She had gone down to see some friends in Florence, Alabama. That’s how it started. The next thing she knew, she was making international news for working a shift at Waffle House. It was all part of the “slumming it” tourism that people with money occasionally took a shine to when the trappings of wealth suddenly felt “hollow” (though never hollow enough to abandon entirely). The chanteuse in question still wanted to prove that she could go back to her old life “any time she wanted.” Especially since slumming it in the bowels of decaying Americana only fed her “creative inspiration.” Just the way she was feeding some gross fat man right now. Handing him a plate of waffles and getting on bended knee next to him (she adored the drama of such poses) to sing a “stirring” rendition of “Amazing Grace,” she felt herself restored to human status. She was not a “major icon,” but a woman of the people. Just as she always had been. That was why she volunteered so often in her youth in the first place. “Service work” was “God’s work” as far as she was concerned. 

And that’s what she was doing at the Waffle House on Florence Boulevard (better known to corporate headquarters as Waffle House #1283): God’s work. She deserved a goddamn medal for working those few hours, playing at being anything other than a god herself (which, of course, she was to her fans). But she played it cool, acting like it was no big deal. Just doing a favor for a friend. A favor for a Black friend, she didn’t want to point out…learning her lesson about doing that the last time she highlighted what an “eclectic” group of friends she had, and that she had even dated some rappers—apparently still code for: Black men. Though no one had seen any photographic evidence of her “dating” any rapper other than a rather embarrassing white one.

Speculation soon ran rampant about why this renowned singer could possibly be working a shift that most Black employees would rather poke their own eyes out than endure if they didn’t need the paycheck. But it was so clear: she wanted to do it just to do it. To prove, in some sense, her wokeness. Which she’d been trying to redeem herself about since 2020, when she made some “off-color” (pun intended) assessments about how she was viewed by the media, foolishly deciding to compare herself to a number of Black and brown women in the process. After a lot of back and forth and various doubling down efforts, the singer attacked her detractors in the comments section by insisting, “Don’t ever ever ever ever bro call me racist.” After all, she was friends with plenty of “POCs” (the term that makes racial classification sound positively sci-fi and clinical). 

Though, in truth, her “friendships” with Black and brown women (most of whom she employed as backup singers or dancers) felt the way it always did with most white women: like some sort of fetishization. It couldn’t be helped, one supposed. That’s just what white women were like. As though everything they did was some kind of beneficent favor. When, in fact, that mentality (“subconscious” or not) in and of itself was tinged with the “looking down upon” nature of racism. The kind of racism that pervades most Waffle Houses across the South on any given night, i.e. subjected to not being treated the same as white customers, getting called racial slurs or risking an arbitrary summoning of the police for “uppity” behavior. At one of the peaks of publicity about Waffle House’s racist practices (toward both employees and customers), a co-founder was sure to dredge up, as though it were some kind of ace in the hole, how that’s not true because the company was “deigning” to serve Black people in the 60s in Atlanta, at a time when few other businesses would have (never mind that that was probably a choice made in favor of more profit). So sure, “No racism to see here.” But, as any pop singer like the moonlighting waitress knows, you’re only as good as the last thing you’ve done. Which makes most of us not very. 

The irony of being racist toward its Black customers, of course, was that Waffle House ultimately catered to Black people in every way. Right down to the preference for cash payments (with the aforementioned co-founder assuring that they wanted to “take care of the poor old cash customer” above all else…how altruistic). Something the singer-turned-waitress (after being a waitress-turned-singer) never really bothered to do. So it was no coincidence that many of her fans happened to be not only faux manic pixie dream girls raised in suburbia, but also…white. Such was the ilk attracted to “Sylvia Plath-esque poetry” in the form of songwriting prowess fortified by a private university education. For, not to be racist (as if that’s possible), but there’s little for the Black woman or man to relate to in lines such as, “It took thirteen beaches to find one empty/But finally it’s mine.” Like, bitch, we’re supposed to feel sorry that you can’t find a private beach when we can barely find private property to overpay rent on? Alas, that was just one of many things about the singer that tended toward tone deafness. And, like most tone deafness, there was no awareness of how much a certain act or utterance would land with a thud. 

Except, for whatever reason, this particular act on the singer’s part was portrayed with a slant that inferred she was some sort of saint. Or, as the fans liked to call her, a “humble queen.” What a load of bollocks. In other words, people will spin things however they want to. Especially when it comes to their false idols. Never mind that championing a hub for brawls and mass shootings isn’t exactly noble. Particularly when you’re not even doing it because you “have to,” but because you’re fetishizing the working class for your own inspiration. It’s positively vampiric. But don’t try mentioning that to the fans. Or Waffle House, for that matter. After all, they haven’t had such shimmering free publicity since 2015, when Chrissy Teigen, John Legend, Kanye West and Kim Kardashian went on a double date at a Phoenix Waffle House.

In retrospect, “Ye” is the perfect representative for supporting such a discriminatory joint, but obviously, the chain probably wanted to upgrade its honorary “celebrity representative” with someone “less controversial.” In any case, it’s not clear whether the quartet dined at the same location where there was a mass shooting in 2022 (probably not). But then, there’s so often a shooting at any given Waffle House that they all tend to get lost in the shuffle. Maybe they ought to put the singer’s mass shooting-inspired song, “Looking For America,” on the jukebox and pray for peace and harmony while listening to it. For it’s not as though Waffle House is going to do anything to promote such peace and harmony amid scattering, smothering and covering its racism (same way America itself does). But such is the benefit of keeping a company “privately-held” instead of ever “going public.”

That’s why IHOP and Denny’s will never have the freedom of Waffle House (though Denny’s did try for a while with their own racist serving practices that reached a litigation crescendo in the 90s). Like how pretty much every Waffle House has a jukebox featuring songs on it from its own record label. And this one where the singer wanted to moonlight as a “simple server” proved no exception to the rule. The singer, alas, didn’t find any of her own songs on it. She would have to go to Mel’s Drive-In, back in Hollywood, if she wanted to experience that form of flattery. Yet now that she had so blatantly betrayed the West Coast diner chain, she wasn’t sure they’d even want to keep her “greatest hits” on the juke anymore. But perhaps she could earn her place back by picking up a few shifts there upon returning to her cushy L.A. abode.