How Urban Dress Codes Fuel Segregation

How do urban dress codes perpetuate racial and socioeconomic segregation? To find out, look no further than Kansas City, Missouri.

Until this past May, a significant section of the city's revitalized downtown Power & Light District had a strict dress code — and it wasn’t hard to figure out exactly who the rules were aiming to keep out. Among the restrictions: No work boots. No athletic gear (except on game days). And no sleeveless shirts.

The KC Live section of the Power & Light District is managed by a private company, the Baltimore-based developer Cordish Co., which posted the dress code. Does it sound like they had a picture of who is welcome — and who isn’t — in the fancied-up Power and Light district?

Well, the complaints finally piled up, and the company recently announced that it's eased the restrictions on excessively baggy clothing, undershirts, sweatshirts or athletic attire in the district.

The changes are coming just in time, too. Members of the city council were concerned about how charges of racial discrimination would look when the NAACP National Convention comes to town in July. Lawsuits over the dress code are still moving forward, but Cordish says it's settled some complaints with free stuff — like bowling parties. (I wish I could have been in on that phone call: We don't discriminate! We swear! To prove it, here a free bowling party for you and 20 friends. Please ask your friends to wear J. Crew.)

"I didn't think dress codes were an issue until the Power and Light District," Dan Winter, of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and western Missouri, told NPR last year. "You can't put a major attraction like that right next to the center of the African-American community and expect them to feel comfortable restricting what they wear, and only what they wear, really."

We’ve written in this space recently about laws and proposed laws in Missouri, Kentucky, Florida, Brooklyn and elsewhere that criminalize sagging pants — a fashion choice usually associated with urban men and often with African-Americans. Change.org readers have taken action on the issue recently, calling on Florida Sen. Gary Siplin to give up his absurd battle against a harmless fashion choice. (Join them here.)

But the Kansas City controversy shows that actual laws aren't the only tools used to enforce segregation and consolidate power among people who make certain cultural decisions. Like poll taxes and employment practices, it’s not always laws on paper that serve to perpetuate inequality. It can be policies as basic as dress codes that are set by bureaucrats and businesses, while nobody's watching, that keep messages about race and class in place.

It took two years, but congratulations to Kansas City and Cordish Co. for finally ending the quiet discrimination of its downtown dress code.

Photo Credit: Daquella Manera (the photo is from Baltimore, but the rules are similar to those in downtown K.C.)