leave bigger tips

[Note: I'm writing about a black-and-white thing here; if anyone has information or observations about the tipping habits of other groups, please write a comment for us.]

Tipping in restaurants is a particularly American practice--few other countries have this custom. In American restaurants where most of the customers and waiting staff are white, white people generally leave better tips than black people do.

According to Cornell University's Center for Hospitality Research:

1. Tips from Blacks are, on average, lower than those from Whites;
2. Black-White differences in restaurant tipping are not caused solely by race differences in socio-economic status;
3. Black-White differences in restaurant tipping are evident among the middle-class as well as the lower-class;
4. Black-White differences in restaurant tipping do not disappear when both groups get comparable service;
5. Blacks tip less than Whites even when the server is Black;
6. Blacks are much less familiar with the 15- to 20-percent restaurant tipping norm than are Whites;
7. Blacks tip less than do Whites in many (but not all) other service contexts; and
8. Asian-White and Hispanic-White differences in tipping are smaller, less robust, and have drawn less attention than Black-White differences in tipping.

Some studies say that this difference occurs because blacks customarily eat in restaurants that don't call for tipping. Other studies say it occurs because a negative dynamic is at work: white servers expect bad tips from black customers, and thus tend to pay them less attention than they do non-black customers. In return for such treatment, black customers respond with appropriately low tips, thereby confirming white conceptions of them.

This post could also be titled "complain about black restaurant customers," since that's what white people who wait tables often do. And complaining about white people who wait tables is something that black people often do.

(It could also be titled "receive better tips than black servers from both white and black customers," since that's also something that studies have found.)