NY Times editorial on race discrimination in Airbnb

Some of the replies to that article which I liked:


I like this comment from the article quite a bit:

The Lion USA 4 hours ago
A recipe for inanity:
1.) Start with an anecdote from a foreign city (Buenos Aires)
2.) Add a dash of mind-reading superpowers ("it was hard to believe that race didn’t come into play")
3.) End with recommendation for sweeping interventionist US federal law as solution to experience derived from foreign city

That's how you get to #IHaveARightToSomeoneElsesHome

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And this one too:

Roger Parish New York 4 hours ago
This article scares the bejesus out of me. To seriously suggest that the Federal government should be dictating to us whom we are required to have as guests in our own homes... Chilling...

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ANd this comment:

Oakbranch California 4 hours ago
I find the author's suggestions for "How Airbnb can fight racial discrimination" to be very offensive. It's incredibly offensive to treat hosts as if they were all prone to discriminate, and so could not be trusted to see a photograph of the person they are considering inviting into THEIR OWN HOME before they invite that person! The idea about concealing guest's identities before they book is ludicrous to hosts, particularly those who have some experience with bad guests and know how critical it is to be able to have all the tools to screen effectively. And one means of screening guests is looking for a friendly smiling face in a photo.

Of course some people (particularly bad guests I would imagine) would love to see a platform force guests upon hosts, against host's better judgement, and as if the host's property were owned by the platform. WHich by the way is not the case. When we sign up as hosts on Airbnb, we are NOT ceding away rights to Airbnb to expropriate our homes for its use. We are simply putting ads on a website -- we remain in control of our homes.

What about this "auditing" of people "suspected" of discrimination? This is incredibly invasive.

The author of this piece seems to regret that she can't find a way for the federal government to force guests into host's homes against their will. IT's a great and shocking example of those who want to deprive others of their freedom -- and if we aren't free in our own homes, where are we free?

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And this one:

L Massachusetts 6 hours ago
Dear Ms. Clarke,
US civil rights laws do not apply in other countries. That's an invalid complaint.

If you want a professional hospitality guest experience, including booking and non-discriminatory practices, you ought to stay in a legitimate licensed hotel, inn or B&B, all of which are required to observe a wide range of laws. I visited Buenos Aires 3 years ago, and I can assure you that guests of all colors were staying in licensed hotels including the one I stayed in.

If you choose to stay in a stranger's private residence through AirBnB, you take what you can get. There are no victims here, only volunteers.

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Interesting, I didn't know:

Betti New York 6 hours ago
Argentina is not exactly the most racially tolerant place on the planet. Due to massive European immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, it is a predominantly caucasian country that, culturally, considers itself more European than Latin American. As a matter of fact, many Latin Americans - even those like my incredibly racist Colombian grandmother who had significant African and Amerindian ancestry - prefer to self identify as white. That said, overt racism towards blacks and even Amerindians is a pretty much a given in Argentina, so I'm not surprised at the Ms. Clarke's experience. But however nasty and ungracious that sort of behavior is (and despite the fact that I am the most anti Airbnb person you can find), your home is your castle and who you let into your home cannot be dictated to by anyone or anything.

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Ann AZ 6 hours ago
It's interesting that her one example was from Buenas Aires, Argentina but then extrapolates that experience to all of the United States. Can she explain how she can paint such a broad brush of racism and fair housing here in the USA by using an example of a sour experience in a Latin American city that is more than 5000 miles away? That she has to go so far out of her way to prove a point is making me wonder if there really is a significant problem in the States after all.

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Lisa NYC 6 hours ago
Hosts who are sharing their personal home space with complete strangers have every right to decide who to accept and who to reject. Guests must have profiles and photos. I want to know WHO I am inviting into my home (a very small NYC 1BR apt). Your proposal to remove all info on guests until After a reservation is confirmed is simply not realistic, except perhaps in instances where the guests will stay in an otherwise empty apt that is not the host's primary residence.

I (single white female) am very selective about who I allow to come into my personal space and spend the night. I go with my gut...what they say in their profile, the 'energy' I get from their photo/their eyes, how they communicate with me. I probably reject about 10% of all requests, MOST of which come from white people btw.

