racial profiling @ Graham Central Station, Nashville

Tonight, Feb 16 from about 10:30pm to 11:40pm I and a friend stood outside the Graham Central Station club on 2nd Ave Nashville. There we stood on the sidewalk watching as the security arbitrarily enforced a dress code on the people in line. A pattern became obviously apparent. Any black male that did not personally know the security people was approached and told that they needed to check the length of their shirts. Even shirts that a guy would usually wear tucked in was supposed to be pulled out so the security could "measure" its length. If a shirt was close to the black guys ass then they said it was too long and they could not get it. We saw that happen to no less than 10 different black guys. At one point a bald headed security male talking on a microphone playing out of speaking to the outside of the club made a remark like "this is not Crush fellas". Crush being another club a few blocks up the street that mostly caters to black people, usually the type that cannot get into their club. Grand Central usually charges something like $6, Crush charges something like $15, on average; I know having been to each club twice or more on separate occasions.

The main problem is the shirt rule was not applied to the scores of white males entering the club. A few black men got in but they were never alone, they alway had white friends and their clothing usually made it too hard for the rule to be applied to them. But many times black men were denied entrance while a white male ahead or behind them got in wearing basically the same clothing, shoes and shirt styles. I mean black men with clean clothings, clean white sneakers or jeans were not allowed in. At the same time, although there was a rule about jeans could NOT have holes in them, we saw white men walk in with large holes all over their jeans without so much a look.

My friend made a point to point at their sign and tell one of the security men watching the line that certain people, white people, were wearing clothes that violated the posted rules yet were being allowed in. At the same time black men whos clothing were not obvious or blatant violations were being singled out of line and told they could not enter. White men wearing hoodies, ripped jeans and other violations were let in. Only once in that time period did I see a white male refused entrance. These were two white guys whos clothing did not have anything wrong with it but they were obviously high or wasted. On one prior occasion, completely different night, a white guy had a Celtics jersey and was told to take it off. He was allowed to take it off and put his t-shirt he had under it on top of the jersey without even having to leave the line, he got in.

At one point a group of 4 or more black males who were dress reasonably well got into line. All of them were wearing blue jeans in good condition without holes in them and polo type shirts. One of them had his shirt tucked in and was told to pull it out, after that he and his friends were told they could not get it. The black men left and walk up the street toward the Hooters area somewhere. The security continued to single certain black males from entering. But something strange happened. I have to mention that after my friend pointed out the inconsistencies of the sign and the application of the rules to one of the security men some of the other security men moved to stand near us and at one point one of them used a camera phone to flash a picture or just the flash in our direction.
One of the security men who actually told that group of 4 or more nicely dressed black men to get out of line walked up the street toward Hooters were they had walked up too. At that same moment another security guy said aloud "not to let them antagonize you". A few minutes later the security guy returned to the line and a little while later the group of 4 or more black men that were told to get out of line returned to the line, wearing the same clothing they were initially refused entrance in. This time they same 4 or more black males were allowed into the club, wearing the same clothing only some time before they were not allowed into the club with.

At this point I can only guess since I did not witness it directly. But on all the other occasions that night, once you were told to get out of line that was it, you couldn't just try again later. On their posted rules sign it says all decisions are final. So the part I am guessing about is that I think me and my friend standing on the sidewalk watching the security racially profile the black men out of the line and then showing them that their posted rules were being arbitrarily enforced on black men almost exclusively forced the security guy to go back up the street and invite the 4 or more black men back whos clothing weren't really much of violations back into the line for the club. That is something I supposed because that seems pretty odd to be kicked out of line for clothing violations, then without changing any clothing, be called back or just allowed to re-enter the line later wearing the same clothes and face no problems.

They just seemed not to want to allow too many black males into a mostly white club, which has atleast 3 floors with different types of music. For a black man to get into the club he has to be pretty well dressed, or atleast to a point where they cannot quote any posted rule on them, either know the security people personally, or sometime come in with a lot of white friends, but that last case is usually when the black guy is the only black person with a larger group of white friends.