Chatterbox Jazz and the White Victim Complex

This TripAdvisor photo shows a gay pride flag above the front window
of the Chatterbox Jazz Club in Indianapolis, Indiana (source)

Late last week, a woman video-recorded herself being ordered out of the Chatterbox Jazz Club in Indianapolis, Indiana. When she asks why, the bartender specifically says “because you’re a Trump supporter,” apparently referencing a red MAGA ballcap. When the woman stalls, the bartender retrieves a short-handled baseball bat from behind the bar and says “I’m not fucking around.” The 36-second clip went viral before Monday.

Other commentators note the contradiction between this woman demanding her right to be served, and the Republicans who spearheaded a lawsuit to the Supreme Court letting businesses refuse commerce with gay customers. The case, Masterpiece Cake Shop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, didn’t actually legalize anti-gay discrimination. It did, however, redefine “religious neutrality” when writing anti-discrimination law. It also basically kicked the lawsuit back down the ladder, leaving it essentially unresolved today.

I’d rather avoid rehashing that, not because it isn’t legitimate, but because I’m unqualified. Instead, let’s consider the medium. This woman didn’t just get ejected from a hostile venue; she recorded herself getting ejected. She recorded the confrontation on a cellphone camera held vertically, indicating her intention to distribute the footage online, probably on TikTok. Therefore this confrontation didn’t just happen; she probably engineered it.

The woman herself doesn’t appear in the footage. She verbally admits she’s wearing a “Trump hat,” but we never see it; she certainly doesn’t dispute the accusation that “you’re a Trump supporter.” Based on that fact, it seems irrefutable that she did or said something pro-Trump inside the bar. Management released a statement claiming that her party “intentionally misgendered and harassed a Chatterbox employee.”

In the video, the bartender arguing with the video creator appears gender-ambiguous and is coded nonbinary. Some unofficial websites describe the Chatterbox Jazz Club as a gay bar; the Chatterbox’s website takes no discernable position, but shows a trans-rights flag in the front window. The likelihood that accuser Elise Hensley, who describes herself as a repeat customer, didn’t know this before Friday night, is vanishingly small.

Therefore, if Hensley’s party entered this club wearing MAGA hats, they didn’t do so innocently. Unless they specifically said something about their intention to create conflicts or inflame tensions, it’s difficult to prove intent in court. However, their intent to start a fight seems highly likely, even almost certain. For our non-courtroom purposes, it seems clear that Hensley and her party intended to start a fight.

Moreover, because the bartender keeps a bat within reach behind the bar, they’ve probably faced previous challenges. Survivors generally buy weapons after they’ve been robbed or assaulted, not before. Hensley entered the bar spoiling for a fight, and bar staff appeared prepared to give her one. And she filmed the confrontation in process. Therefore, clearly, this happened not for Hensley’s benefit, nor the Chatterbox’s, but for our benefit.

Hensley clearly wants the world to see her suffering some oppression. We have this underscored when she says, “You know that this is, like, discrimination, right?” Other patrons reply with jeering laughter, but Hensley appears serious. In that moment, she perceives herself as suffering discrimination, as being the oppressed party in an unequal power dynamic. She sees herself as the victim in this confrontation.

American conservatives, especially the MAGA variety, occupy an ontological dilemma. They claim their opinions and actions represent most American citizens, that they’re merely saying aloud what everyone else really thinks. Simultaneously, they call themselves an oppressed minority, silenced by overwhelming forces. The Trump administration’s anti-DEI policies embody this duality of White authority and White victimhood: Whites are hypercompetent, but suppressed by incompetent minorities.

Hensley almost certainly recorded this confrontation because she thought it would make her look oppressed, victimized, put-upon. To those who share her prior suppositions, it probably does. The resort to cusswords and threats of violence implies victimhood. Maybe Hensley thought, in the largest city of an overwhelmingly Red state, she could make herself a celebrity victim and parlay that into a leadership position in the long-awaited conservative uprising.

But even the slightest context awareness demonstrates that the patrons laughing at Hensley, not Hensley herself, have the greatest command of the facts. Hensley, like so many in today’s hyperconnected world, has confused being a content creator with being a newsmaker, and as a result, she makes herself look ridiculous. Conservatives love trying to enter themselves in the oppression Olympics.

Elise Hensley will be remembered alongside Amy Cooper, the Central Park woman who turned herself into a synonym for racism, ignorance, and media manipulation. And that’s all she deserves.

Follow-up: Chatterbox Jaxe and the Victim Complex Part 2