I'm sorry if some people are rejected due to their race, but no one should be blaming Airbnb as a whole either, or somehow try to hold them 'responsible'. To me this just screams of an additional smear tactic campaign against Airbnb by those who haven't liked them from the get go, namely the hotel industry, landlords and many community/civic groups. These groups saw an opportunity (once they heard of 'racism' claims) and have added their voices to add fuel to the Airbnb fire.

Again, I've no doubt there are some racist hosts, but Airbnb would never support this fundamentally, as it affects their bottom line ('commissions')

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Emily Brooklyn, NY 6 hours ago
I have been an Airbnb host for the last four years. I rent out the home where my family lives while we are away on vacation in the summer. I don't discriminate on the basis of race (I am white and have rented to African Americans and people from all over the world) but I DO choose my renters carefully. I have turned down renters with very small children as I have stairs and my house isn't baby-proofed. I have turned down groups of frineds in their 20's who are coming for concert, etc. because I don't want a party in my house. I ask my potential guest who they are traveling with and the purpose of their visit. My ideal renter is a mixed-generation family group coming to tour NYC.
Instant booking would make me leave Airbnb. This is my personal home where my husband and three children live. My paintings are on the wall. My grandmother's china is in the cupboard. Our clothes are in the drawers. I need to know that I'm renting to a family that will be respectful of my home and my neighbors. This just isn't the same as a hotel.
I am deeply sympathetic to the issue of racial profiling. But Airbnb is much more nuanced than renting an anonymous hotel room and, in the end, the hosts have to feel safe and comfortable with their guests.

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JaykeK Los Angeles, CA 7 hours ago
Great idea, Kristen should definitely NOT look at the pictures when she rents her house on BNB. Then she'll be sure she is not discriminating.

Are people like her really serious? Do they spend day and night wracking their brains to find solutions to problems that don't exist or that people don't care about or try to force people to bend to the pressures of unrelenting PCness.

When Kristen opens her business and actually works for a living, then hopefully we can all find ways to have her run her business according to each of our own sensibilities.

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JoyRose Philadelphia, PA 8 hours ago
I am a white woman's in my mid-60's. I have been rejected 2x on Airbnb and thought nothing of it. No reason was given. Maybe it was my age, my reason for visiting, my interests. No matter. Sharing someone's home is very personal. I respect a host's right to rent to only those they think they would feel comfortable with. I don't want to force myself on anyone. That wouldn't be comfortable for me. I'd rather find a good fit.

Airbnb is a service for folks looking to make extra money and maybe a friend by renting out a room in their home. leave it be.

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richard.wilson Brooklyn 8 hours ago
You plagiarize the Harvard studies "recommendations" and posit them as your own. You also pick and choose those sections of the Harvard study that support your premise, and disregard those sections that do not support your premise. (Example: "the difference persists whether the host is African American or White"). You also do not mention that homophily is strongest among African American female hosts. It is also disengenious for you not to provide your bio, which is significant in this matter

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sarah St paul 8 hours ago
I've had my requests turned down at least half the time for similar reasons (owner says place was already booked, owner never responds, etc.). I have excellent reviews, a filled out profile and a nice photo of myself, and always have rented entire Apts or houses. I always assumed "that's what happens with these sorts of shared economy ventures". It is annoying for sure, which is why I book hotels more often. I'm a middle aged white woman, so in my case, I think this is just what happens in these kinds of businesses.

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Idealist Planet America 9 hours ago
So Ms. Clarke would like to apply the law "creatively" and treat airbnb as a giant hotel, because she imagines, WITHOUT PROOF, she has been rejected based on her race. This is vengeful paranoia. The must alarming thing is the fact that the author, a lawyer, knows that airbnb is NOT a giant hotel, but would like to push her weight to have airbnb treated as such to sooth her vengeance.

This article would make less hosts to want to take in blacks, not more. The same way employers are often afraid to hire blacks because each time you criticize their performance they cry discrimination.

What's next? Passing a law forcing all people on the dating sites to date and sleep with anyone without discrimination based on looks, culture, race, education, and sexual orientation?

Ms. Clarke is pushing a totalitarian agenda.

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Arnie Tracey Ottawa, Ontario, Canada 9 hours ago
The author's attempt to force an owner to rent blindly under penalty of punitive sanctions smacks of neediness and desperation.

