why do some clubs decriminate

Sorry,reporter, couldn't find "decriminate" in dictionary. Ask yourself this?? Do more women dye their hair blonde, ala Marilyn Monroe or Baywatch Babe, or do they go for Oprah Winfrey look? Which look do you think most guys fantasize about?? As clubs are a fantasy experience in many ways, therein lies your answer.

Cause motherfuckaz be racist!

Reporter: I agree, there IS a lot of discrimination in clubs. In the clubs that I frequent, I can count on three fingers how many black girls I see (and all three are on one club). Another club that I go to, I've heard the girls are asked not to dance for black guys when they come in, though I have seen a handfull of them in the club over the last 15 years or so, and a few of them have gotten dances.

Don't take offense, but I also suspect you are not a reporter, at least not a reporter in the printed media. However, you must be attractive, so maybe you are an "on the spot" TV reporter. In either case, if you are truly a female, I think I can speak for everyone here that we HIGHLY appreciate the female persective in this discussion area. Please continue to post!

It would be VERY hard to convince me that you are a REPORTER to begin with! READ what you just WROTE!
Spelling and grammer is awful!

Any comments BG?

A couple of thoughts.

Just about every club I've been to has a black dancer or two -- and they are attractive -- yet I have no interest in getting dances from them. It is nothing personal but I prefer white or latino women.

I frequent a club with a heavy black clientelle and the dancers tell me (especially the white ones) that the black clients treat all the girls (and especially the white ones) badly. This leads me to believe that if I owned a club, I would prefer a white crowd because it would keep the dancers happy and it might be hard for a black dancer to make a living if more of the white guys think like me.
I am not racist and I feel bad for having the preferences I do, but it is just the way I feel.

Cleveland Tom u say u r not racist but by the comment you left saying that u would prefer a white crowd because it would keep the dancers happy and it might be hard for a black dancer to make a living if more of the white guys think like u!! now why would u want other white men to think like u if u was not racist..

Cleveland Tom u say u r not racist but by the comment you left saying that u would prefer a white crowd because it would keep the dancers happy and it might be hard for a black dancer to make a living if more of the white guys think like u!! now why would u want other white men to think like u if u was not racist..

Cleveland Tom u say u r not racist but by the comment you left saying that u would prefer a white crowd because it would keep the dancers happy and it might be hard for a black dancer to make a living if more of the white guys think like u!! now why would u want other white men to think like u if u was not racist..

I don't know if you're a reporter or not. However I believe managers of a black club may turn away white dancers if he wants mostly black dancers if his customers want black dancers. I don't see a problem with that nor with a mostly white club turning away dancers who may not fit in if the manager already has too many dancers of another race. If you think it's bad on getting hired, you should see some dancers who don't fit in well dancing on stage and getting no tips from the customers.

Now if the dancer was pretty no matter what race she was, this was a case of manager stupidity in my opinion.

ClevelandTom you say u are not racist but by the comment you left saying that u would prefer a white crowd because it would keep the dancers happy and it might be hard for a black dancer to make a living if more of the white guys think like u!! now why would u want other white men to think like u if u was not racist..

ClevelandTom you say u are not racist but by the comment you left saying that u would prefer a white crowd because it would keep the dancers happy and it might be hard for a black dancer to make a living if more of the white guys think like u!! now why would u want other white men to think like u if u was not racist..

Customers don't spend money on dancers to express their principles on race. They spend money on dancers who turn them on. Sexual attraction is a gut level impulse, not something you can direct to show fairness. There's no reason that that a white guy who isn't attracted to black women can't be broad-minded and free of bigotry. By the same token, I'm sure that many white guys who prefer to get dances from black dancers are committed racists.

Managers hire dancers who they think will make money for their club. Many managers seem to believe that hiring more than a couple of black dancers would be bad for business. They may be right, or their judgement could be clouded by prejudice. However, if they were convinced that more black dancers would be good for business, you can bet they would hire more, even if they're as bigoted as David Duke.

"Reporter" is clearly not a reporter as others have pointed out. Therefore this thread is not worthy of content response.

How do we know anybody here is who they say they are? We don't. Who cares? We're here to exchange ideas, not credentials. This is an interesting topic, no matter how it got started. If you have something to say about it, let's hear it.

