Racism via dress code is not uncommon

Dress codes have long been used as a bullshit method of applying racism. A Portland man is suing a restaurant for just that.

Oregon Live:

An African American man has filed a $500,000 lawsuit against one of the owners of a Pearl District bar, claiming he was prevented from stepping foot inside because he was wearing too many chain necklaces.

Ray Lamont Peterson, 34, claims that was just a pretext for keeping the bar predominantly white.

Petersons lawsuit claims that Chris Lenahan, one of the owners of Splash Bar, would use a radio to tell security staff to start arbitrarily enforcing a dress code against African Americans when he thought the composition of customers was getting too dark at any given time. The suit claims that Lenahan referred to black patrons by using racist terms.

Lenahan has had other problems in Portland. The Root shares more:

Petersons lawsuit has merit, considering Lenahan recently reached an undisclosed settlement with another black man, Sam Thompson, for a similar incident at another one of Lenahans properties, which occurred in May 2017. In that instance, however, Thompson was prohibited from entering due to his attire being mistaken for gang affiliation.

In Portland, theres not a lot of overt racismits not a city where you run around and you get called the n-word, Thompson told Oregon Live. Its more a place where systems and policies are in place that create that divide.

Adding further credence to Petersons claims are the eye-opening depositions that former employees of Lenahan provided in Thompsons lawsuit.