It was if I had been time traveled back to the segregated 1960’s reading about the scandal over the police Department’s comments over the burning down of the East Austin Midtown nightclub. The inflammatory comments have sparked debate all over the community about giving financial reprieve to the nightclub and has once again re-opened the African-American tirade in this city about having no place to be entertained in Austin. This isn’t the first time I have been compelled to write about blacks being unhappy in this city. In 2002, I responded with “Young, Black and Happy in Austin” to an article where blacks similarly complained that Austin was a place of limited opportunity for young and upcoming black professionals.
Unlike my last piece that took issue with the idea that you cannot be young, black, and happy here, this rebuke of that theory centers around a nightclub that many are calling a “key institution” in the black community. That this nightclub where 129 police calls were made is being defined as a haven and the sole place for black entertainment is a complete disgrace to black culture. And, if it is in fact true that some African-American Austinites feel this way then maybe the onus is on them to change what things they find entertaining.
It is curious and insulting to me that we would be happy to be identified with a rabble-rouser nightclub as our main source of entertainment. Speak for yourselves. Is not the Austin symphony, the world renowned Austin Ballet, or our many theatres where the likes of Herbie Hancock and Winston Marsalis have come to perform entertainment suited for Austin’s black community. Yes, it is and not only is it entertainment for blacks, but for all of us and that is the point – all of us coexisting in life and in living.
Perhaps Midtown was the only “black” club in Austin, but, it certainly was not the only soulful club in this city. You cannot walk down 6th street on a Saturday night without feeling the history and essence of black culture. One only need to walk into 311 club on a Saturday night and hear Joe Valentine and his band reincarnate Gladys Knight’s “Midnight Train to Georgia” and Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.” Then walk down a few blocks and hear Usher’s “Yeah” coming out of the speakers of the young, hip club Paradox.
The great thing about both of these places is that just as you will hear some Lou Rawls or Usher you might also hear some Stevie Ray Vaughn or Coldplay. If some blacks are saying that this is not enough, or, that they cannot share a club with whites, Hispanics, and Asians because they don’t want to be enriched by other cultures as well as their own, then shame on them, not Austin. If a few choose to self-segregate, they only have themselves to blame, not a city that so actively seeks to be diverse that a rapper performs at a rodeo.
There is a human urge in all of us to complain about what we don’t have – this tendency belonging not to any one race of people, but existing in all of us. In the case of blacks in Austin however, it is not only our tendency but has also become our notoriety. Perhaps people who were in the nightclub when it was on fire have a right to complain. Perhaps they should be offended by the insensitive “burn baby burn” remarks of the police officers. And, perhaps the police officers should apologize. And, perhaps the officers should also be reprimanded. But then what? Where will the complaining end for blacks in Austin? And, how can we solve the problem.
The only solution is to let those who complain make the changes. In life, we all have to realize that if we are continually complaining about the same problems without any solution from the outside, then, we must turn inwardly to fix what is ailing us if we truly want the complaining to stop and the problem to be solved. Or, we run the risk of growing so comfortable in our role to complain that we know no other way to exist. Or, we get so dependent on the attention we get every time we complain that we feel it is our only platform with which to engage. And, this is what has to change.