Whether or not the SC managers discriminate on the basis of ethnic types, hair color, length of hair, body type, etc.; the patrons of said club will do so with their wallets.

I don't think I am representative of all Black Males in the clubs or on this Board. However, I can certainly recall my initial club visits in various partis of the country and knew that I was being treated differentlyn due to being Black. I was told by some dancers that they were told to avoid the well-dressed Black Men who came into the clubs.

REASONS:

1) He may be a Pimp.
2) He may be undercover Law Enforcement
3) We don't want to cater to a Black clientele. If these
guys feel comfoertbale here, they will start to bring
their friends. ( Illogical Business Sense.)

I have enjoyed this hobby of ours for 20 years or more. I have seen the underbelly of the Block in Baltimore, the demise of 42nd Street in NYC, enjoyed the best that Houston and Tampa Bay had to offer and even checked out some clubs in Canada and Jamaica.

Chicago and Boston are inherently racist ( read: segregated) cities and seem intent on maintaining tradition,
I have enjoyed myself in saloons in Indy, Kokomo, KY and even Iowa. If people will act like a gentleman, they be accepted like a gentleman. If you treat others like shit; you can expect to be treated that way in other places.

DennySpade: Surprising, I think you just listed one of the clubs that I thought was notoriusly racist. The club located in the midwest city that has several Os in the name.... How was your experience there? I assume, from your message it was favorable, and hopefully so. I would be surprised to hear that was the case, however, from what I've heard and seen.

I agree with Chandler, it's primarily about money. I think a lot of clubs limit the number of black dancers because they don't want to attract too many black customers, because if they do they think they'll lose many of their white customers, who they believe are more profitable. Maybe that makes little sense but we've often agreed that club managers aren't the brightest bulbs on the planet.

FONDL, Excuse me for copying your post from the other nearly-identical "reporter" thread in an effort to keep the discussion consolidated:

>Seems to me that the evidence is pretty strong that most people find people from their own or similar ethnic group to be the most attractive. So why should't a club manager hire strippers who came close to matching the ethnic profile of his customers? He is, after all, in business to make the most money he can by pleasing his customers. It's not about race, it's about money.<

That may sound somewhat reasonable at first glance, but is it any different from the rationale for the segregationism that plagued this country throughout the Jim Crow era? I'm sure that many restaurant owners back then who refused to hire black workers or to serve black customers justified their discrimination by saying they were just trying to make money by pleasing their customers. In neither case do I think you can say it isn't about race as well as money.

I think that thr REPORTER and FUNSEEKER ride the same little yellow bus to school. Their writing styles are so similar.

I could have made a cheap joke about making reporter sit at the back of the bus... But I didn't!

Chandler, if you're trying to say that we live in a racist society, I agree completely. Club managers often set ethnic quotas, which I personally abhor. Unfortunately quotas are favored by most of minority leaders and liberal intellectuals and have been official government policy for many years. Why should Joe Stripclubmanager be any different?

Just a point from this supposed "knee jerk liberal": I too hate racial quotas. It is simply legally mandated racism, the government REQUIRING that we judge on the basis of skin color.

Thought I'd throw that in there, for the sympathy factor. :)

FONDL: No, that wasn't my point. Strip clubs seem to get away with practicing the kind of discrimination described in the original post by saying that they hire according to looks, not race. In addition, operating as a sort of quasi-legitimate industry employing social outcast strippers who are independent contractors in name only protects clubs from the kind of civil rights enforcement other businesses need to worry about. They're able to operate much like a throwback to the segregated lunch counters that were boycotted in the 1950s Deep South.

Ya think strip clubs operate like segregated lunch counters, by rejecting black women? I dunno, the metaphor seems a little strained. It's possible, that the majority of strip clubs ARE that BAD, but they aren't in a parallel position, because the lunch counters were rejecting customers as well as employees on the basis of race, while the strip clubs (at least, what I've seen) will accept any customer who has the money and the proper attitude, regardless of race; it's just some employees they might reject because of race.

Then again, maybe the clubs don't reject on the basis of race, as much as on the basis of "style." Abercrombie and Fitch (or was it Banana Republic) was recently sued, for inviting a few customers who had dropped in, to apply for work at the store, based largely on their looks. The store manager had been told by the corporate office, to pick people who fit the corporation's "desired image." No surprise, the store manager had chosen mostly white female customers. A black girl who was with them got offended and sued.

