A newly unearthed video features Francesca Hong, the Democratic Socialists of America-backed frontrunner for governor, speaking at a Wisconsin Leadership Summit that the service industry “is rooted in white supremacy” and that “the history of tipping is racist.”
In the clip, Hong stated: “That is in the service industry, we are finally having this conversation about how our industry really did come from and kind of is rooted in white supremacy, that tipping in itself, if we look at the history of tipping and how racist it is and how it has kept wages low for black people for a very long time. And if you look at tipping now, how different the scales are in terms of who receives a higher percentage of the tips over other folks.”
The historical claim does not hold up. The notion that tipping is some uniquely American instrument of racial oppression is pure fiction. Tipping originated in medieval and early modern Europe as “vails” or gratuities given to servants and laborers, centuries before American slavery. The practice was brought to the United States by wealthy American travelers returning from Europe, not from the Jim Crow South. While some post-Civil War employers, most notably the Pullman Company, used tipping to underpay newly freed Black workers, that exploitation does not make the custom itself a product of white supremacy or invented for racial reasons. Multiple historical accounts, including Kerry Segrave’s comprehensive study Tipping: An American Social History of Gratuities, trace the practice firmly to European feudal and aristocratic traditions.
Hong’s framing fits a pattern of seeing racism lurking behind every ordinary economic transaction. Despite her background as a chef and restaurant owner who still works occasional bartending shifts, she has consistently shortchanged her fellow service industry workers by voting against no-tax-on-tips proposals in the state legislature.
Republican candidate Tom Tiffany has rightly pointed out that Hong voted against scrapping state income taxes on overtime and couldn’t even be bothered to show up for the vote to end taxes on tips. When a broader surplus package came up—one that would have permanently axed taxes on tips and overtime—Hong dismissed it as a gimmick, preferring, as always, to squeeze more out of high earners and impose wage mandates while ignoring the service industry.
President Trump’s ‘no tax on tips’ policy—along with similar state initiatives—actually puts money where it belongs: in the hands of servers, bartenders, and other tipped workers. Hong, on the other hand, would rather pontificate about systemic racism than support policies that help workers of every background keep more of what they earn.
Hong’s latest remarks are just another entry in her growing catalog of eyebrow-raising statements as she campaigns for governor. Meanwhile, the very workers who depend on tips to make ends meet are left with a candidate who brands their livelihoods as racist, all while blocking efforts to let them keep more of their hard-earned money.
