Here they go again…
Don’t look now but Power & Light District operator Cordish is back in the soup with the African American community. Not Kansas City’s mind you – at this exact moment anyway – but Louisville, Kentucky’s.
“Black leaders concerned over Osborne arrest at Fourth Street Live,” reads yesterday’s headline in Louisville’s Business First publication.
“A number of African-American lawmakers have expressed concern about a potential ‘pattern of discrimination’ at Fourth Street Live after former University of Louisville basketball star Jason Osborne was arrested there Sunday night,” the story says
While the accounts of Osborne’s arrest vary in detail, the most complete was given to WFPL 89.3 FM by State Rep. Reginald Meeks of Louisville who told the station “that the altercation stemmed from Osborne’s female companion, 32-year-old Jacquelynn Russell (an excutive with Humana Vitality) leaving Sully’s to bring in a white female friend. According to Meeks, security allowed the white female to enter but denied Russell from coming back in the club.”
Osborne interceded and according to his lawyer found himself face down on the ground before he knew what hit him.
Fourth Street Live general manager Jim Layson said in a statement that, “There was no altercation whatsoever between Fourth Street Live! security and the individual; the police determined the individual needed to leave the premises, escorted the individual off-property, and ultimately arrested the individual.”
WFPL counters that the police report contradicts Layson’s statement, saying Osborne was “involved in altercation with 4th St. Live security staff after being kicked out of Sully’s bar,” and adding “officers were asked to remove him from premises.”
WFPL also reports that, “Since Fourth Street Live opened in 2004, several people have made allegations of racial discrimination at the entertainment district’s nightclubs.”
“All of us have received complaints of perceived harassment and disrespect at Fourth Street Live,” added Louisville state Rep. Darryl Owens. “I might go down for lunch during the day, but I don’t go down there after 5 o’clock. You run a risk. The record is clear and my mama told me where there’s smoke there is fire. There’s a whole lot of smoke coming out of Fourth Street Live as it relates to African-Americans.”
There’s been similar smoke in KC since Cordish’s Power & Light District opened five years back.
The most recent coming from operators of the KC Strip feeling that the P&L’s unhappiness over African Americans being dropped off there may have lead to the entertainment district’s severing it’s ties with the trolly service, resulting in the Strip having to close its doors.
The one rule to remember here is: Never believe anything a black person has to say when they are ganging up against whitey. It is a game without rules and they will do anything to ‘win’. Don’t believe a word of it.
Ohh look the black basketball player is running to his black state rep (who reps a majority black district) to file a report with WFPL with supporting quotes by black state Rep. Darryl Owens.
Well…
It’s not like Cordish’s petticoats are ultra clean in this regard. And don’t forget the trolly dudes are 100 percent white and they didn’t go running to anybody.
Cordish didn’t remove him from the club, the bouncers and the police did.
For a white person getting in a misunderstanding with a club and getting kicked out over something real or imagined is just something you shrug your shoulders at and walk on down the road.
For a black person it is time to call in the racial cavalry. They are very good at this game, and they know who is sympathic and won’t question their story—notice the 89.3 designation meaning this is L-ville public radio (probably school run). Not exactly home to the hard hitting, uncomfortable questions, right?
Univ. of Louisville is also home to one of the harshest “speech codes” in the nation. So if this host wanted to ask them difficult questions about racial accusations and their own personal conduct they would be prohibited from any speech that ‘alarms or intimidates’ a listener.
Call in the black crusaders quick!!
I am sure there is another side to this story than what is being offered up here.
The spokesman for the Cordish owned and operated development CLAIMED the police did. But the police record shows that they were asked to by employees that Cordish spokesman represented.
So you’re wrong on that point, wild man.
Nice try and differentiating white people from black people. White folks get wrongly shafted and we just shrug it off and go on down the road.
Wrong! Do you ever get out? You’re saying that white people are pussies. Seriously?
Once you are asked to leave an establishment and you do not comply it is trespassing. I fail to see why the discrepencies in the police report vs. the PR guy statement means that DIS RAYCIST.
White people are pussified but that is a post for another day.
White people totally are pussies.
When I bounced back in the day on weekends or other busy nights we would have off-duty cops working security with us so the assertion that ‘police’ decided to remove him from the premises may not be that far off.
Like I said there is usually more to these stories than what makes copy.
Agree, but since the police report says the Cordish biz asked them to remove the dude and the Cordish spokesman says the opposite, who are you gonna believe?
Cops or flack man, tough choice.
Neither?
expat +1
Not many of the white eople I’ve seen duking it out with cops and bouncers in Westport and beyond. Speak for yourself!
Are you tellin me ya got thunder in both hands?
Or are you telling me you dissagree with my generalization?
I think your anecdotal sample size “Westport and beyond” is the high water mark for most white boy violence in KC. If we include the many biker bars and red neck joints we read about, they still PALE in comparrison to the Hip/Hop joints all over America where bodies are stacked like firewood in the aftermath of astonishing and lethal violence.
Sheesh, in ONE weekend in Chicago last summer, over 50 people were shot and 12 were killed.
When it comes to violence, white boys are a distant third or fourth in the ethnic, violent sweepstakes.
JMO.
All you have to do is tell a white person dat’s raycisss and they’ll fall over backwards trying to make amends.
I got kicked out of a popular local establishment a few years ago because I calmly told a bartender that the nachos that just arrived at my table were ice cold and disgusting. I surely thought they were unreasonable. I was making a typical complaint. But I could tell by their tone that they were serious… and as a late 30 something father of three.. I decided to leave immediately without another word. Maybe I am a wimp… but I also spent the evening at home and not the Jackson County Jail. Louisville is a great town and blacks and whites have coexisted there for a very long time. What I do know is that a lot of “corporate” types of places are hyper sensitive and they don’t want anyone making any kind of scene about anything. I just do not think these incidents are racial, but the product of hyper sensitivity in the quest to have the “incident free and safe” business.
I have also found that the “cool and trendy” places are usually filled with young and inexperienced staff members on a power trip. One little snarky comment can escalate to handcuffs very quickly. You can avoid places like that if you want to. There are places that have a higher threshold for a little BS.
I keep a file on my computer for comments like this: it’s called stuffthatdidnthappen.txt