I’m on my 2nd post of the year and I think I’m on a roll!

So, over the past two days the weather in Houston has been warm for me and I could honestly say that it is making me completely forget the frigid cold weather of the North. My body is not reacting to it well and my thought process has been completely off. Take today for example, where like every day when I don’t get a good night sleep, I wake up and go on autopilot with my morning routine which may include a shower but always allows time to brush my teeth. Knowing in my head that its January and associating brick cold weather outside, I layered up assuming that I am about to get a rude awakening by the brisk cold air once I step out my door. But instead of the refreshing cool air that I always expect, I was met with the humid heat, which was a bit of a combination of last night garbage collection and the damp air produced from the overnight rainfall. It has been a steady 65° over the past couple days but the high lows that the weatherman predicts just shows me that any moron with a ‘made for TV’ voice can do their job. Today is supposed to be a high/low of 71°/35° and I’m out with three layers of clothes bracing for cold when people are around walking in shorts. But it’s all a part of living in the south. This brings me to an article I read in the Houston Press that really got me really feeling the racial divide here in the South.

Hudson Lounge - Houston Press

Hudson Lounge - Culture Map

(I will try to minimize my use of SUPPOSEDLY as much as I can) To sum the story up as best as I can, a group of affluent African American professionals threw a private party at the Hudson Lounge, which is supposedly the new hip place to go to for the young, rich, and the ones with the most plastic (surgery that is). Everything was planned and meetings were set well before the scheduled party but on the night of the party, the owner shows up at and takes one look at the crowd and orders his general manager to close down the bar, supposedly because there was way above capacity. But conflicting reports show that rather than the amount of people that were in attendance it was what caught the owner’s eyes, and in this case, which was the color of skin of the attendees. The reason why I wanted to bring this topic up is that this seems to be an underlying issue here in Houston, one of the most diverse cities in the US. There is an unspoken racist agreement amongst many of the posh clubs and bars, specifically in this area of Houston known as Rice Village, and it is embedded into Houston’s nightlife. I don’t want to say that it’s at every club/bar/lounge in the city but since I have been here, there has been way too many talks about how this club is for this race and that club is for that race. I encountered a similar situation at a bar in the same area as Hudson Lounge. I was with a diverse group of people and was basically told that we were not welcome there. I mean I wasn't trying to cause a large commotion, but I did let the bouncer know what I thought about his selection of people, but it always seems like it’s a losing battle. Going club/bar hopping down here, I realized that there were places associated to just one set of race and that mixing and mingling isn't welcome unless you really know people. Being from NY, I was accustomed to being around a diverse crowd and go to parties that reflected it so. Coming here I have never felt more placed within a specific race. It’s crazy that even in 2011, bigotry may not be as visible and out in the open as it once was before, but it still remains a prevalent topic of discussion.