For a while, I thought that the corporation was getting what it deserved, for a lot of reasons. They had put "image" hiring decisions in the hands of low-tier employees: a mere store manager trying to match a Madison Avenue advertising profile is an unlikely prospect. That's their first mistake. In addition, they had failed to adequately communicate (or even IDENTIFY) what they MEANT by the desired "image" -- hotties dressed like tramps probably sell more jeans to high school boys, than would the Kennebunkport yacht-club types who appear in their ads and catalogs. Another mistake.

And of course, on top of that, they hadn't really taken into account the idea that, although the clothes and catalogs may be designed for representation in a white-bread culture, nevertheless many of the OUTLETS were spread across a much more multifarious culture. Sure, they picture their khakis on a beach in Connecticut; but then they try to sell them in downtown Detroit. Gee what a surprise, the customers who walk into the store in downtown Detroit are ... not from Connecticut. (Though they may want to LOOK like they are ... different issue.) So, again, corp. brass has made another "eyeballing mistake."

So, as I said, I was all for the corporation really getting screwed on this one. It's nice for corporations to get screwed anyway, I like hearing about that. :)

But then I saw pictures. The white girls were hotties -- thin, young looking, cleaned up, wearing the appropriate clothing for the company's "image" and "demographic", basically khakis or capri pants, plus tight-fitting polo shirts, and flat-soled tenny-pump-style Keds-sort-of shoes. You know the look. The black girl was butt ugly, and trashed out like a "typical ghetto ho." She had huge greasy hair, three-inch-long fingernails, a giant backside, a very large belly that she was baring full mid-riff, a mere halter-top without a brassiere underneath, and a bling-bling addiction that ran from her teeth to her flashing-light-emblazoned blinking handbag and pounds of gold chains.

Gee what a surprise, she didn't fit the "corporate image."

When I got a load of the images, from the store camera of their first foray into the place, right down to their appearances in the courtroom, all I could figure was, "trash." The dark-skinned girl did NOT appear to be a middle-class American with a decent job and a decent prospect of ever getting a higher education, while the light-skinned girls DID. And not because of skin color, but rather because of CHOICES -- hair style, accoutrements, clothing choices. Choice.

So I changed my mind. It wasn't a corporation that deserved to get screwed, it was a mau-mau Politically Correct witch hunt that deserved to get ended. (Sorry, I didn't follow much more of the story. Lost interest. Can't remember what happened in court. Probably they settled for a lot of money to shut the bitch up.)

Yeah yeah, the "style" that Fambercritch and Banana wants to propagate is a "typically white" style. But that's their right to choose, isn't it? Aren't they allowed to pick Connecticut, and then try to sell Connecticut to Detroit?

Are strip clubs doing the same thing, trying to find a "look" that means, they can't have a "ghetto" girl dancing? Maybe it's not dark skin that they are rejecting, it's the "appearance of trashiness"? Ya think? Or not. I really don't have an opinion on the strip-club issue (and I do recall, that I have unnecessarily exacerbated some debates here at TUSCL on the boards recently, so I'll try to lay low and listen more, harangue less, when people respond).

Cheerio!

BG

RE: Quotas: OK, FONDL, put your money where your mouth is. Next time you go into a club, be sure to spend 15-20% of your money and time on black dancers. Forget about spending it all on your ATF. If anyone wants to foist quotas on people, why not force pro sports teams to select 75-80% of players white, since that is roughly the racial profile of USA. Next time you're on an operating table, tell me that the first thing on your mind is, hey, I'd really like to have an ethnically diverse team operating on me. How about just hiring the best ( that term can be loosely defined) qualified, regardless of race.

Book Guy: I've been mainly responding to the original question of why some clubs discriminate. Among other reasons, because it seems they *can* get away with operating essentially like Jim Crow era lunch counters *if* they choose to. Not that most clubs do. Sorry if I gave that impression. A few do, as others have told about, rejecting both dancers and customers according to race. However, I believe more widespread are clubs that work in a gray area between catering to a more profitable clientele and outright discrimination.

