Anti-discrimination regional project for Brussels nightlife
While nightlife is a key component of Brussels’ social, cultural and economic ecosystem, contributing significantly to social cohesion, cultural diversity and citizens’ well-being, it reflects broader societal dynamics, including structural inequality and discrimination. Experiences of racism and unequal treatment in these environments are often insufficiently documented, partly due to the normalization of certain behaviors and the lack of dedicated reporting mechanisms. That's what we tried to do in 2024 with this project.
Our Contribution
The objectives
To address the need for evidence-based, sector specific response against racism, we started in 2024 a project to prevent racism and discrimination in nightlife contexts.
The project was structured around two complementary strategic objectives, to support public policies on equality and non-discrimination:
- Strengthening the knowledge base related to discrimination in nightlife spaces, in order to inform public action and sectoral practices
- Translating the findings of the situational analysis into tools capable of supporting professionals and informing the public.
Key data
We contributed in the visit.brussels survey on the perceptions of nightlife users, conducted between June and October 2023 with more than 2,200 respondents, sought, among other things, to highlight the forms of discrimination, harassment, or assault experienced (as victims or witnesses) during a night out, showing that still a significant part of the Brussels population experience racism, mainly under the form of refusal of admission.
The awareness video
In collaboration with Fatsabbats, and through the involvement of racialized nightlife patrons and workers, a set of 3 videos grounded in live experience was developed with the aim to:
- Promote equal access to nightlife and leisure spaces
- Increase awareness of everyday discriminatory mechanisms
Support professionals in identifying and questioning informal practices
- Encourage a shared responsibility approach across the sector
The videos are accessible on our website and instagram page. The aim of the video was to deconstruct the universalism of “I don't see color” / “we are all equal” and the supposed equality of treatment, as everyone is shaped by prejudices, and the list of situations cited in the videos reflects conscious or unconscious thoughts encountered among a panel of people, including daily humiliations at the intersection of different forms of oppression (racism/sexism/homophobia, etc.).