Olympics Prep: Blacks Banned in Beijing Bars

[quote]
Olympics Prep: Blacks Banned in Beijing Bars

(Beijing, China) According to a 7/18 report in the South China Morning Post (sub. req’d), Beijing bars have been instructed by the government not to serve black people.

Beijing authorities are secretly planning to ban black people and others it considers social undesirables from entering the city's bars during the Olympic Games, a move that would contradict the official slogan, "One World, One Dream".

Bar owners near the Workers' Stadium in central Beijing say they have been forced by Public Security Bureau officials to sign pledges agreeing not to let black people enter their premises. "Uniformed Public Security Bureau officers came into the bar recently and told me not to serve black people or Mongolians," said the co-owner of a western-style bar, who asked not to be named. [...]

Security officials are targeting Sanlitun, which Olympic organisers expect to be a key destination for foreign tourists looking for a party during the Games. The pledges that Sanlitun bar owners had been instructed to sign agreed to stop a variety of activities in their establishments, including dancing and serving customers with black skin, they said.

They have been allowed to keep copies of all the pledges except those relating to blacks, implying that the authorities are wary of charges of racism. "I am appalled," said a black British national who works in Beijing. "I understand that the government is trying to stop certain illegal activities, but I don't think blanket discrimination is going about it the right way.[/quote]

Fight the POWER!

No Mongols either:

added edit:

OK, a kind Forumosan told me how to link to a specific post. Here it is:
forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopi … 457#878457

Of course, it may actually not be true.

[quote](Beijing Boyce) Um, really? Update on SCMP story II. July 19, 2008. [Note: This is a blogger who should be commended for conducting fieldwork to confirm the reported information]
I hit some Sanlitun bars last night and made some phone calls today, and this is what I found:

  • An owner said police met with Sanlitun bar reps and told them to monitor black patrons. He said the police told the reps that drug dealers are predominantly black in the area. He said the police did not ask bar owners to ban blacks.
  • Several Sanlitun area bar owners said they had not been told by police to ban blacks or Mongolians.
  • I also spoke to several people in the restaurant business and they told me they have not heard of police telling city eateries to ban people.
  • Most interesting, two people working at one bar had different perspectives on the terminology used by the police. One said the police used “black” in reference to skin color; while the other said it was used in terms of bad elements (the Chinese character for “black” is part of a phrase used to describe criminals).
    The last bit was the most interesting bit. In Chinese, 黑人 (heiren) refers to a person with dark skin. This is a racial descriptor. In Chinese, 黑帮 (heibang) refers to a criminal gang, and 黑帮份子 (heibangfenzi) refers to criminal gang elements (for example, in the Weng’an incident, the authorities talks about ‘criminal gang elements’ misleading the masses and starting a riot). So could this be a case when the police asked the bar owners to look out for 黑帮份子 (heibangfenzi) involved in drug sales, prostitution, extortion, pickpocketing, robbery, etc but this came through (via translation?) to some people as ‘black people’?
    Addendum (from Wild Goose Journal): The confusion around “black people” isn’t necessarily due to translation, it exist even in Chinese: In some parts of China (including Beijing), the word “black people” (黑人) sometimes means
    person or persons without valid residence registration (户口) - include “over-quota” (超标) children who haven’t received an official registration at birth, and all kinds of adult “illegal migrants”.

zonaeuropa.com/200807b.brief.htm#021
[/quote]
My Chinese is not good enough to know if they have a point there.

[quote=“Dr. McCoy”][quote]
Addendum (from Wild Goose Journal): The confusion around “black people” isn’t necessarily due to translation, it exist even in Chinese: In some parts of China (including Beijing), the word “black people” (黑人) sometimes means
person or persons without valid residence registration (户口) - include “over-quota” (超标) children who haven’t received an official registration at birth, and all kinds of adult “illegal migrants”.[/quote]
My Chinese is not good enough to know if they have a point there.[/quote]

So they’re not prejudiced against skin colour, black means illegal people of whatever colour. Well that makes things much better.

cover ups?

all in all, it still sounds like they really are missing out on the olympic spirit. it’s all about the individual, not the country or the nationalistic fervour you can wring out of it. how can the athletes let their hair down after their events, let alone the tourists who make any games so special. don’t forget that it has become really really hard to even get to beijing for the games, and there is no guarantee that the tickets you have bought in good faith will be honoured as there has been rampant forgery already. and Chinese faces will be far more welcome than foreigners in the evnt of a ‘double booking’.

i am also worried about collusion between beijing drug testing labs and coaches or athletes of various nations: i think there will be considerable pressure brought to bear to reveal massive drug cheating among foreign ‘impure’ nations’ atheletes and have a squeaky clean China team (apart from the poor relatives from Chinese Taipei, whether or not they are guilty of anything)

They do. The usages are moreorless the same as in Taiwan, e.g. in Taiwanese media you will come across terms like 黑金 heijin “black gold” = illegal funds and 反黑 fanhei “anti-black” = anti-corruption or anti-gangsterism. It would be good if these terms could be replaced with something else.

…You say based on what?

Right, so … bar owners, tenders, doormen, waiters know on sight who’s an ‘illegal’ person? China’s ‘government’ should hire them to flush out all illegals …

But, so much for China’s Africa policy …

Well if its anything like Taiwan, it shouldn’t be difficult at all to spot at least a few.

