The study commissioned after the murder of Levon Jones is complete.
I’m not surprised at the results.

From the T-P:

The Bourbon Street discrimination took three forms, according to the study:

– Black “testers,” or patrons, were charged more than white testers for the same drink, often served by the same bartender minutes apart. This was the most common form of discrimination and occurred in 40 percent of the audited locations.

– Black patrons were advised of drink-minimum rules while white patrons were not. This occurred in 10 percent of the audited sites.

– Black patrons were advised of dress codes while white patrons were not. This occurred in 7 percent of the audited sites.

I don’t condone this behavior but let me serve up a few explanations:

Bourbon Street is for tourists. I worked on that street for several years while in school. The majority of tourists that come to Bourbon act like it’s a magical adult playground and open bar where they are free from the responsibility to treat the people that work on that street with human dignity or respect. If as a tourist, you think the record of how you behave goes away with your morning hangover, think again. That includes your own reputation and your company’s reputation. The last time Microsoft took over New Orleans, they made sure to remind everyone to be on their best behavior like little school children - some execs behavior on Bourbon from a prior conference in New Orleans gave them a bad name. Word spreads quickly among service industry.

Working on Bourbon among the aforementioned crowd makes one an extremely bitter person. The workers take that attitude and pass it on to others, who in turn pass it on where it ends up in the Middle East. They’re extremely cynical people.

Now, take this bitter person and mention the topics of race and Bourbon Street to anyone in the service industry - you’ll be automatically discussing Bayou Classic (the football game held in the Superdome of Grambling and Southern Universities) and Essence Festival - both major majority black festivals. While in my experience Essence seems to bring in a classier crowd than Bayou Classic, any personnel, black or white, on Bourbon will tell you of the discrimination that occurs both ways during each festival. Black waiters and bartenders will earn exponentially more than whites in those same positions. In turn, the service industry discriminates back. During Bayou Classic, anyone on the street will take bets when at least one shooting is going to occur. That doesn’t happen during Mardi Gras, French Quarter Festival, or any other major event downtown. If crime is consistently apparent and people associated with a single race are consistently bad tippers to whites when compared with blacks, you bet there’s going to be some profiling on Bourbon Street. That’s the ugly truth.

I’ll leave you with a personal example that took place about 1AM on the old Claiborne stop on Canal next to State Place Theater. It was during Essence festival, maybe 4 years ago. I got off of work and got in the middle of the line when the bus pulls up. All I wanted to do was go home and fall asleep when I hear someone behind me go, “Damn! That white boy should be in the back of this line! Doesn’t he know what time it is!?” I looked around. I was certainly the only white boy. I was lucky that nothing came of it. I ignored the comments, got on the bus, and made it home. Examples like this leave an impression - I gained a sense of “what time it [was]” in the city. As a “white boy”, it certainly wasn’t mine.

The people and government of New Orleans already knew that this was taking place. They never took any significant action to remedy race relations on Bourbon for so many years. Fining those that close up shop during these festivals as has been done in the past will never lead to progress. The Levon Jones case has turned up the heat on the city to finally take action. They spent some money and were able to quantify the amount of bias on a single street. Now, we have the ultimate test: What will the city do with this data?

In the T-P article, a reference to 12 vague recommendations as a result of the study was cited. I’d like to see a full listing of those recommendations and studies of their feasibility.

The dialogue has begun.

Previously: Are New Orleans Clubs Racist?

Related posts:

1. Bourbon Street during the French Quarter Festival
2. 4am in the morning
3. “inherent bias towards creating what used to be”
4. Walking on Bourbon Street
5. Tourists: Please Don’t Sleep on Our Sidewalks