Not by any stretch am I advocating any remedy for the situation. I feel a litttle ill at ease sometimes when I'm in a club that seems to have only a token minority dancers and a conspicuous lack of minority patrons. Not due to altruism, but just a sinister air of intolerance. However, if the women and the dances are hot, I can magically look beyond all that.

I doubt if we'll see any big movement to ensure equal opportunities for minority women to pursue the life of a stripper or for minority men to spend their money on lap dances. Most people who push for that kind of thing are out to save them from it.

I've never been to a club that discriminated in its hiring practices, as far as I could tell. I can say with a fair amount of certainty in regards to my favorite club, however, that they go through black dancers faster than they do white dancers. This can be reasonable, because this is a club in BFE Iowa where the surrounding county is overwhelmingly white and thus the customer base is white. In truth, I find it amazing black dancers even give it a shot, considering the whiteness of the audience, but they do and can make up half the dancers in a given night. Of course, there are other factors there, like the extras market, that they may find favorable. Now, if you go to some club in Gary, Indiana, or somewhere with a heavy black population and all the dancers are black, is that really discrimination? Are they going to tell some white dancer they aren't black enough?

I never thought of it as being racist but clubs do get picky about letting trashy looking customers into their clubs at least a few of them where I live at. I have been in a habit of dressing business casual ever since some clubs in my area asked me to wear a collar shirt minimum to enter their club. I know I've heard IGU post that at his favorite club, if you look like you're fresh off the street, you're probably not going to get in the club either. Same goes if the club doesn't like your ID. I know it's not just the dancers that can have a hard time getting into some clubs.

One thing that's going on in New Orleans, is that there's a traditional divide between "working men" and "tourists" along Bourbon Street. Many of the dudes who fix roofs go out of the French Quarter for their strip clubbing, out toward Airline Highway, where there are (or were, before Katrina), basically, two types of clubs -- black ones, and white ones. Whether by bigotry and design, or willinig participation and market dynamics, the segregation was very real. I (a white guy) was not comfortable attending most of the black clubs, and most black patrons would not have been comfortable attending the white club.

As far as which dancers worked where, in my experience, the white club had 99% white dancers, and just a few "ethnic" girls who were of the "cleaned up ethnic" rather than the "ghetto ethnic" style. Meanwhile, the black clubs had 100% black girls of the "ghetto ethnic" style. Egregiously so: big giant waggly backsides, twelve-foot-tall greased hair, etc. ...

But the French Quarter clubs would have let anyone attend as a customer, AS LONG AS he was dressed for it. A roofer straight off the job, white or black or hispanic, would be uncomfortable, though he would be allowed to enter. Any middle-class tourist wearing tourist clothes (business casual or slightly less dressy, but CLEAN and matching, with non-construction-related shoes), of any skin color, can attend any French Quarter club, in my impression.

There is one "ethnic" club in the French Quarter, Larry Flynt's Little Darlin's. This is part of the Deja Vu / Hustler chain, which purports to have "niche" styles among its four clubs along Bourbon Street -- they have a country-honky-tonk, a rock-Hollywood-joint, a place with a barely-legal-looking collection of girls, and the "ethnic" club. It is indeed true, the lower-class-appearing (and younger) black males tend to congregate at the ethnic one.

And it might be true, that black males in general (lower-class or not) would feel uncomfortable because of skin-color reasons, at many of the other French Quarter strip clubs. I don't 100% know, whether that is because there IS an atmosphere of segregation, or because they wrongly perceive that there is one. I believe that some young black men are their own worst enemies -- insisting on entering mainstream American society with a chip on their shoulders and an extremely non-mainstream style of dress and behavior, will probably cause mainstream society to reject you. Same as if I walked into a straight strip club in leather chaps like the Village People motorcyclist. Standing out and looking "tough" like the drug dealers, means you might have "pride" in your ethnicity, but you also are deliberately flaunting behavior that runs against mainstream expectations.

So, where does racism draw the line? Is it the black boys' fault, for dressing up like street toughs? Is it the strip clubs' fault, for preferring to hire dancers who look the part of what their customers tend to want, or at least, who look the part of what THE MANAGEMENT THINKS the customers want? And what about dancers who are "intimidated" from applying, or get rejected and they think it's because of their skin color? One or two of them complained here at TUSCL. I'll bet that a lot of them are butt-ugly, but a few of them might indeed be hot and yet dark-skinned and therefore ... distant from my clutches.

