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If my eyes are shining and my lower lip is trembling, you must believe that it IS NOT out of a desire to guffaw at the Moebius strip of ironies in this story, via Gay News:
A bar owner in the predominantly gay Castro neighborhood violated numerous city civil rights codes by discriminating against black patrons, the San Francisco Human Rights Commission announced Tuesday.
The case has been closely watched by the city’s gay community, many of whom said they were incredulous that an establishment in what’s considered one of the country’s most progressive and socially liberal neighborhoods would actively keep black customers out of the popular nightspot Badlands.
In particular, the commission said club owner Les Natali referred to blacks as “non-Badlands customers” who should be discouraged from patronizing the club.
“The Castro should be a place of homecoming for gays worldwide and this was a betrayal of everything this community stands for,” said Don Romesburg, organizer for the community group And Castro For All, which filed the complaint. “That’s why it’s so important that we hold them accountable.”
The part I think is interesting is this: the investigation took 10 months, right? Don’t tell me that in that amount of time, word didn’t spread to every fag in the Bay Area about what was going on. And in that case, why didn’t people stop going there? Or protest outside the place? It’s possible that business has, in fact, dropped off; but the article doesn’t say so, and it seems like the sort of thing that would have been mentioned by the reporter. I myself am not recommending ruining people based on hearsay, but boycotts are the sort of showily self-righteous gesture the left seems to specialize in, and, I mean, it’s racism we’re talking about here. What’s more important than that? Any gay club owner who would set racist policies has clearly internalized his own Otherness in the eyes of society and needs to be educated.
Maybe the part of the story not told by the SF Gate article makes things clearer. The SF Badlands website (note prominent black guys in photos) is here, and there is an ad hoc website about the charges of racism here. As someone who lives in a city in which not allowing foreigners, allowing Westerners but not Koreans, or not allowing military guys is a pretty common bar policy, I find all this fascinating.