The disadvantages of being black at a nightclub are numerous. On a hiphop night, patrons face pat-downs at the door, metal detectors, and drinks served in plastic cups. While such measures may hinder the mood, a brother out in search of a good time does have one distinct advantage over his honky brethren: Underage brothers can generally use anybody’s ID at the door as long as the ID’s photo is of a black person of similar gender. White bouncers are not afraid of blacks, they are petrified of them, and therefore they’ll avoid confrontation by any means necessary–which often means that an underage brother can coast in the door with an ID that is obviously not his own.
In exploring this phenomenon, I interviewed four former bouncers–three were white, one was black–and asked them why I could patronize clubs carrying the driver’s license of, say, the conspicuously deceased Malcolm X and not be turned away. By and large, all four feared having the Christ beat out of them by angry underage patrons. Simply put, there is more pressure for a favorable result when a brother hands over his ID, which creates an entertaining dissimilarity between drinking while black, and other “while blacks”–such as “driving while black” or “boning the sheriff’s daughter while black.” You see, when a brother offers his ID to a bouncer, it is one of the few times in life when the violent stereotype that follows every young black male actually works to his advantage.