Pity.

I don't have any answers to any of this. When you apply strict free-market rules, you get something other than race-based quotas. There's a funny mix going on nowadays, with advantages and disadvantages. I'd like to see more hot black women in my clubs; but I don't want to see hot but "ghetto style" women there, whether black or not.

And finally, it's a disappointment to me, that many young hot women who are NOT black, are now affecting "ghetto style." That just makes them look trashy and stupid, to me. I like a girl who looks like she's going places. Girl-next-door looks, not crack-ho-next-neighborhood, thank you.

Book Guy, You make some interesting observations and raise some interesting points. I can't recall the discussion now, it was a C-Span pannel or some NPR show talking about race issues, because after all that is the all encompassing most important issue in the entire nation (Mild sarcasm there, look at the facts and we are the most racially diverse and successfully inclusive society in the world. If we're failing the rest of the world is going to hell. We're not perfect, but we at least try.) So, back to the topic. Most of the white people in the discussion said a similar thing about their discomfort being around black people (leaving out the thug/ghetto factor you rightly bring up) they're afraid of saying something wrong and being labled a racist. How's that for irony. We've stigmatized racism to the point where white people self segregate to avoid being called racist. As for the black people there were a lot of different things I can't recall, but the one I remember was they felt like they had to act differently around white people. In my new job I have 5 people working under me. Four are black and one is middle eastern. I knew a few of these guys before I took the new position, and we were on friendly terms. It is interesting when I see them interact with other black people how different it is from how they interacted with me even before I was their boss. It's not a class thing, entirely, one of the black guys has nearly as much education as I do. For the most part the guys I know treat me the same as they always did, perhaps with a bit more deferance. Just an interesting observation. I think at this point most of the segregation in this country is self imposed. I also think the same thing applies to hispanics. They are more comfortable sometimes speaking Spanish hanging out in their own culture and feel like they have to act differently in the white "Connecticut culture" you describe. I think some of this is also class difference rather than race difference.

Personally I say give it another 50 years and we'll be so intermarried and homogonized nobody'll know the difference anymore.

"Personally I say give it another 50 years and we'll be so intermarried and homogonized nobody'll know the difference anymore."

Funny thing is, I thought the same thing 50 years ago and it hasn't happened, not even close. In fact I don't think we're any closer today than we were then. Somewhere I read recently that the number of inter-racial marriages is declining.

When it comes to the workplace, it's good to keep in mind that it isn't just race, people are discriminated against for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with performance. It's been well documented that tall people earn more and get more promotions than short people. Similarly thin people earn less than fat people. People who meet their particular society's definition of "attractive" do better all around. We can complain that it isn't fair all we want, but that's the way life is and probably always will be.

Ah, yes. I have a dream that one day comfortable white people will no longer be vicitimized by the pressure to appear nice to minorities, especially the ones from icky ghettos. And young, non-white-acting black people will wake up and trim their hair, wear Dockers and talk like dorks. And young white people will stop adopting black cultural styles, except, of course, those elements of black style from before the 1980s that have been adopted by practically every white person in the world. Yup, I have a dream that a day will come - I give it 50 years - when nobody annoys us anymore with the claim that race is an important issue, because everybody will see that it's to their advantage to act white, and all these pesky minorities will just be assimilated. Poof! Er, make that free at last!

ROFL @ Chandler. I have a dream that one day fat-assed ghetto-booties will disappear, poof, and lots of other things will poof too, so that all human females will be physically attractive to me. :) And another dream that AFrican American males will recognize that "how hard" they have it, growing up in the ghetto, is EXACTLY THE SAME as how hard I also had it, growing up in the same goddamned ghetto, except for the fact that I also did my homework, got a scholarship, and now hold a BA and an MA from respectable institutions, and therefore I can afford to dither the day away on TUSCL message boards talking about expensive hobbies.

I note that the burgeoning crowds of Hispanic workers here in NOLa have changed the climate to some degree, but it hasn't really made its way into the strip clubs yet. I do see young single male Hispanics coming in to the clubs more, and generally they're "dressed up" for the event, rather than dropping in merely immediately after working some sweaty job (or maybe they don't have a sweaty job at all! maybe they work in an office!). But there aren't "lower class Hispanic style" strip club dancers or clients in large enough numbers to generalize about. We still have, mostly, a black-white dichotomy in this city, and of course some members of both camps are exacerbating it.

