Although slavery still exists in Africa, it officially ended in the USA in 1865 — unless you count the restaurant industry.

The New York Post reports:

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson linked the restaurant industry to “slavery” Wednesday as he defended his push to eliminate the tipped wage, doubling down after surviving a City Council effort to block the policy.

Johnson wants tipped workers to get full minimum wage on the grounds that it constitutes reparations for slavery. He says most service workers who rely on tips are nonwhite and therefore should be given more money.

“You just watched the entire city council, in transparency, try to take wages away from the very people who are part of an industry that has its ties to slavery is hiding from that,” Johnson said. “I am boldly declaring that we need reparations in this city, and that’s why I’m funding it.”

City alderman voted to block the wage increase, probably on the grounds that it would throw restaurants out of business and waiters out of work. Johnson responded with a veto.

A spokesperson from Johnson’s office doubled down on Johnson linking tipped wages to slavery, suggesting that it became common practice for “white employers in the South” following the Emancipation.

Even tipping workers is a form of racist oppression.

Maybe we should give Brandon Johnson a break. It can’t be easy to prop up an ideology based entirely on injustices suffered by people who lived centuries ago.

On a tip from Wiggins.