Indiana

Saturday Night Special

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

I now have a new tradition. The second Saturday night of Indiana Black Expo, I work the door at Nicki Blaine’s Cigar and Martini bar.

I do it to get a feel for the atmosphere and to see what problems occur when thousands of teenagers are unleashed on downtown Indianapolis and what the impact would be. I was pretty harsh in my critique last year, this year was a little different.

First of all, every IMPD officer who worked the event deserves a giant raise in pay. They kept the pedestrian traffic moving, which I think went a long way to keeping the silliness down to a bear minimum. There were some arrests for curfew violation. But there were no shots fired last night to the best of my knowledge and I was out until 2 a.m. Also with the way this week has gone, IMPD exercised great restraint and managed to keep a good sense of humor about the whole evening.

The worst criminal offense I saw was a person (an adult) picked up for weapons possession. There was one incident I saw where a cop told an 11-12 year-old to keep moving and the 4′8” kid tried to get in the 6′4” officer’s face. His little friends held him back and took him away. The Officer just gave the kid that “you are not worth the paperwork of me smacking you so get somewhere!” look.

Now with that said, I do think Expo should do a seminar for teenage girls about self-respect. I saw a lot of girls wearing clothes too sizes too small. I have seen more loin cloth on Indonesian tribal garb. There is no way my 14-year old daughter would be allowed to leave the house looking like she worked in a Vietnamese brothel. But apparently, somebody did. Either that, or the kids left the house with a change of clothes. What’s even worse were how the more “full-figured” gals looked like two pounds of rump roast in a one-pound bag. I agree last night was warm, but walking around half-naked was not the right way to beat the heat.

I think Expo officially has a new mission next year. It’s to end the “clothing optional” portion of that second Saturday night.

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on July 20, 2008 (boomark / email).