N (name shortened to protect privacy) came over to give me the pedicure. She soaked my feet in lukewarm water for about thirty seconds and began to scrub away.

To spare you the sympathy pains and detailed descriptions of flowing blood, I’ll just get right to the point: N basically exfoliated a hole into the side of my foot.

I was nice, understanding. I know that accidents happen. N was apologetic. It was fine. I gave her a 20% tip.

So the next day, I decided to go onto Yelp.com to check out the reviews about Mingle. I googled Mingle and came upon their myspace, which seemed like the typical photo portfolio consisting of emphasized ass-poses and pouty lips. But what caught my attention and immediately tested my patience was the owner’s personal summary of her business:

My name is Melissa and I am the owner of a very interesting Salon [sic] in Pacific Beach, California. First of all I’m just gonna come out and state the obvious… we aren’t like most salons out there, we’re a salon of english [sic] speaking girls and one straight guy. It’s a dynamic that leads to all kinds of weird situations and entertaining talk. Our patrons are usually quick to comment on the fact that they’ve never heard such conversations in a salon before, we get a kick out of pointing out the fact that they probably have but its [sic] never been in english [sic].

Annoyed, I copied and pasted the myspace address to Tien, who then linked me to the Yelp review posted earlier.

I reviewed Mingle and awarded it one star. The mediocre manicure and bloody foot were enough to earn itself a negative review; the blatant display of racism cemented my decision to give one.

I have a question for Mingle: As a business that prides itself on its English-speaking employees, are you aware that by claiming to tolerate only one language in your salon, you are discriminating against prospective employees and customers on the bases of race and ethnicity?

I would have never imagined that in 2009, racism would act as Mingle’s primary marketing technique; how heartbreaking and shameful.