The Pop Star and the Politician

For those of you who know me, I don’t listen to pop music, hip hop/R&B, or anything really mainstream for that matter; I prefer classical music and classic rock, with some very obscure sub-genres thrown in there and whatnot.  Therefore, I’m not sure what’s more surprising: me discussing Lady Gaga, or the fact that she actually made the (serious) headlines for an exchange she happened to have with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Twitter this week.

Apparently, the senior Senator from Nevada and the world-famous singer had a Twitter conversation about the effort to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the policy barring gays and lesbians from serving in the military, unless they keep their sexual orientation a secret.  According to Mediaite, after Lady Gaga tweeted her followers to “Repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.  Call Harry Reid to Schedule Senate Vote”, Senator Reid responded, announcing that there would, indeed, be a Senate vote on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell next week.  Mediaite then goes on to speculate whether this is Senator Reid’s attempt to portray himself as in tune with my generation in an election year, but I think that while there might be something to that, it’s not the only reason for the exchange.

Having spoken to a few of my friends who are more in tune with pop culture, it seems Lady Gaga is a fairly vocal advocate on LGBT issues.  The beauty of Twitter, of course, is that anyone can talk to a given celebrity or important public figure, and anything can happen to strike a chord and enter the cultural zeitgeist at any given time.  That seems to have happened to Lady Gaga’s exchange with the Majority Leader; in the days since, other Senators have been in contact with Lady Gaga and the issue seems to be gaining steam ahead of the vote.

In Defense of The Constitution

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard of the Cordoba House, the name of the proposed mosque and community center near Ground Zero.  What began as a simple local zoning matter became the latest flash point in our post-9/11 society almost overnight.  What’s striking to me isn’t the fact that some religious organization wants to build a house of worship near the site of the greatest tragedy in recent American history, but rather I’m shocked by the nationwide reaction to the proposal.  Then again, I suppose I should have seen this coming.  Ever since 9/11, American Muslims have been demonized to the point where we’ve alienated the very community that could prove instrumental in stopping the next 9/11.  This point has been hammered by many more-influential voices than mine over the years, but it just keeps getting worse.

Now, we’re at the point where we are compromising our own core values as Americans just out of fear of something different.  What really strikes me as hypocritical is that most of the inflamed rhetoric is coming from the conservatives – people who, at least in theory, should be supporting the mosque as a defense of the Constitution.  After all, anyone who knows even one fact about the Constitution knows about the First Amendment.  Culturally, we have come to view the First Amendment solely in terms of freedom to say whatever the heck we want to say.  However, there’s another piece to it; here’s the complete text of the First Amendment from the National Archives (emphasis mine):

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” – Amendment I, United States Constitution

Technically, yes, the text of the Amendment refers to Congress, however nearly 220 years of legal decisions and Congressional legislation have extended the protection of religion to apply to all parts of American society.  That fact alone makes this even more surprising: according to the New York Times, New York State Governor David Patterson has offered to pay the institute behind this controversial cultural center to move to state-owned land.  Not only is this a cowardly move by Gov. Patterson, but it is also blatantly unconstitutional!

A Conclusion to the Mother’s Bar Controversy

Well, watching this whole scandal play out has been interesting, and it has done great things for starting a dialogue about racism and discrimination here on campus, but alas all things must come to an end.  Today, it was announced that Original Mother’s Nightclub had accepted the terms of the settlement offered by the Senior Class, and that there would be no lawsuit filed.  As the poll accompanying the Student Life article shows, there are disagreements as to whether the settlement will actually work.  Call it what you wish, but I for one am hopeful.  However, there are still some doubts I have, which only time will resolve.

First, the details of the settlement.  By now, I am sure most if not all of you are aware of the facts behind the original dispute.  If you need a refresher, you can check out the primer I wrote on it here.  The settlement reflects several of the proposals brought up at Monday’s town hall meeting on the issue.  Specifically, the settlement asks that Mother’s issues a public apology to the class, and a private one to the students involved.  In addition, the settlement requires that Mother’s holds charity fundraisers in Chicago and here in St. Louis, with the students selecting the beneficiary; Mother’s management will also have to undergo diversity training.  The point that is most interesting to me, though is the “massive demonstration” against discrimination which the students will be sponsoring in Chicago, and Mother’s employees will be required to take part.

I have hope for this agreement, but there are still some concerns I have.  Chief among them, I wonder just how effective the diversity training will be.  Being only a college freshman with limited real-world experience, I have no first-hand knowledge of how things like this work in the “real world,” however from watching administrators in my high school try to start a dialogue on diversity, as well as media accounts of incidents similar to this one, I am somewhat skeptical.  Further, it seems that the settlement was accepted with little thought on the part of the bar.  I am all for the bar accepting the terms of this settlement, but it just seems like it happened too fast; I wonder if they truly are committed to it, or if the senior class got played.  Fortunately, my doubts on the second point are reduced somewhat, since the settlement also stipulates that the government investigations will continue.  Of course, there is always the specter of a lawsuit if the bar fails to follow through.

As fast as it happened, I am sure everyone involved is glad it is over.  I tend to think the largest factor in the quick acquiescence by the bar was all the negative publicity, and honestly, who wouldn’t want that behind them.  Okay, aside from the journalists, I mean.  In addition, I am sure the seniors are hard at work finishing up papers, applying to graduate school, etc, and the conclusion of this is likely just as much of a relief to them.  Whatever happens, I just hope that the end of the Mother’s controversy does not mean the end of the dialogue about racism and discrimination.  As senior class president Fernando Cutz says in the print version of Student Life today, “…our country has certainly come a long way.  But…there’s still a long way to go.”  In fact, details are emerging of yet another incident of possible discrimination in California, as reported by CNN.  Hopefully, this is not the end, but rather the beginning of something this country needs more of: a serious dialogue about the state of discrimination and racism in modern society.

