Are anti-hip-hop policies racist?

You might remember that I all but predicted a violent crime wave last year here in St. Louis.

I was walking down the sidewalk trying to get a burrito, and I was forced to cede the center of the sidewalk to a group of young ruffians. It was either that, or kick the shit of them. I probably could take any one of them or maybe as many as two of them at once, but I'm not gonna lie - I'm not as strong as I used to be. Every once in a while, I'll seriously injure myself, and I'm not trying to do anything other than get out of bed in the morning. And getting into a fight over part of a sidewalk would constitute lowering myself to the level of your average dreaded n-word walking the street. If I'm gonna do that, I might as well just buy a UGK album and be done with it. If only there was a way we could just get rid of the dreaded n-words. (Not to be confused with the dreaded n-word itself.)

Fortunately, last summer drew to a close before the situation got too dire. A family of rich cracka-ass crackas got beaten and robbed trying to take the train back from the airport, and a cop was shot and killed while sitting in his car waiting until right before 4:30 to give people those bullshit parking tickets, but that was about the extent of it. Whew! It remains to be seen whether this summer will be as bad as last summer, or if we can get them all to go back to Northwest Plaza or some shit. Are there any stores left there? Maybe we can have it officially declared a playground.

It sounds like Kansas City may have had a similar problem and attempted to solve it through cunning use of dress codes, which is what led to the incident the other day where DJ Jazzy Jeff got kicked out of a club where he was playing a paid set for having the sheer balls to play a rap record.

Perhaps you heard about this, as well. I saw the headline somewhere yesterday, and I didn't think too much of it - I figured Jazzy Jeff may have been contracted to play one of these corporate events, and was specifically instructed not to play any rap music. But then he forgot, because he's getting on in years, and they had to boot him. You know how a lot of these older DJs have been forced to take degrading jobs, just for the money. Biz Markie, for example, played George W. Bush's inauguration, back in '05. I wonder if he was presented with a list of songs to play, or if they just figured he'd know better than to play that song by Lil' Jon where he's talking about skeet-skeeting on a broad.

But it turns out this wasn't any corporate event. It was a club that bills itself as a Top 40 establishment, and as Jeremy Levine pointed out, the Top 40 is filled with rap music. That song where Lil' Jon talks about skeet-skeeting on a broad may have even cracked the top 40. And the song that got Jazzy Jeff booted, as if he was getting tossed out the front door by Uncle Phil on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, wasn't even a rap song per se. It was "Just a Friend" by none other than motherfucking Biz Markie, as can currently be heard in a motherfucking Heineken commercial. (Needless to say, Biz Markie is off the artistic roll call.)

The thing is, the club where this event was held has an exceedingly strict no-hip-hop policy. Its dress code reads as follows: "No White T-Shirts; No Shirts Below Pants Pockets; No Shorts Below Top of Calf; No Exposed Necklaces on Men; No Towels," and it's obvious it was designed to rid the place of dreaded n-words. That last one, in particular, is the dead giveaway. For whatever reason, you do see a lot of these roving packs of dreaded n-words walking around with hand towels. The fuck? That strikes me as some real beta male shit, though I'm sure a few of you will beg to differ. I couldn't even get some of you to admit that a man having more than one or two friends at a time, let alone going to the mall with them, is a little bit soft.

I'm assuming the club didn't used to have such a policy, but then D'Brickashaw and them showed up and fucked things up for everyone. I can't imagine there was too much of a danger in Jazzy Jeff playing a Biz Markie song at this event, which was sponsored by VH1, but you know... slippery slopes. One minute it's a buncha aging cracka-ass crackas singing along to Biz Markie. The next thing you know, the place will get shot up.

What do you fruits think? Are policies like the one at this club racist, or are they necessary to make sure the wrong kind of people don't show up? For what it's worth, I'll go ahead and point out that Jazzy Jeff himself is black.