What they actually mean then is keep most of the Chinese people out in order to make room for more foreigners, I’m guessing.
That’s if you include forgers, people who deal in copied goods and tax dodgers.

I’m very skeptical that it was a misinterpretation. It’s a well-accepted stereotype that the average black person in a Sanlitun bar has got to be a drug dealer, even when it’s the son of a diplomat.[/url]

I wouldn’t be surprised if that did happen, although I don’t think it will be only blacks bar owners will ban. It may just be an overall foreigner thing.

I’m just a little suspicious of a story that only shows up on right wing blogs. (and Forumosa)

Personally, I really doubt that the police would be so stupid as to ban people of African descent from Beijing bars during the friggin’ Olympics. The alternative explanations must be closer to the truth.

Why not? It’s their country and they can do as they please. Yes, it would be a PR mess, but I hardly doubt much mainstream press will pick up on it unless it has some dramatic story behind it.

Bad folks are described as black-whatever in Chinese. Most of the dealers in that area also happen to be black people. What’s easier for a gang of mouthbreathing peasant thugs?
Watch the area and arrest people acting suspiciously or wade in, arrest all the niggers and sort things out later? I wonder what happened in the case of the diplomat’s son. Any official apologies? Anyone disciplined? Or just an oily grin and a “duibuqi” with perhaps a cash payoff.
Not rocket science. Just yet further evidence of a nation of slimy ignorant fucktards.

Yeah, always a good rule. :laughing:

Yeah…why discuss the message…that takes cognitive ability.

[quote]Africans in Beijing harassed as Olympics approach -
Police forcing bar owners to pledge not to admit blacks, Hong Kong paper reports

GEOFFREY YORK, July 19, 2008

BEIJING – Chinese police officials have forced some Beijing bar owners to sign secret pledges promising to prohibit blacks from entering their bars during the Olympics next month, a Hong Kong newspaper says.

The police denied the report yesterday, and most bars denied any knowledge of the pledges. But many African residents of Beijing say they are facing harassment from police and discrimination from bars as the Olympics approach.

“Bar owners near the Workers Stadium in central Beijing say they have been forced by Public Security Bureau officials to sign pledges agreeing not to let black people enter their premises,” the South China Morning Post reported yesterday.

It quoted the co-owner of a bar who said that a group of police had recently visited his establishment to order it “not to serve black people or Mongolians.”

n the famed Sanlitun bar district of Beijing, some bar owners have been required to sign pledges agreeing to ban a variety of activities, including dancing and serving black customers, the newspaper said.

Africans and Mongolians are often perceived as criminals in Beijing. Until this year, a number of young African men were openly selling drugs in the Sanlitun district, and many Mongolian women were working as prostitutes in the city.

Both groups are among the targets of China’s security crackdown in the lead-up to the Olympics, along with thousands of Tibetans, Uyghurs, migrant workers, petitioners and social activists who are seen as potential troublemakers or protesters.

In a notorious incident last September, dozens of black people were detained by police in a raid on bars in the Sanlitun district.

Witnesses said the police rounded up all the black people they could find, up to three dozen in total, and beat some of them with rubber truncheons.

Grenada’s ambassador to China filed a complaint to the Foreign Ministry, saying that his son suffered a concussion and needed hospital treatment after he was clubbed on the head by police during the raid.

Africans have been coming to Beijing for decades as university students or traders. But many were forced to leave China this year because of new visa restrictions that made it difficult to renew their paperwork.

In interviews yesterday, a number of Africans said they are facing discriminatory rules from Beijing’s bars and nightclubs as the Olympics approach.

A woman from Liberia, who is co-owner of a hair salon in Beijing, said she was outraged when she visited a popular Beijing nightclub and found that the entrance fee for black people was twice as high as for other foreigners.

Even if they managed to enter the club, the black patrons were prohibited from sitting at the tables, she said.

In another incident, she said, an African-owned bar was raided this week by police with dogs, and the customers were required to provide urine samples for drug tests.

“When the police come, you have to run,” she said. “I’ve lived in Holland and the United States and it was never like this. There’s no human rights here. It’s racist and it makes me feel very bad.”

If the police are now ordering bars to prohibit black people from entering, it is highly unfair, she said. “Every race has good people and bad people. You can’t blame all blacks for drugs. If a person is not causing a problem, you shouldn’t bother them.”

Two Nigerian businessmen said they were required to show their passports before being allowed to enter a Beijing nightclub last weekend. Black people who could not produce their passports were barred from entering the club, but other foreigners were not required to show their passports, they said.

“This had never happened before to me,” one of the Nigerians said. “I was very angry. This is racism.”

The Africans spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing more harassment from the police if they are identified. The Nigerians, interviewed at a bar, asked that the bar not be identified because they were worried that it could be raided if the police learned that Africans congregate there.

The Globe & Mail, eh?[/quote]

:astonished:

So was that astonished smiley thing the bit where you pitted your sharp wit and cognitive abilities against the message?

HG

Grenada? Serves them right for breaking off relations with Taiwan. I wonder of their has been a Chinese equivalent of a foreign diplomat being recalled for giving a local girl VD (as with the Paraguayan diplomat story in Taiwan a few years back).

I guess that repeating the message often enough makes it true for some, nevermind that the report is 3 days old.