I live in Austin, came of age there and despite having a lot of Friends in Houston, I didn't really start trying to hit up the nightlife there till I was well o

I live in Austin, came of age there and despite having a lot of Friends in Houston, I didn't really start trying to hit up the nightlife there till I was well out of college. Even then I didn't actually have any problems till I started trying to get into the bars and clubs that were more ... shall we say ... "white" (close to Rice, Washington Ave etc) I point out being from Austin, because over here, clubs don't even charge cover, you just walk in and out of whatever club or bar you want. So going to Houston, it took me a while to realize that all the time we spent waiting in line, or that getting turned away from clubs for having "torn jeans" or jeans that were too baggy was actually racist nonsense. In one particular incident I will never forget, my buddy and I were trying to get into a club called Drake, when it first opened (its now a "black" club, which is pretty ironic) but at the time we showed up pretty early (by Texas standards) ie about 11pm so that we could avoid any hassles with the bouncer ... but we got told to wait ... so we waited ... and waited and waited ... People would line up behind us, and then after about 10 minutes, disappear, and then they'd get into a "VIP" line and be whisked in. It was a fairly upscale crowd, and we were still young-ish so we just figured we just didn't have the pull those people did, one particular girl and her posse came in chatted with us and got in through VIP (this is significant for later) ... After waiting about an hour, we decided to leave so we could get in elsewhere before we blew the night (clubs close at 2am) ... on our way out, we bumped into the "friendly" girl who was also leaving after being in there for about 15 minutes ... and after a few pleasantries she asked us why it had taken that long for us to leave ... we looked at each other for a bit, confused and then she said "you really didn't know they don't let black people in that club?" She was white. So yeah, I don't party in Houston, or if I do, I stick to "black clubs". Its a shame really, but I know Houston pretty well and I think the explanation for this (apart from good ol' fashioned Texas racism) is that its so big. Its easy to find people like you there, so people form groups and simply don't mix, which makes more sense once you factor in the racism. In Austin for example, the same dynamics are there, but everybody just has to party together because its so small ... but as the population has grown bigger, racist incidents have been on the uptick. As in ... an Asian lady called me and another lady friend of mine the n-word to our faces just a few weeks ago (we were literally just standing around ordering food, and she stumbled up to the food-truck half-drunk, spotted us and went "uh oh ... ns" ... I kid you not). That hasn't happened to me in Austin in almost 10 years ... I think Thats just how Texas is, which is a fucking shame.