Nikole Hannah-Jones, a New York Times reporter and creator of the 1619 Project, riled up social media on Monday when she tweeted that “tipping is a legacy of slavery.”
“Tipping is a legacy of slavery and if it’s not optional then it shouldn’t be a tip but simply included in the bill,” Hannah-Jones wrote. “Have you ever stopped to think why we tip, like why tipping is a practice in the U.S. and almost nowhere else?”
Hannah-Jones, 45, created the 1619 Project which intends to “reframe” American history by “placing the consequences of slavery at the center of the national narrative,” she wrote in the Times.
Her tweet drew mockery from historian Phil Magness, a longtime gadfly to Hannah-Jones.
“Wait, what?” Magness, author of a rival project called “The 1619 Project: A Critique,” wrote on Twitter.
Magness noted that tipping is not isolated to just the U.S., posting a Good Housekeeping guide for how to tip in other countries. Magness also cited a scene from William Shakespeare’s play “Twelfth Night” that references tipping.
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