London clubs and racism: ‘The West End is a hostile environment’

Allegations of discrimination are rising, including stories of black women being rejected for being ‘too dark’ or charged more than white customers

It is midnight on a warm midsummer’s night in Mayfair, central London. Across wide lanes of traffic – ceaseless, even at this hour – I can just about make out the dark silhouette of Hyde Park’s trees. But it is a dozen plastic-wrapped parking tickets, slapped on a primary-coloured Lamborghini beside me, that I can hear flapping in the breeze.

I am at the Hilton Park Lane hotel, the super-rich heart of the super-rich centre of London. The sports cars are not only symbols of extreme wealth, but of the attitudes that accompany it, that allow the car-owners to treat parking fines as if they were an upmarket meter system.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2lTwbCy