The Mo’Kelly Report

Mo, I could not agree with you more. I am from Chicago. I am painfully aware of the racial profiling of the Rush Street bars and of Mother’s in particular. Mother’s has been discriminatory in denying entrance to African Americans for more than 30 years, to my knowledge.

I am old school Chicago. I am a fastidious dresser; I always have been. I never went out clubbing in Chicago (during my single days) without being “in play”; dressed to impress with an emphasis on quality, taste and style.

I am a Viet Nam veteran and attended Columbia and Roosevelt Universities on the G.I. bill during that period. I also worked in corporate positions for GATX (General American Transportation Corp.), Metropolitan Life and United Airlines, yet still was arbitrarily denied entrance to Mother’s enough times to decide that my money did need not support their racist proclivities. I took my money where I was welcomed, and “thought it not robbery” to honor my esteem by refusing to frequent where I was not.

Mo, you sure know how to break it down for us. I have been a student of image management and, as one of my mentors said quite well, you cannot NOT communicate. The way you look tells people about you before you even open your mouth to speak. Whatever you choose to wear or choose NOT to wear has an impact and leaves an impression.

When it comes to establishment “dress codes,” there are plenty of places of business in New York that operate the same way. It pays to think about where you are going and what you are going to wear. A little social strategizing never hurt anyone. Having said that what does hurt is the consistent and sometimes calculating behavior of those same business owners who sometimes implement these dress codes as part of their social strategy and use it to justify their racial animus (as in I don’t want anyone patronizing my club who doesn’t look like me, etc.). In general, most folks can read between the lines, and that’s where the challenge lies.

There was a journalist with one of the Washington newspapers who said he thought the real issue was that African American men who patronized the club frequently hit on white women. I don’t know if the women complained, or that the establishment thought less of the men because of it, but the journalist laughed because he said he bought plenty of caucasian women drinks and was never denied entrance. Clarence Page was the journalist and you should be able to google his article.

The so-called hip hop style of dress is repulsive to many blacks as well as white. Yet many young blacks as well as whites embrace it. If a public or private establishment want to establish a dress and conduct code they have a right to, but they don’t have a right to discriminate. Racism is still alive in our nation. Far to often clubs bars discriminate against blacks by using dress codes, ID’s checks and other means to keep them out of their predominate places of socializing. But there is a system to shut that nonsense down. All blacks have to do is get their white friends to dress in the same manor, etc and see if they are let in the clubs after blacks are rejected in the same way. Then document the responses. If they let these young white kids in with sagging pants and hoods on their head, along with all the other nonsense the young black kids wear then you can sue and shut the club down. That’s the way discrimination in housing was done and that’s the way you can stop discrimination in the clubs can be broken down. Plus you can profit off of it as well. Yet you must remember if you shut down one club another will pop up. Blacks however need to support their own clubs that make them feel comfortable and wanted, but far to often they abandon them for wealthier white clubs who don’t want them or the hot ghetto messes that come with black crowds!!!

It is truly ironic when so much effort has gone into associating this style of dress with a gang lifestyle and violence, glorified it even… and then they bitch and moan when people are convinced of that image…

i do agree with your point about selective enforcement being the indicator of racism…

and we haven’t even started on the prohibition of certain cultural hairstyles in the workplace!!

Morris,

“Exploit” is certainly a charged word. I did choose it purposely albeit carefully.

The glorification of thug life probably goes back before the early 1990s, but it certainly went mainstream around that time. Tupac, Dre, Snoop, of course NWA before all that, took on an air of opposition to authority as a defense against abuse and mistreatment, a sort of “get them before they get us” mentality.

The Rodney King riots made it clear that the population got the message.

In the generation since then, this glorification has become more refined. Now, the hero makes a lot of money and has his boys handle his dirty work. Still a thug, but more of a Thug Prince.

I see young black men emulate these characters, either playing the role of the Thug Prince or the dirty hands thug, and they play these roles by how they dress, their hair, their vehicle, their music and the volume thereof, and by traveling in “posses”.

White America has been well indoctrinated in these stereotypes. I imagine that middle class black society has as well. I assume that when some of these young men come home, their Mom or Dad accuses them of trying to look like a thug or a Thug Prince.

If you were to hear of a shooting in a nightclub, would your assumption be that the shooter was white, black, or that you didn’t have enough information?

If you’re completely candid, you will say that the shooter is probably black.

So, clubs are trying to repel the thug element. If you dress like a thug and act like a thug, you might just be a thug.

And since this has been appropriated for fashion and for social inclusiveness, you might not actually be a thug, you might just be trying to fit in with your social situation.

So there are a lot of things at play here: peer pressure, survival instinct, socialization, role identification, and certainly a heavy dose of “how do you tell the good guys from the bad guys”?

Of course none of the above can explain why a well dressed black man would be refused entry. He should not be. He took the time to send all the right signals, and his skin color alone should not make him a suspected thug.

But for a broad section of the young black make population, the dots do connect. These young men are emulating a manner of expression which has, at its roots, defiance and mistrust of white authority.

Which has a way of making white club owners nervous.