why do some clubs decriminate
I am a white female reporter doing a report on discrimination among black women in mostly white strip clubs.. A few day ago i went to this club St James in houston tx with another friend of mine who is also a reporter but she was black girl. And we went there pretending like we wanted a dance job and there were also 4 other white girls waiting to be seen for the same thing... So then the black girl who came there with me went in to see the manager first and he asked her what her name was and then said i will call u with out even given her a interview and barely looking her in the face... then he call thee other girls in including myself and interview us make us strip down to our tee back and hires all of us.. And i must say that the black lady who works with me was very attractive and her body was in better shape then all of us... So this prove to me that there r still some race issues among strip clubs.. And i also notice there were only about 2 black women working in there and they looked mixed... what is wrong with this world today
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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!
Spelling and grammer is awful!
Any comments BG?
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.
Now if the dancer was pretty no matter what race she was, this was a case of manager stupidity in my opinion.
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.
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.
>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.
Thought I'd throw that in there, for the sympathy factor. :)
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
http://www.booktv.org/General/index.asp?…
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.
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 ...
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!
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.
And I agree about short-waisted, no-neck women, Mexican or not. On that score, I discriminate like Strom-fucking-Thurmond.
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?
I agree that government and mass media are ham-handed in addressing race. Same with most other issues.
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.
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.
Why is this thread continuing???
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 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.