I've never been a huge clubber to begin with, but something happened to me the other night that will forever change my outlook on them. After leaving a friends birthday party, which was located in downtown houston (this fact is important to the story), a friend and I decided to go somewhere else to wrap up the evening. This somewhere else was located outside of dowtown Houston in area called "midtown." For those of you not familiar with Houston, midtown is a gentrified area that used to be known as the 4th ward or Freedmen's town (which were black neighborhoods). Honestly there is no difference between midtown and downtown imo. Both share the same streets and are in the same area, with the only main difference being a freeway that seperates the two.
Anyway me and my friend roll up to the club, because it's free to get in and approach the bouncer. We pull out our I.D.'s and I notice the bouncer taking a long look at my drivers license. After taking a solid 10-15 seconds glaring at my license, he then asks me to pull out another form of ID, because "I look to young in my drivers license photo??!??!??!??" I thought this was odd because
a.) everyone has always told me I look older than what I am
b.) even if he did think I "looked" under age, my legitimate drivers license said otherwise
So I go to pullout 2 more forms of I.D. and he still gives me the run around. He even had the nerve to ask if had a passport to show him. At this point it's blatantly obvious that he's trying to keep us of the club, because the color of our skin. Although the club is promoted as a "mixed" social setting, there is a certain quota of blacks (and other colored people) who are allowed to go inside. I end up snatching my license from dude, and telling him "you could've just told us you had enough black folks inside", and left.
To get to the main point of this post, it was apparent that we had crossed the "wrong" side of the railroad (the freeway), and that we should head back to our side of the tracks. Our side of the tracks = dowtown houston, which when it comes to night time entertainment consists of "black clubs" for the most part. As I sat in my crib last night it just go me to thinking of what we're really supporting when we go out to clubs??? I mean we could put the message out there not to support certain establishments, but we're still supporting "the" establishment when we do that. All that would create is even more blacks running to "black" clubs which aren't owned by us. So who's really winning in the end????
Like I mentioned earlier I'm not the hugest clubber, so I'm confident I can find other forms of entertainment,work,studying,reading,etc. to keep me occupied in my downtime. Even for those of us who love to party, it would be nice to see us to hold our own house parties, and not support these businesses. I'm confident in saying that Houston's dowtown night life couldn't come close to surviving without the money that black folks bring into it (parking, drinking, eating, paying to get in the club, paying the bailbondsmen to get your friend out of jail after they had too much to drink, etc.). Last night I officially decided not to support clubs and lounges anymore...it might be too extreme for some, but I think it will work for me.
let them go dog! There aint no thing but trouble up in there. I stay home that is a good way to keep money and stay safe!