But New Orleans is famous for its cross-cultural experiences -- the "procession" based culture of Mardi Gras, in which the neighborhood IS the experience, for example; and live music and creative dining, which are things that all humans can partake of to a high level of quality regardless of class or income. But that doesn't solve the problem of dreadful inner-city schools and lack of work opportunities for unskilled uneducated males with criminal records.

Not that it should, or even that it's the government's responsibility to do so. I don't advocate for either side -- welfare of social darwinism -- or even for some "average" in the middle. I'd rather (all other things being equal) advocate neither "yes" nor "no" but "mu" or "po." Which is to say, there are a lot of hot black women here in town and I wish I could get my hands on 'em more often ... :) ...

Don't really find Hispanic women attractive, in general, me personally. Too short-waisted. They always look like they have beer-bellies, to me.

FONDL, perhaps you are tight, but where I grew up a mixed marriage was a Catholic and a Protestant. Now there are mixed race couples and they all go to the evangelical non-denominational church, complete with drum kit and guitar backing up the choir. I see things changing. There are still all Italian families and Jewish families etc etc, but I think overall the in between is a growing force, and besides, what will matter more is that even with a small fraction of intermarriage a lot of people start to have black or hispanic or asian inlaws and mixed race cousins and uncles and nieces.

Almost on topic...

http://www.booktv.org/General/index.asp?…

AN, be careful that you're not overcome with Beltway-itis. DC is not a barometer of what's happening in the rest of the country, not even close. You live in a very artifical and atypical environment.

And I obviously meant just the opposite of what I typed above - thin people earn more than fat people. We're increasingly a nation that judges people's worth by their appearance.

BG, when you say that you don't find Hispanic people to be attractive, I think you have to be a little more explicit. I don't think you can lump Spanish, Puerto Rican, Mexican and Central and South America girls together, they're very different. My first real girlfriend was of Spanish descent and was really gorgeous. One of the best looking strippers I've ever met was Puerto Rican. In fact I think young Puerto Rican women are often very attractive.

FONDL: indeed, you're right, it isn't MOST hispanic women who have a body type that I find unappealing. It's average mestitsa Mexican women that I'm referring to. They have this "short waisted" thing, in which their bellies are about as wide as their hips and descend in a straight line from ribcage to knees, and their rounded hips are all forward-backwards with no left-right deviation. I don't know if it's genetic or has something to do with typical diet or what, or if maybe I simply have seen a lot of overweight lower-class Mexican women and the hotter ones are skinnier or of different social class. But what I'm describing, the "short waist" type, is definitely UNappealing to me.

You're right, though; the Hispanic Diaspora (har, there's a political-correct-ism) is quite diverse. Hondurans and Guatemalans often appear to be mostly meso-American, like their Mayan / Aztec forebears. Mexico, large country that it is, boasts quite a wide range of ethnic types. And then there are Jamaicans ... It's all a mess. I understand Costa Ricans and Brasilians are extremely horny. But then, aren't you supposed to use a different term for Brasilians and Jamaicans because they aren't Spanish-speakers?

Reminds me of Pacific Rimming ...

BG, the differences we are describing are largely due to the fact that most of the people who are referred to as "Hispanic" in this country are a real mixture, almost none of them are of pure Spanish descent. If you've ever been to Spain (which is my favorite European country) you'll see some of the most beautiful women on earth, and none of them look like the people we call Hispanic. Which is one of the many reasons I oppose categorizing people in this way, the categories are meaningless.

I thought the word "Hispanic" and "Hispaniola" were both references to the New World island where the Dominican Republic and Haiti now stand. So it's not strictly to Old World Spain, the nation of Madrid and Barcelona, Raul and Helguera. Not that I actually know, but to me, "Hispanic" was supposed to mean "from the Spanish-speaking portion of the Northern Hemisphere in the New World" or some such -- basically, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Honduran, Costa Rican, Dominican, Cuban, etc., but not Jamaican. Also not Argentinian.

