The DC reader who sends this says the Schadenfreude is delicious. He is correct. Washington City Paper reports on the hilariously failed effort of Busboys and Poets, a local restaurant, to be racially woke. Excerpts:

Sometimes you can have the best of intentions and still miss the mark completely. Such is the case with Busboys and Poets‘ “Race Card” initiative, which aims to foster discussions about race and privilege among its diners by handing out literal “Race Cards”—cards featuring larger questions about the state of race relations in America—to patrons as they enter. A recent Facebook post featuring one of the “Race Cards”—which reads “Did you perceive me as racist because I’m a white male?”—has garnered more than 150 shares and even more comments, with people criticizing Busboys and Poets for taking a somewhat tone-deaf approach in trying to foster a conversation about race. Other “Race Cards” that Busboys and Poets employees are handing out read: “What is your experience with race in America?,” “Have you ever been in a place where you were the racial minority?,” and “How often do you discuss race with your friends or family?” Akosua Johnson, who posted the picture that went viral, says that a bartender at Busboys and Poets handed them the card when they sat down at the bar. Johnson, who identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, wrote on Facebook that the bartender, who was white, “had no idea how to actually engage with this poorly constructed, forced ‘conversation’ and so just walked away immediately after dropping the cards in the middle of my meal.”

Oh boy. This is getting good. I had to re-read the next part of the story to realize that the antecedent to the pronoun “them” is actually one person. A very woke person: Akosua Johnson, who was REALLY OFFENDED that Andy Shallal, owner of the restaurant had no reached out to the Professionally Woke Grifter-American Community for advice before playing the race card. He probably figured that by being intentionally progressive — left-wingery is written into the mission statement of the local restaurant chain — he was covered. Wrong!

You can imagine what happened next — but it’s fun to read the indignant statement from DC’s Black Lives Matter, in which its spokeswoman excommunicates Shallal and his restaurant, because he tried to do the racially correct (by BLM standards) thing in the wrong way. Akosua Johnson concludes, sadly: “The creators of this Busboys program erred in not choosing to engage more directly with racial justice activists and educators.”

Whole thing here. It usually makes sense to just shut up and cook. Who the heck wants to go eat or drink at a restaurant that serves discomfort food? Busboys and Poets, which describes itself as “a community where racial and cultural connections are consciously uplifted,” deserves this pain.