It reminded me a lot of the 2005 Kill Whitey scandal in which the Williamsburg hipster club night whose raison d'etre was to "kill the whiteness inside" by grinding and bumping to Miami Bootybass in some vulgar impression of what black clubs are like. My favourite part is Bianca Casady's (half of hipster favourites CoCoRosie) comments about Kill Whitey being a safe place to be sexual with your friends as there are no scary "hardcore" black men there to touch you up. Nice.
Luckily there was no "Free entry with a bucket of chicken" but there's something odd about a writhing group of poshos dancing to black music, who would probably never step foot in an actual factual black club. I'm not angry about it though, definitely not as angry as I was about Kill Whitey, because once I'd seen it I knew why (also because no one actually said anything that pissed me off), sure dudes called Alfred were dancing to Mr Vegas but there's nothing wrong with that in itself. If they had been saying that the only reason why they were there was because black people are too aggressive and they're scared of getting stabbed it would be a different story. I get that people gravitate to their own crowd, and that's fine but Kill Whitey's 'Tha Pumpsta' needs to appreciate that co-opting exaggerating the worst stereotypes of a race or culture and then refusing to admit that what you're doing could be seen as not funny (at best) or racist (at worst) is what really got my goat all the way back in 20o5 and still does now.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I was there too and I had a great time (until someone stole my phone) I was fully into the music and the sweaty writhing and I don't exactly go to many black clubs. However, this is not because I fear black men but mostly because I like my grime mixed in with a bit of Metronomy and The Whitest Boy Alive.
