Victims’ Story

My Recent Troubling Experience of Racism at the Grad Center Bar (GCB)

(content warning: racism on-campus)

This past Thursday (April 7th), I, along with my two friends who are Black and were visiting Brown, were kicked out of the campus’s Grad Center Bar (GCB).

After speaking with friends, I’ve decided to share this experience. Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about how to present the story as well as some accompanying thoughts. Here’s what happened...

My friends and I were waiting in line to get into GCB. Thursdays are pretty busy so the line was fairly long. While waiting, one of my friends and I started messing around and play-fighting (without physical contact) for maybe 5 seconds. The door person then hurriedly approaches us and yells as loud as possible to "Stop it right now!"

We then stop, and I, sensing he thought we were actually fighting, tried to explain that we were just playing. He ignores my friends and I then goes back to letting people in. We as well as other people in line were shocked at the way the door person just spoke to us.

Once we reached the front of the line, the door person lets me and my friends into the bar. After the door person let us in, my friends went to the bar to order drinks, while I turned back to the door person to express my feelings about how he handled the play-fighting situation. In a calm, respectful manner, I expressed how I did not appreciate the way we were spoken to. Instead of engaging in a respectful conversation, the door person then responds in an argumentative, hostile manner, raising his voice and being physically confrontational. He said that my friends and I were disrupting the bar and our play-fighting posed a threat to other people in line (even though other people in line had expressed that they were not threatened by us).

I continued to defend myself from the door person’s escalation and had to force myself to raise my voice in order to be heard. The door person then tells me to leave the bar. When I asked him to explain his reasoning, after giving different explanations, he then says, "I don’t have to give a reason."

At this point, GCB decides to turn on the lights and stop the music playing in the bar, further escalating and calling even more unnecessary attention to the situation. One of the bartenders working that night then approaches to intervene. The bartender, who has served me multiple times, mentions that he knows me, yet he still maintains that I have to leave. My attempts to defend myself to the bartender continued to fall on deaf and increasingly angering ears, and I stopped speaking, quickly realizing that the bartender would only listen to my white/non-black friends in line. I was disarmed of any ability to defend myself, and could only rely on the testimonies of the non-black/white people in the vicinity. At this point, GCB had stationed another bartender nearby to stop me from entering the bar.

After some time passed, GCB then tells my friends to leave the bar as well (even though they had ordered drinks and were not involved with the conflict). We then concede and leave. I was only kicked out of GCB for the night but I will not be coming back. I urge you all to do the same.

Some Additional Notes

When entering the bar, the door person initially didn’t believe I was a GCB member, assuming I and my two friends were all guests.
The bartender asked me if I had been drinking, even though I was sober and had been driving that night.
As per the bartender, it is apparently RI state law that you can be kicked out of a bar without a reason.

Accompanying Thoughts

The reaction to the play-fighting was a manifestation of respectability politics and shows how black people often have to withhold from expression in order to comfort and conform.
My inability to defend myself and defer to the co-sign of non-black/white folks was especially troubling. When black people stand up for themselves respectfully, it is instead interpreted as aggression and even disrespect.
As a fourth-year black student, with significant academic and extracurricular engagement at Brown, it is discouraging to experience this in a Brown University space. My investment in and experience at the school can go unrecognized and erased, revealing the only thing that matters: my blackness.

Follow-Up: GCB’s Response to the Incident

Following the incident, multiple patrons who saw the situation sent witness accounts corroborating the victims’ story to the GCB manager, Susan Yund. Additionally, the patrons asked the manager what actionable steps the bar is taking to amend the situation. The response of GCB to these patrons has been woefully dismissive and inadequate. In their response, GCB does the following:

Completely dismisses the serious nature of the situation and any possible wrong-doing from the door person or the bar
Fails to explain or even address why the door person and the bartenders removed the 3 black patrons, as all 3 patrons were initially granted entry before being subsequently removed
Provides baseless claims to absolve the bar and the door person of any possible prejudice
Extremely exaggerates the potential threat that the 3 black patrons posed to other patrons in the bar
Does not provide any actionable steps to remedy the situation.

GCB’s full response and our annotations and critique of specific components of their response can be found in the Appendix section.

