Black Harvard alums claim Boston club shut down rather than let them celebrate the Game

Well, this is what happens when the city is going after establishments left and right for what random patrons are doing. The political grandstanding and threats to revoke licenses are going to have this effect.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't for the clubs.

Maybe the community should work on getting rid of that specific bad element instead of getting into an uproar about the fallout.

When the time has come that people have almost accepted that "gang bangers" are there and do what they do and there's nothing that can be done to stop it, it's not fair to persecute the people trying to protect their establishment from that bad element. Get rid of the "gang bangers" and your problem won't be there anymore

It's really not that difficult to understand, but the real solution would take effort that no-one seems to want to put in.

I've got to give the club a little benefit of the doubt.
The trouble that can start in seconds on that corner is hard to believe if you haven't seen it.

I'm not saying the decision was RIGHT.
The unfortunate fact is that there's a real possibility of serious trouble breaking out when you deny certain people who are not invited but want to get into that party.

Certain people who sometimes start shooting randomly when aggrieved.

Believe me, I know what this looks like in print, but rest assured I'm no racist and won't be arguing with anyone online.

I can't recall the particulars but there was a recent case at a nearby club where people not allowed in became quite violent. This is a real concern for these club owner.

Many folks criticize the full body scanners at airports as security theatre. The argument is that knowledge about passengers is more effective in preventing terrorists. What is that knowledge? Without coming out and saying it the knowledge comes down to developing profiles of terrorists and paying close attention to anyone fitting that profile.

In other words applying prejudice toward anyone fitting the profile - except that it is prejudice justified on the theory that this prevents terrorist violence.

Sounds like the management applied the same logic.

Of course it is wrong.

But is also emphasizes the level of fear that exists when a commercial business will risk accusations of racism in order to prevent what they perceive to be as an attraction for violence. Just as much about racism this is about immediate fear.

Racism that I have encountered for over fifty years is based less on immediate fear and more on having someone to blame and frankly to hate. The racism of white against black that I know derives its fuel from a need to hate. Same as Nazis and neo-Nazis againts Jews and Fudamentalists (especially folks like the Phelps clan) against Gays. This is not to argue that other forms of expressing racism does not exist - the Henry Gates incident proves that. This is to argue that painting the incident in absolutes avoids dealing with the harder questions about fear and terror that exists below, and often above the surface, for the average person in Boston.

That fear is something that most of us can share - whether black, brown, yellow or white. The 70 murders this year, the number of non-fatal shootings, the gang violence where toddlers and other "civilians" are killed or other gangbangers are killed in public places like pizza parlors, are creating an environment of domestic terror in our own city.

The right or wrong of the management at this lounge is less significant than the perception that they had to take drastic actions to protect themselves from the perception of probable violence.