Racist Mistakes Black Harvard Students For Gang Bangers

The owner of the Cure Lounge in Boston shut down a party held by black Harvard and Yale students because, according to Jezebel, management of the business located at 246 Tremont St. first feared that "local gang bangers" were in line at the club.

To check this, party organizers and Harvard Business School students Michael Beal and Kwame Owusu-Kesse checked the people in line with great detail, made sure that the party goers were Harvard and Yale graduates or students, and determining that was the case, shared their findings with Cure Lounge management.

But rather than leave the matter alone, Cure Lounge management then said that "local gang bangers" were walking by and trying to get into the club.  Note, even though they had no proof of the claim, Cure Lounge management shut the party down anyway.

According to Above The Law.com, this was shared around the Internet via email:

Multiple people claim they were told: “there are black women in line… who attract black men… which looks bad” for a new club like Cure

What's galling is not just Cure Lounge management, but that  Michael Beal and Kwame Owusu-Kesse are not willing to call an obvious racist, just that.  In an email they write:

However, as a black man, these emotions are trumped by an arduous feeling of sadness that regardless of our crowd representing the pinnacle of academic achievement as Harvard and Yale College alumni, Law, Medical, Business and PhD students, we were perceived as a threat because of our skin color. I am further dismayed that after having spent the last few hours with the club owner, I do not believe him to be a racist; which only adds to my consternation around what this event says about race relations in our country.

"do not believe him to be a racist."

Are they crazy?

The "Young Black White Hope Syndrome"

Michael Beal and Kwame Owusu-Kesse exhibit what this blogger will call the "Young Black White Hope Syndrome," which is that because they're young, and in this case students at Harvard and Yale, they can't possibly be the targets of the same racism their parents and elders faced.  They see themselves as the black white hope for the future.

Welcome to the real World of stupid people in Boston and America. What Beal and Owusu-Kesse were dealing with is called institutional racism, and they'd better learn to see it, or they're going to be negatively impacted by it again and again.

We're in a kind of culture war in America today, with people who aren't racist living next to people who are. The former can't get over their upbringing, and some are just plain mentally messed up; the latter want to think good things about them and everyone else. That's great, but it will really mess up your life if you can't recognize it.

Frankly, no one who's a good person should set foot in a place like Cure Lounge in Boston. What Beal and Owusu-Kesse experienced was just plain racism carried out by racists. Nothing more and nothing less.