One of the first people I spoke to, Jasmine Dotiwala—a producer, writer, and former head of hip-hop and R&B music channel MTV Base—stressed that the prejudices the incident exposed were consistent with a trend she'd noticed with increasing frequency while clubbing in London. "When I was a teenager it was hard to get into clubs if you didn't look cool and edgy, but never due to race," she said. "Nowadays black people just simply accept that if they don't personally know the staff at clubs, they won't get in."As Dotiwala sees it, black clubbers are suffering the rise of a new breed of club on the West End. "The focus of clubs has stopped being music and dancing, and switched to high-rolling banker and city types with their champagne magnums and sparkler fireworks," she told me. This grab for cash has in turn left club owners attempting to target the audiences they perceive as more desirable. "They think that black guests 'scare and intimidate' their other more wealthy, white, city banker types," Dotiwala said.It's a sentiment echoed across all the responses I received. The same themes returned time and time again, in every conversation I had: promoters, DJs, or clubbers—all assured of guestlist—suddenly being unable to gain entry, even if they were involved professionally in the event going on inside."Funny thing is, you get this sense, straight away I know. It's this look that says "I hope you're not coming here cos you're not going to get in"." - DJ Fabio
What these stories demonstrate are the confused and convoluted politics at play in the West End district. As property prices have risen, with the average rental price in London hitting £1500 PCM this year, the communities that called the area home for decades have been slowly pushed further and further out of central London. The wealthier class that have arrived in their place have naturally introduced a new focus for businesses in the area. Catering to the interests of the super-rich, practices that would be deemed reprehensible in other areas of society, continue under the guise of VIP culture.One person I spoke to—who wished to remain anonymous, but who I will refer to as Daniel—has promoted parties and DJed in the West End for a number of years, and has experienced the worst of the area first hand. He recounts a time he arrived at a club with "box fresh Air Jordans and clean jeans," only to be told he couldn't come in because his trainers "weren't good enough." It was as these words were spoken that he describes how an unnamed ex-boyfriend of Kate Moss, who was white, "came out for a smoke with dirty jeans and dirty Converses on."Frustratingly for many entertainment and events professionals like Daniel, these West End clubs are central to their work, meaning any strike against these establishments would be a blow against their own livelihoods. "I've had to fight against myself," he told me. "I'm not violent, but I believe in rights. Yet If I acted on those rights, I'd look like a bully. I can't afford to act on them.""I no longer do any business with central London clubs because this is not a problem with just DSTRKT, it's the vast majority of them." - Fiona, Events Organiser.
After calling Charlotte to negotiate his entry, Fabio alone was allowed inside. He headed down to the basement level main room, watched Charlotte's set, and then left to help his two friends get in. Yet before he could make it up the stairs, he found himself flanked by two of the nightclub's security, who asked him to follow them somewhere quieter in order to discuss something. "They didn't touch me, but they cornered me," he said. "I couldn't walk backwards or forwards. Really intimidating.""I said, "Well, why can't we talk to her?" They said we couldn't and that they had seen something on CCTV. They wanted to talk about it upstairs. I thought, I know the deal here, I haven't done anything, I'll go upstairs and see what you've got to say. They said, "Can we talk outside?" Alright then, I thought, my friends are outside anyway and I really want to hear what you've got to say. I walked outside, and they closed the door. Properly closed the door. I thought, "Oh my God—what are they doing?" I called Charlotte and said, You won't believe what's just happened; I've been thrown out"."Once stood outside, questioning the door staff on their decision, Fabio witnessed a man, claiming to be the owner of DSTRKT, approach the security guards who had thrown him out and whisper something to them. "That's when they turned and said, 'You've been selling drugs'." The nightclub had fabricated allegations right in front of him. At this point, the club owner and the door staff ended the conversation definitively and closed the door. "I was staggered," said Fabio. "Closing the door on me like an animal. It was the most disgraceful act of racism I've ever seen in a nightclub.""They'll take the culture, but not the people." - Daniel, Promoter and DJ.
