Can a brotha get a drink in Beijing?

It's really tough to know whether to take this story out of Beijing seriously.

To make a long, confusing story short: there are rumors that Chinese police officials are forcing some Beijing bar owners to sign secret pledges to not serve black people and Mongolians (who knew we had that much in common?) during the Olympic games next month.

It's worth noting that the Chinese police denies the rumors. But here's a couple of paragraphs from the story that give me pause:

"In a notorious incident last September, dozens of black people were detained by police in a raid on bars in the Sanlitun district. Witnesses said the police rounded up all the black people they could find, up to three dozen in total, and beat some of them with rubber truncheons."

I'm getting a really, really bad feeling about these Games. I was sort of torn on what a U.S.-led boycott of the games might accomplish there but I wasn't willing to take it to a Nancy Pelosi-type level (it's not polite to be rude when you owe someone billions of dollars).

Regardless, Tyson Gay, Kobe Bryant, Usain Bolt and some of the other brothas might want to B.Y.O.B., just in case.