Yesterday we reported that Honey Davenport, a drag queen who performs at the Monster gay bar, an iconic nightclub in NYC’s Greenwich Village, walked out on Saturday night after revealing that she had seen a text exchange in which the bar manager Italo Lopez had told DJ/producer Mitch Ferrino to revise flyers he had produced for the club’s party “Manster” because it looked like they were promoting “black night” and that would be bad for business.
The Monster has released a statement saying that Lopez resigned and that employees would be undergoing racial sensitivity training.
Wrote owner Charlie Rice on behalf of the bar, on Facebook: “We are deeply upset as to how the language used in the recent text messages that came to light on social media miscommunicates our strong belief in community and diversity. We at The Monster are not going to make excuses. Rather, we are using this as an opportunity to learn and to ensure it doesn’t happen again. When any member of our staff does or says something insensitive, we know it reflects on all of us. For that reason, I am requiring all of our staff to partake in racial sensitivity training. After seeing vulnerable communities mistreated and addressed publicly that past few years, we know that sweeping it under the rug is not the answer. Facing it head on, using it as a teaching moment, admitting mistakes and encouraging growth is the way to progress. This week we will schedule an anti-bias training course for our staff to put us back on the right path.”
Added Rice: “As members of the LGBTQ community, we know it is often those who love us most who say something stupid, out of ignorance without thinking of how it will affect us. We are going to use those personal experiences to grow upon with relating to all minorities.”
Rice vowed that the bar would be more thoughtful about its advertising in the future: “I can’t take away any of the negative feelings you may have about us as a result of this situation, but I can promise that it does not represent us in the past, present or future. We will use this experience to grow and ensure our words, our behavior and our advertising represent us all.”