To move forward, we have to challenge the way our society understands blackness. "We need to celebrate black success and we don't do that enough," Osamor says. "I think if we did that would help combat some of these stereotypes that have created this situation in the first place."Mounting a response, however big or small, certainly seems like the next logical step. While the conversation around it may have died down, the incident at DSTRKT did prove that if discrimination is responded to vocally, then people will listen. It's something that Stormzy certainly feels is the way forward. "What happened at DSTRKT should be a scare for other clubs who do the same thing," he said, "These clubs should be so embarrassed that they can't afford to do it. We should speak out every time it happens, speak out, and expose."As previously mentioned, when I reached out to the nightclubs themselves for response the reaction was largely muted, with most venues—including DSTRKT—declining the opportunity to comment. One club, however, Libertine, did respond with regards to their door policy. Despite the overwhelming collected sentiment about central London nightclubs, they confidently stated the following: "We have an ID scanner and as everybody comes in they have to scan a passport or a driving license. We can categorically state that we do not have a door policy that is based on the colour of people's skin. If you went through the records on our scanner, you would see just how varied our demographic is. We cannot comment on other central London clubs, but we have a fluid door policy that is based mainly on attitude, attire, and an even mix of men and women. If people write in and claim that they feel they were turned away on the basis of their skin colour, we have invited them to the club to peruse our records and see the evidence themselves."Libertine's comment was given to us in good faith, and we have no reason to doubt the club's intentions, but sadly, this isn't an issue that can necessarily be disproven with data. Libertine's assertion that "if people write in" they will be invited to the club suggests accusations of this sort have levelled before, whether or not the club was aware of, or endorsed, the behaviour. The situation presented by everyone who contributed a comment for this article is one of implied—not explicit—discrimination. While a club may appear to have a varied demographic, terms such as "attitude" or "attire" are malleable and easily abused."Clubland needs to address this, the West End needs to fucking wake up." - DJ Fabio
This vagueness is not lost on Mark Field, Conservative MP for Westminster, the constituency in which many of the West End nightclubs mentioned fall. When I presented him with the findings of this article, and asked what, if anything, he felt could be done, he replied: "Unfortunately, however, in spite of MPs legislating against discrimination, it is not an easy task to destroy personal racist attitudes. I hope that no club in my constituency is acting unlawfully and that no customers and visitors to my constituency are made to feel unwelcome or uneasy here." He added: "If any club is discriminating against people on the basis of ethnicity, there is the legal framework in place to challenge that."Grounding a discussion of racism in a discussion of the law, however, can mean trying to parse and quantify something that escapes definition and sometimes, even, observation. Progressive shifts in awareness over the years including what some have termed the discourse of "political correctness" have helped, but these shifts have also allowed systems of discrimination to learn the language of racism, and as such, how best to mask racist behaviour. The racism that occurs in the clubs on the West End falls into this grey area; never obvious or in your face, the discrimination is instead implied, tacit, and out of sight.While the DSTRKT incident was now a few of months ago, as recently as a couple of weeks ago another nightclub in the UK was hit with a similar claim, after a group of black males paid upfront for a table in Bournemouth nightclub Cameo, only to be denied entry as they watched groups of white males enter. As it currently stands, central London is a pocket of the United Kingdom where people of colour feel they are at best unwelcome, and at worst completely ostracised. Beginning a dialogue that promotes alienated voices, and offers them the opportunity to vocalise what this part of London, and what this part of British nightlife, has come to represent, is crucial. Perhaps then, under the spotlight, change can begin.One response to these allegations could be to write off the West End altogether, declare it shallow, seal it up as a lost cause and walk away. Yet this is a symbolic conflict as much as it is a physical one. These clubs are premium spaces in the middle of one of the world's most cosmopolitan cities where, despite all of that, racial identity dictates whether or not you are welcome. A bizarre contradiction continuing in the heart of 21st century Britain.Follow Angus on Twitter"We don't have power in clubs. That's when you need to question where this is coming from, and why you are happy to stand around, be judged. We need to know our history. Don't separate yourself from who you are. You say, no." - Kate Osamor MP.