Demands

An apology to the affected students. Official acknowledgment of the mistreatment of the students and the situation in question is an integral step to rectifying the harm committed.
Improvements to GCB’s current commitments to diversity and inclusion. It is absolutely necessary to publicly and strongly assure patrons that they do not have to worry about removal on the basis of identity, be it race, gender, religion, sexuality, ability, or creed. Without a clearly defined policy, there are no protections in place to prevent similar abuses of authority against patrons. In order to achieve this, GCB must publicly release its policies regarding diversity & inclusion and collaborate with organizations and students in order to improve their current policies. As GCB self-describes diversity and inclusion as being “[of] paramount importance,” we look forward to working with management and employees to further their diversity and inclusion efforts.
Indefinite suspension of the door person in question. The actions exhibited by the door person can be viewed, at worst, as racially prejudiced and, at best, woefully unprofessional. The door person has demonstrated a lack of respect for patrons that has affected his fluency in fulfilling his duties. He must be suspended from his role indefinitely for the benefit of the bar and the safety of all patrons.
Further training for all employees involved. Be it internal reprimands, diversity and inclusion training, we demand that all employees involved in the incident face further action in order to improve their workplace environment. Management must also understand and communicate the gravity of their actions to the bouncer and bartenders working at GCB on Thursday, 4/7. This sends the message to all that GCB takes the treatment and security of its patrons seriously.

Appendix

GCB’s Full Response to Last Thursday’s Incident

Thank you for your email. I am aware of the incident to which you are referring. The door person at no point thought that the three young men were in a serious disagreement, but asked them to stop slap-fighting (for lack of a better term, but it was not merely tapping each other on the shoulder) because in the narrow hallway that is the GCB's entrance it can be dangerous if people are moving their arms or elbows around unexpectedly.1 We know this from experience.

I can absolutely assure you that this did not take place because of pre-existing biases and that he would have had the same response had it been any group of people.2 I have been the manager of the gcb for 28 years and can tell you that inclusion and community are and always have been of paramount importance to us.3 This door person takes his job very seriously and has little patience for fooling around in line- this is true, but I have known him for 20 years and can assure you that he would not be with us if I had even an inkling of him having prejudice against any group of people.4

This situation is not as you fear or assume.5 I do appreciate you taking the time to reach out.

Annotations and Critique of GCB’s Response

1 When the victim reached the front of the line and attempted to affirm to the door person that he and his friends were not genuinely fighting, the door person replied, “how was I supposed to know that,” suggesting that he did feel threatened by the students’ actions, despite the harmless nature. Further, the victim’s actions did not cause a serious disruption; the other students in line were not bothered in the slightest, and they did not raise their voices or bump into others as feared.

Most importantly, the light-hearted nature of the victim’s actions did in no way warrant the aggressive manner in which the door person responded.

2 The wildly unproportionate nature of the door person’s response indicates that he did not accurately assess the level of threat before deciding how to intervene. Because he was responding to three Black men, it merits entertaining the notion that his decision to a) perceive their actions as dangerous and b) charge at the men and raise his voice was motivated by or filtered through biases. It is disappointing that the manager rejected this question outright, without working to understand how bias may have informed decision making.

3 What does “inclusion” being of “paramount importance” mean concretely? To build a space of inclusion and community, we believe that the primary step is to validate and create space for the testimony of individuals who saw something they believed to be harmful. This response is an inadequate demonstration of the GCB’s commitment to inclusivity: the manager entirely dismisses the content of Johanna’s email, not even addressing the victim’s exclusion from the bar, nor does she lay out any actionable steps to understanding or amending the situation. We––hoping to truly foster a space for community gathering–– want to hold the GCB accountable for this failure.

4 When the manager is stating that she does not have “even an inkling of [the bouncer] having prejudice,” she is signaling to us that her understanding of his actions are based on her interactions with him alone, and not at all from the community testimonies sent in from this night. As a white woman managing the bar of an incredibly diverse campus, the manager should make tangible efforts to hear out and understand a diverse set of experiences rather than hiring/firing her staff based on her interactions with them alone.

5 The phrasing of this response is wildly dismissive. When we students voice concerns that someone has been harmed, we expect at the very least a response that attempts to deepen understanding. By writing off the entire testimony, when she was not even present at the night of the incident, the manager is perpetuating further harm and creating barriers to a conversation that would benefit the community at large.