Just mention New Orleans and festive images of the French Quarter immediately come to mind. Beneath that veneer, however, lies plain, old-fashioned discrimination, now disguised as Jim Crow, Esquire.

New Year’s Eve, one of the most festive times in America’s most festive city, should have alerted New Orleans officials that there was a problem. Levon Jones, a student at Georgia Southern University, and a friend entered Razzo Bar and Patio, a popular nightclub in the French Quarter. The friend was denied admission supposedly because he did not meet the club’s dress code. A fight broke out and Jones was thrown to the ground.

According to authorities, three bouncers pounced on Jones. One pushed down on his back, a second held his legs and a third griped him in a headlock for 12 minutes, causing Jones to suffocate. They have been charged with negligent homicide and are awaiting trial.

After such a high-profiled, racially-tinged incident, one would think that employees working in tourism-related industries would, at least for the time being, be more sensitive in how they interact with customers.

Following the choking death, the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center, dispatched interracial teams of researchers to 28 bars on Bourbon Street that feature live music or a disc jockey. The testers often entered the same bars just minutes apart but did not receive the same treatment.

Of the clubs tested, 40 percent charged African-Americans more for drinks than White patrons. In one club, for example, a White man bought a Long Island iced tea for $7.50 while the Black man was charged $9. Another 10 percent of the clubs told Blacks there was a minimum-drink rule, but didn’t say that to Whites. And 7 percent of the clubs told Blacks that there was a dress code while not holding Whites to the same standard.

“I knew racism exists, but I thought I’d never encountered it before,” one of the Black testers told the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “When I found out the results, it took a good five minutes to sink in and I was hurt.”

Subtle discrimination is not limited to clubs and bars, says James Perry, executive director of the Fair Housing Action Center.

“Here’s a case we had in New Orleans,” he told New Orleans City Business magazine. “An African-American male went to rent an apartment and was told that the rent was $575. He had seen it advertised for $500. So, he was kind of concerned. We sent two males – one African-American and one white male – to rent the same apartment. The only difference in their profiles was that one was white (and) the other one was black. They told our African-American tester that the rent was $575 a month and that there was a $200 deposit and a $75 application fee. They told our white tester that the rent was $475 a month, that there was no application fee, they didn’t mention a deposit, and then they said that they were running a special…where you can get $200 off your first month’s rent.”

Those are but two examples of Jim Crow, Esquire, or what I call discrimination with a smile.

When I was on a recent speaking engagement, a young African-American told me that racism is a thing of the past. I’ve had others – both Black and White – to contend that they are color blind.

Rather than immediately dismissing such assertions as nonsense, I resist the temptation and share with them my special research. When I arrive in cities for speaking engagements, I like to pick up the “personals” that people consult for dating. Without fail, there are numerous ads placed by people seeking companionship that specify they are interested only in meeting certain White people. They could be going out with an ax murderer – but they are concerned about whether that person is White. That’s hardly being color-blind.

The Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center made a dozen recommendations to the city for addressing the problems, including linking liquor licenses to records of non-discrimination, requiring nightclub and bar owners to undergo diversity training, devoting more resources to prosecuting discrimination, and insisting that bouncers let law enforcement officials handle unruly situations.

The report did not make recommendations to the Black tester who said he did not know discrimination existed prior to his participating in the Bourbon Street experiment: Discrimination exists, whether you recognize it or not. The solution is to eradicate racial discrimination, not pretend it does not exist.