I am kind of a schlub.
I like to think of the way in which I dress as unkempt. I like tie-dye shirts, and I have hair that is long enough that I could take a nice bit out of it if I wanted to. I even managed to stain a supposedly stain-proof pair of pants.
When I go out on a Saturday night, though, I am treated with the utmost respect by the proprietors of the fine establishments I choose to patronize. A nice, respectful customer should get treated as a nice, respectful customer regardless of what he or she wears. Why should it be any other way?
Jon Okonek, the gentleman who owns Johnny O's, Brothers and Madison Avenue, thinks otherwise. In order to frequent his bars, you have to dress just the right way. Thing is, just the right way has no real basis in any other dress code. Just the right way is whatever Okonek thinks is just the right way.
The dress code Okonek's bars enforce is different from any other dress code in that it just doesn't make sense. It's not formal at all, as wearing a T-shirt and shorts is no problem. It doesn't really have anything to do with respect, as hats are fine just as long as they don't sit on the head at an angle. A patron who didn't follow it wouldn't create any kind of major controversy, unless you count someone saying \Chiefs suck!"" to a Priest Holmes fan who wears his heart on his sleeve.
No, there doesn't seem to be any good reason to ban jerseys and supposedly improper headpieces. The best one Okonek could come up with was, ""What we want to eliminate is a bunch of people coming in here looking like they just came from a basketball game. I don't think you go out on a weekend night in a sweat suit."" Apparently, somewhere along the line people started wearing their $120 authentic jerseys when they lift weights.
The only way this dress code would make any sense was if it truly did keep out all the riffraff. If a customer abides by the dress code, Okonek said, he or she will probably ""behave better and respect the place more."" But on a hopping Saturday night in our fine city, it isn't all that uncommon to see a clean-cut gentleman sporting a white shirt, black slacks and a shiny pair of Doc Martens to go along with his freshly-acquired black eye.
The only people this dress code keeps out is those who choose to wear the clothing it bans. And the people who choose to wear the clothing it bans are, more often than not, African-American. That means this code is racist.
But, asked Okonek, ""How can you be racist against an article of clothing?"" He went on to explain, ""We turn away 100 white people to every one African-American person.""
But that is not the point. Keeping away the clothing he keeps away makes it so many a trendy African-American wouldn't even try to get into the bars in question in the first place. It whitens the place up more effectively than flossing twice every day.
There is no reason Johnny O's, Brothers and Madison Avenue should need to have a dress code in place whose sole purpose seems to be to keep out African Americans. A bar owner has every right to cater to a certain crowd, but an absurd rule that forcibly keeps out people not in that crowd is reprehensible. The fact that such a rule is catered to a specific race makes it that much worse.
The protest in front of Okonek's bars last Friday night gave him a chance to see just how ridiculous his idea truly is. But if he was affected by it in any way, nobody would know. He, along with representatives from his bars, refused to comment to either student newspaper.
If Okonek is going to keep the dress code in place, the least he owes is a decent explanation as to why. Maybe there is some legitimate reason, but nobody will ever know as long as he keeps pointing to the fact that his bars sometimes don't let white people in. As it stands now, he looks like nothing more than a racist bully.
But hey, it's not all bad. As long as anyone wearing a stylish jersey and a do-rag can't get in to Brothers, my Dead Head shirts will get me right to the front of the line.
