Many nightclubs earn a little extra money and begin breeding future consumers by holding “teen nights” on select days each week or month. One of these clubs in our area is Orlando’s Night Club, located in Olathe, Kansas.

A few nights ago, we gave our 15-year-old son permission to go to Orlando’s teen night. One of his friend’s parents were driving them there and back, so we didn’t have to worry about teens driving on the highway. We figured it was something different our kid could do during spring break, especially since our family is staying grounded during the break.

The club’s hours were 7-11Pm, and I asked my son to call when they were headed back. I got a call from him at about 10:15Pm. When I asked him if they were headed home, he told me that he had never gotten into the club at all, and was outside the club with his friend and some other kids waiting for parents to pick them up.

WTF?

Here’s what happened:

My son and his friends arrived at Orlando’s at about 8PM, after getting something to eat. There was a line to get in, and they were separated as they waited to get in. When my son got to the front of the line, he was stopped by a “bouncer,” a big white bald guy with a few earrings in his ears.

“You can’t come in here. Just look at you. You look like you’re in a gang.”

“What? I’m wearing a polo shirt. Isn’t that OK?” In fact, my son was wearing a very nice polo shirt with black, grey and blue stripes, tucked into a nice pair of black jeans, with new white basketball shoes.

“Yeah, well, the sleeves are too long. That’s gang-related.” For real?

Now, my kid is a big boy — 6′5″ and 190 pounds — so he definitely stands out wherever he goes. He also happens to be black, which will definitely make you stand out in Olathe.

My son, it turns out, wasn’t the only young black man in a polo shirt who was being turned away. There were at least 20 of them, and many of them were guys that my son knows from all of his years in sports. A veritable who’s who of athletes from Kansas City Metro area high schools were among the young black men turned away at the door for being dressed like gangstas.

The irony is that the “bouncer” either couldn’t or wouldn’t tell the boys WHAT the dress code actually is, when they asked him. He simply told them that they should know what’s appropriate and what’s not. Of course, his word choice, as reported to me, contained a number of curses at the boys and threats to call the police. At one point, he told my son to get lost and get walking — to which my son pointed out that it would be a little difficult for him to do that since he came all the way from Lawrence, 40 miles away. So the King of the Doorway backed off, and my son and the other kids retreated to a spot where they could visit until their rides came.

Now, while my son was at the door being treated to his first episode of racial profiling, a true coming of age event for young black men in this country, his (also black) friend had gotten in. My son called him to let him know what happened and the friend went back to the door to try to get his money back and go back outside. Needless to say, the club wouldn’t refund his money. After talking again, my son told his friend to go ahead and hang out for a while, since he was outside enjoying the company of the other profilees.

Well, it didn’t take long for my son’s friend to be asked to leave the club, after all. Because his belt was too thick and the buckle was too big. Yup — it was determined by the sharp-eyed security detail at Orlando’s to be a gang-related belt. You’re outta here, homie. And the friend wasn’t the only one kicked out. Another dozen or more young black men who had already paid money to get into the club were then kicked out for a variety of clothing-related issues, without getting their money refunded, of course.

After speaking with my son, I called the club and asked them right off the bat what their dress code is. The employee I spoke with could not or would not give me any dress code guidelines. He only said that clothing has to be appropriate. I asked him point-blank if polo shirts conformed to the dress code. He wouldn’t answer me.

I then described the situation my son had told me about. Instead of listening to my concerns, the guy basically called my son’s honesty into question and told me that they had the right to refuse entry to anyone for any reason. When I told him that the “bouncer” had cursed at kids and tried to make my son walk home, he answered that his doorman would never do such a thing. He also told me that there were police officers who monitor the door and are aware of everyone who gets turned away, and he offered to let me talk to one of them. Well, when I called that bluff, all of a sudden he didn’t want to go get the police officers. At that point, I had to laugh. When I asked several teen witnesses later about this claim that police officers were monitoring the door all night, they told me the only police officers they saw that night arrived after 10PM in response to a fight in the club.

I looked up reviews of Orlando’s after this incident, which is something I should have thought to do before letting my son go there. Several of the most recent reviews I could find online described the exact same racist, profiling tactics that my son described.

Well, here’s my son’s actual profile: he’s an honor student with a 3.5 GPA. He played football and basketball for his school this year, and is now a member of a traveling basketball team in Kansas City. He has been elected to represent his school for the past two years at the Black Leadership Symposium at KU, and is a respresentative on his school’s diversity panel, which is a group that educates community groups about cultural diversity. This is why profiling doesn’t work.

And if my son is the kind of person that Orlando’s can do without, I’d say that we could all do without Orlando’s. At least, I’m very thankful that not a penny of my hard-earned money got spent in there.