I don't know. Maybe we need an ethnographer. Definitely requires a field trip to various "ethnic" strip clubs in Houston and San Antonio and Los Angeles. Sign me up!

I think terms like "Hispanic" and "white" and "black" etc. are meaningless, we're all mongrels if you go back far enough. I wish the government and media would stop using such terms, then maybe we could begin to make some progress on the race issues in this country. IMO, labeling people makes the situation worse.

I'm gonna have to agree, that ALL the labels are, at the bottom of them, meaningless. I recently found out that I'm aboiut 1/256th Native American (Mississippi Band of the Choctaw Indians) and that there's likely at least 3/128ths slaves from Africa in my background too. Each of those aspects makes me less than typical of a Scotch-Irish immigrant, though my appearance hardly betrays it. I guess I got caught up in the "usual diction" rather than thinking clearly about my terminology.

Nevertheless, the "typical" thing about short-waisted Mexican women, I still find unattractive, whether or not it's actually typical of any given ethnic variety.

A lot of people would rather not do without the label they are grouped under. That doesn't have to be a bad thing. To stop using the term wouldn't stop any of us from seeing race, and I don't think it would make discrimination any different. So-called colorblindness is just an excuse to give unconscious discrimination a pass, IMO. Wishing the issue would go away won't make it go away.

And I agree about short-waisted, no-neck women, Mexican or not. On that score, I discriminate like Strom-fucking-Thurmond.

"To stop using the term wouldn't stop any of us from seeing race ..." In the short term that's true, but long term I disagree. I think it would be a useful step in the right direction and would result in future generations becoming less conscious of race. I especially think it's silly to focus on skin color when there so much variation reardless of what race you might claim to be. Let's face it, no one is white or yellow or black, we're all various shades of brown.

I look at our government's racial policies (and our drug policies and ...) and to me they aren't working very well. So as a pramatist I ask, why not try something different?

FONDL: That's like saying if we stopped using the words "tall" and "short" we would all become less height-prejudiced. For one thing, it'll never happen. It's not the words that are to blame, nor the imperfect, superficial groupings. It's the way we treat each other based on group. The fact is that different groups and cultures are increasingly required to interact all over the world. Conflict is inevitable. I don't believe the solution is for everyone to agree to pretend we're all the same.

I agree that government and mass media are ham-handed in addressing race. Same with most other issues.

Best solution? We all telecommute and nobody ever has to look at our faces (or Cindy the HR secretary's fat ass and bloated oinking face) again ...

Chandler, I know a woman from Wisconsin of German descent - blonde and fair skinned - who married a Cuban man. For government quota purposes she's classified as Hispanic. That's the idiocy that results from using these silly labels. They should be illegal.

FONDL: That's an amusing bureaucratic screw-up, but what does it have to do with labels making people more conscious of race? Is it the cause of the way people think about or treat German women or Hispanics?

The music industry comes up with a new term for each generation to categorize black artists. In the 1930s and 40s, they were called "race records". Then rhythm & blues, soul music, then rhythm & blues again. Now several styles are grouped as "urban", which is nothing but a code word for music that appeals to blacks and other minorities who usually live in inner cities and ghettos. (Even though suburban white kids probably buy most of it.) The whole industry has avoided using racial terms, but it hasn't changed a thing about the way race is handled.

What's funny about the woman I described earlier is that she has 2 sons - one looks just like the father and the other looks just like her. So how are they classified?

Another sad element of this classification is that economics plays a major role. Take children of a bi-racial couple who are very fair-skinned. If the parents are wealthy and live in a mansion, the kids are likely to be treated very differently than if they are from modest means.

Chandler, I don't profess to know what the right answer is. But I do know what the wrong answer is because we've been doing it for 50 years and it isn't working. All I'm suggesting is that we try something else for a change.

FONDL: You keep saying it isn't working as thought that's axiomatic. Comparing US race relations now to 1957, I would say that some things have worked. I'm not here to defend the status quo. Obviously, racial classifications involve some absurd contradictions, and quotas can produce unfair results. I agree that we should try something else. We should always be trying new ways to address an issue that will always be with us. I just don't believe that what you want to try is possible, would work if it were possible, or would be desirable.

This thread has pointed out the obvious solution. We should all miscegenate as much as possible.