The Latest On the Mother’s Bar Incident

Earlier today, I wrote a post about the incident at a Chicago nightclub around a week ago when six African American students were denied entry to the bar for what appears to be racism.  More details of the specific incident could be found in my post from earlier.  The reason for this late post, however, is the fact that there was a town hall meeting to discuss the next steps we should take as a community.  The student-run newspaper, Student Life, was liveblogging it from the event, and you can get all the important minutia in their post.  However, as you have come to expect from me if you’ve been reading over the last month, I will provide some of the more important points along with commentary.  Unlike most of the other posts I have written, nearly all of this post comes from my personal notes on the meeting.

Fernando Cutz, the President of the Senior Class Council, and apparently now the point-man on this whole issue, got up in front of everyone at the meeting to update the assembled students, faculty, community members, and media on what has happened since the latest Student Life update this morning.  This is almost a perfect case study in our wonderful 24-hour news cycle.  First, he responded to Internet criticism that the students should have staged an immediate walkout.  I can certainly see the appeal of the walkout, but as Mr. Cutz told the audience, “students inside were largely unaware of the goings-on outside until much later, and a walkout would have escalated the situation prematurely.”

As has been painstakingly obvious over the last week, the student body is united around the victims in this case.  However, Mr. Cutz also told us that the FBI has launched an investigation into the club, and a local Congressman whose district covers part of campus, Representative William Clay, will send a letter to the FBI asking them to expedite their investigation in the morning.

Around this time, the moderators open the floor to a controlled discussion about what to do going forward.  Discussion was spurred on by Mr. Cutz when he announced that Original Mother’s Nightclub’s attorneys had been in contact and asked what we would want from them to avert the media storm.  The crowd seemed to reach a consensus on a few ideas with some variations:

• A public apology from the bar
• Retraining the management/employees on how to be more politically correct
• Fire the management, since there is a track record of discrimination at this establishment
• Another, larger protest involving more of our student body and people from other campuses

What particularly struck me as a great idea, however, was the idea of asking for a refund of all the money spent on the trip to the bar by the group and setting up a scholarship in honor of the victims to encourage social justice and advocacy studies at Washington University.  In my opinion, this is the best option, though ideally it would be done in conjunction with some of the other ideas.  It would be a signal to the world that not only are we fighting against this particular instance of racism, we are committed to an ongoing fight against discrimination in general.

However, if action is going to be taken against the management of the bar, they should be fired, since this is not an isolated incident at this particular bar.  Another option that piqued my interest is the idea of placing a written anti-discrimination policy in a space where patrons could view it, with phone numbers or a website where they could report violations.  We already do it for the employees under the various laws that cover discrimination in the workplace, so why not extend that to the patrons?  Whichever way this goes,  it is definitely not going to stop because the lawyers asked us to.  If there was one thing I noticed in the forum, it was how the vast majority of people in the room agreed that we should not simply roll over and appease the lawyers.  If this goes far, we will be in exciting times here in the Midwest, that is for sure.

On Racism

Disclaimer:  I attend the same university as the students involved in this story.  However, I do not personally know any of them, nor was I present on the trip.

Ever since word of the incident at Original Mother’s bar in Chicago came back to campus last week, I’ve wanted to write about it.  With the town hall forum tonight and the story of the incident reaching CNN, I felt this was the time to finally sit down and do it.

For those of you who have not heard about this story yet, in addition to the CNN article, here is what our student newspaper, Student Life, says about the incident.  Now, I wasn’t there for this, but essentially the Senior Class at Washington University in St. Louis took a trip to Chicago during the three-day weekend we got for our Fall Break.  One of the events on the calendar was a trip to this club; about 200 students were admitted to the club that night, but six African-American students who were on the trip were denied entry, the bouncer claiming that their pants violated the “no baggy jeans” policy.  Then things got interesting.  One of the black students changed jeans with a white student who had been admitted; the white student was shorter, and the jeans looked even baggier on him, but he was still admitted and the black student denied entry.

The fact of the matter is, the management and employees of the club were discriminating against these students.  If any further evidence is necessary, consider this, written in the CNN article linked above: “a representative of the bar told the Chicago Tribune that ‘security concerns, not racism, guided the decision.’”  What about the dress policy?  Are they changing their story on us?  What is the truth?

Gangs are a major problem facing most urban areas, and a policy to protect against a gang conflict at or near an establishment is within a property owner’s rights, however this is just plain ridiculous.  They could just as easily do a search of every patron entering, or even easier, have them walk through a metal detector.  I know that destroys the ambiance, but if you have security concerns, a concession can certainly be made.  The stately museums in Washington, D.C. certainly made a concession in the name of security, and metal detectors arguably take more from their decor than they would from a random bar or nightclub in an urban area.

In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, which bans all sorts of discrimination in public places.  While the argument could be made that Mother’s is a private establishment and should therefore be allowed to choose its clients under the Thirteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court case Heart of Atlanta Motel v. U.S. in 1964 effectively shut down that particular angle.  In fact, if this goes to court, I would almost expect them to cite this precedent in their decision.  The fact of the matter is, there is no place in 2009 for an establishment such as Mother’s to be discriminating against anyone.  The students in question appear to have been doing nothing other than enjoy their Senior Class trip.  If they had been overtly threatening or suspicious, it would be a different story.  However, it is what it is, and it encourages me that my fellow students are doing something about it.