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London is a huge diverse city. What area of London are you having trouble? I’m not black, but lived in black communities there. You may have more luck in East or South London areas.
If that's true it is a shameful thing. Come to Lisbon instead. We're not even that civilised but you certainly won't have trouble being served anywhere.
Elaborate?
A bit off-topic, but something unique to India is reverse-racism, if I can call it that. Many a times, me and friends (mostly all male) try to enter a decent restaurant/pub only to be shown away saying its all booked for the evening. We could clearly see that was not the case. Even if stag entry is generally allowed at those places. But they happily welcome foreigners (of all kinds) right after they deny us. We India…
As a white British family, we often get turned away from half empty restaurants too.
If you turn up at 12 noon, they will hold the table even if it isn’t booked till 1.30 pm. I wonder how much revenue they leak from this as it seems so obvious to let you take the table on a time limit but they never offer.
I think some are also still running under capacity post Covid and with staffing issues.
A bit off-topic, but something unique to India is reverse-racism, if I can call it that. Many a times, me and friends (mostly all male) try to enter a decent restaurant/pub only to be shown away saying its all booked for the evening. We could clearly see that was not the case. Even if stag entry is generally allowed at those places. But they happily welcome foreigners (of all kinds) right after they deny us. We India…
If you come as a group of guys (or, most of the time, even as a mixed men/women group), you will be waiting in a long line at the entrance before you get in. Oftentimes, 45+ min wait, if the club is busy that night and popular.
But if you come as a group of attractive women (or, sometimes, a mixed group of attractive women and some guys, but with no more guys than women), clubs will often take you out of the massive line and let you through without almost any wait at all.
Not blaming the clubs for doing this, it kinda makes sense for their business, given the establishment type, so it doesn't feel that wrong (but i understand it is just my personal subjective take, and is very debatable).
Doing it by race (or foreigner/non-foreigner designation) though, like what your comment had described, for some reason to me feels actually awful and wrong to do though.
I had this experience as an Indian there (but also in the US and Canada so not exclusive to London). In fact, our experience was almost identical in a restaurant in Windsor, and after we were allowed in, we were sat in the worst spot behind a door, not allowed to use a different table and the waiter outright ignored us. A white family came and were given a great table, and attended to. All other tables were empty. A…
I had this experience as an Indian there (but also in the US and Canada so not exclusive to London). In fact, our experience was almost identical in a restaurant in Windsor, and after we were allowed in, we were sat in the worst spot behind a door, not allowed to use a different table and the waiter outright ignored us. A white family came and were given a great table, and attended to. All other tables were empty. A…
I haven’t looked up the stats but London must be at least a third black or south Asian ethnicity, maybe more. I’m sure any restaurant that was systematically racist to those groups would soon go out of business.
There’s also the issue that racism varies as a factor of multiple things. Take hair again as an example, people with not straight hair often get treated worse than those with straight hair. This applies to black people and Indians too, even when I lived in India. Having curly hair was seen as messy and unprofessional. So many of those places may have been fine with straight haired Indians but discriminated against curly haired ones.
When I grew up in India, I was denied a medical analysis by a doctor because I had curly hair for example. She straight up told me it was disrespectful to show up with that. We told her we’d complain to the authorities and she finally saw me (and we did complain after anyway).
Another example is Michelle Obama. If you see her recently, she’s embraced her natural hair. She straightened it when her husband was in office because it was just one more thing for them to be attacked on. A lot of Black women straighten their hair for office work to reduce the racism they encounter.
It’s often just that little extra difference that can put people over the edge.
It's one of the most culturally diverse cities on earth, that's not to say we don't have racists...we obviously do but social etiquette dictates that you keep that shit to yourself...doubly so if in the service industry.
As an aside not London related but culturally significant - during WWII American GIs needed to be warned that black soldiers would be treated equal to white, when US commanders demanded a segregated bar in the town of Bamber Bridge, all three pubs in the town reportedly posted "Black Troops Only" signs.
Please give my city another chance.