Chandler, comparing today's racial climate with that which existed in 1957 clearly show both winners and losers. (Which by the way is true with ALL government programs, there are always winners and losers because for the most part it's a zero-sum gain - all government programs take something from some people and give it to others, after taking a huge cut for itself of course.) Clearly some members of minority races have benefitted significantly. But I think most members, especially those at the bottom of the economic ladder, are worse off today than were their counterparts of 1957. Maybe there's less overt racism among people who are reasonably well off, but our inner cities have been destroyed in part by government racial policies, and as a result millions of people today live in conditions that are far worse than they were in 1957. There have been more losers than winners. Which is why I say our racial policies haven't worked.

FONDL: Abolition resulted in economic winners and losers, too. Would you say that it hasn't worked? IMO a zero-sum gain analysis vis-a-vis 1863 would miss the overwhelming point regarding basic human dignity. Same goes for 1957. Sorry if this seems overbearing, but I'm only pointing out the elephant in the room concerning your continued refrain that "nothing's working" over the past 50 years.

Chandler, why do you always insist in distoring the points I try to make? You know very well that I haven't suggewted that "nothing's working," I'm simply pointing out that, unlike abolition, I think the losers have far outnumbered the winners. Do you disagree with that? Do you think our racial policies are working well? And if not, how would you change them? You seem to enjoy shooting down my suggestions but you never offer any of your own.

Reporter hasn't made any comments since MARCH 7TH!

Why is this thread continuing???

FONDL: I try not to distort your points. Sorry if that's the way it seems. I'm trying to understand what you mean when you say "our government's racial policies aren't working very well". I believe that our efforts to allow greater opportunity for minorities that began in earnest about 50 years ago, though less than perfect, have been a great success so far. I disagree that losers outnumber winners. Pardon the cliche, but I sincerely believe we're all winners.

HappyLapper: Some of us think it's an interesting topic. Some threads take on a life of their own. There's no reason the original poster needs to remain in the discussion. Why does it bother you so much that it continues?

Chandler, here's what I mean. IMO the huge areas of our inner cities that are largely inhabited by poor minorities are far worse places to live than was the case 50 years ago. And I think that our government's policies have had a lot to do with that. And when I talk about winners and losers, as you well know I'm referring to those people who have benefitted or been harmed by those government policies. Interestingly, the biggest winners have been the leaders who claim to represent the downtrodden in our midsts - they draw their power from the fact that these people's plight remains bleak. Which is maybe why they continually oppose policies like school choice which would actually help such people. But that's another issue.

FONDL: I realize that economic policies and social policies with economic consequences can have an indirect effect on race relations. I'm not attempting to comment on your point that identifying race is the cause of problems in that sphere.

When anyone refers to changes in race relations over the past 50 years, the first things that come to mind for me are not economics. In 1957, anyone in this country who wasn't white was decidedly a second class citizen. In my opinion, the change that has been made is by far the best thing that has happened in this country in my lifetime. And it definitely would not have been possible by banishing the terms "black" and "white". I can't tell whether you take all that for granted, whether you think it isn't important, or what.

I have to add, if this thread came up in 1957 (I know, hypothetical to the max), we wouldn't be talking about strippers being denied work or customers being overlooked for lap dances. We'd be talking about corpses.

"In 1957, anyone in this country who wasn't white was decidedly a second class citizen." Chandler, I agree. But I think you'll find that for many of the inhabitants of our inner cities that's still the case, in fact probably more so today than it was 50 years ago. The point I'm trying to make is that the minority leaders of 1957 like Dr. King advocated a colorblind society, where people were judged by what was on their inside, not what was on the outside. We haven't followed that advice, we've done the exact opposite, which I think has had a very negative impact on race relations in this country.

I notice you keep ignoring my mention of the plight of our inner cities. Maybe you don't think the horrible living conditions we've produced for the vast majority of our minorities in such places is important. Personally I think it's outrageous. I think it's our society's most serious problem. And I think our government's policies have contributed to it and continue to do so.

FONDL: I'd rather not get into a broad discussion of political ideology on this board. I've only been trying to remind you of what I thought was a reasonable, non-partisan point about race relations, since that was the topic we had been discussing in connection with strip clubs. I'll give up now. Martin Luther King is my cue.