Cheap Ways to Generate Buzz and Horribly Offend People

The Caledonia Lounge is a venue here in Athens, perhaps best known for its hipster rock, cheap beer, and sticky floors. It's also not really known as being the popular hangout of lots of Black people of certain nights. This is probably why.

Images of minstrelsy to get more people to come to your shows aren't okay. They're just hateful. And no amount of "it's a joke," "you don't understand irony," or any other excuses will make it okay. From the perspective of the Black law student walking around Athens and seeing one of these flyers posted, it's just a reminder that some people don't get the effect that images like these have. It's also a reminder that some of us aren't welcome around here and not just on the frattastic (read: all white and undergrad) side of town. It doesn't make me want to come to your show. It just makes me wonder how many smiling, hip people that I meet in seemingly more diverse and friendly bars like Max Canada, Flicker, the Mercury Lounge, and Little Kings would be perfectly fine if the place looked like General Beauregard's--and hell, may not even notice the shift--but pride themselves on being more aware of their white privilege and the existence of racism than the average '01 graduate of Auburn's Delta Sigma Phi. Remember that scandal?

So thanks for making me feel like a target again, hipsters. 'Cause it's not weird enough going to bars with my friends and having to keep white men's hands out of my afro anyway.

- A bit dated, but Racialicious has a brief write up on "hipster racism", featuring a short segment on everyone's favorite almost-pornagrapher, Dov Charney.
- Another old article from Brainwashed, written in the wake of the
"Kill Whitey" parties of '05.