Argentina disappeared 30,000 citizens because of what those murdered were "perceived" to be. Likely, they are using News from Ferguson and movies and rap-videos to support their racially bogus, facile decisions.

And the initial Procrustean suggestion of applying antiquated federal statutes seems tortuous and ill-advised.

I am a black American who owns and rents through AIRBNB. My place is in Paris, France and I rent to anyone.

The biggest problem groups so far? Sub-continent Indians followed by Asians. But I still rent to them all, however, should I choose not to, that's nobody's business but my own.

No law is going to take away my right as an owner. We all have a little Lester Maddox in us, even minorities.

So my advice to the lawyer is keep trying until you find acceptance, but do not try and ram yourself down an owner's throat. People have their bigoted hangups about not "who" you are (articulate & clean), but "what" you are based on specious evidence.

How else do you account for the sit-down strike that was Congress for the last 8 years?

Finally, regarding AirBNB owners: You cannot legislate racial tolerance i.e. sanity. People are going to "not" need people, in the same way that a woman can choose whom she wishes to "not" date.

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Sarah Newport 9 hours ago
Seeing a photo when deciding whom to let into your home is very important. If I saw someone with heavy neck and face tattoos, I would associate that with being in a gang or jail and I would take a pass. If a saw a woman who appeared to be a man, I'd take a pass (and before anyone calls me transphobic, consider the case of the male AirBnB guest in Spain whose host was a man dressed as a woman and viscously sexually assaulted him). Hosts have a right to know exactly who they are letting into their homes and getting a look at someone can give us a better feel for them. We communicate a lot through our appearance.

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Although I've had my difficulties with guests from foreign countries who did not comply, or care about my request to print out their confirmed reservation/itinerary (which I know is printed out in their language or origin); I am 'a white bread American'.

My most memorable worst case scenarios as a host have been with other 'white bread Americans'.

This whole topic is stupid.

Every guest, every host, and every accommodation totally unique.

I do not believe that we experienced hosts experience prejudice in any manner except with our decisions based on what is a good fit for both the guest and what we have to offer as hosts.

I actually had a nightmare last night regarding Mr Uses His Initials and was bumped from extending by a wonderful Asian guest.

If I had to discriminate, I'd choose my own race first.

So There!

I dont' just go by a smiling face...if you take any one aspect of the vetting and place too much emphasis on it, or don't incorporate other elements of the presentation...you can go wrong. Of course you can go wrong overall, in spite of your best effort, but having some vetting process is far better than having no vetting process, and each host should be able to decide for themselves what info they want to use to vet guests. Or decide they dont' want to vet at all!

HEre's a mold for you to put them in....

I'm usually also for bending over declining, but some are really though go get to fit in. And they expand out of the form as soon as you turn your back.

In that sense, I wrote for one guest that I recommend for full unit rentals and one night stays only.

By engaging prospective Guests in a dialogue before I accept a reservation I can usually weed out the more problematic Guests and they usually give me very clear reasons to turn them down mainly by their lack of communication, syntax, or poor writing skills. So yes, I discriminate. I have discriminating taste, I don't drink out of cans. A Guest is either a kindred spirit or they are not, but my decisions about who I am going to confirm has everything to do with their ability to answer a simple question in my house rules that demonstrates to me that they have read the rules and UNDERSTOOD them, as well as the likely hood that they will in fact follow them. That is my hard and fast rule and if any seed of racial discrimination could be determined by my vetting style then I may as well withdraw from the human family.
While I have a lot of concerns about the direction that airbnb is going in especially with regards to Instant Booking, which I will never do as I find it to be the most counter-intuitive policy there is to the airbnb philosophy, I am more concerned with the practice of multi-listing absentee Hosts of commercial enterprises. If airbnb wants to allow commercially owned multi-listing agents then I think the reasonable move would be to have a separate platform. There is room for everyone and every kind of Host and Guest, that's the point of targeting not only the individual but the individual markets as well. For every choice we have or take we discriminate.
I read the NYT article in its entirety and quite frankly found it to be absurd and filled with the kind of narrow reasoning that is so prevalent in today's culture of entitlement. My own life experience from being a world weary civil rights worker to battling the halls of upper academia over politically correct speech in the curriculum have left me with a solid distaste for the same old tropes of "pontificate and refute." For which the writer of this borderline specious attack on a subject that her own privilege has awarded her to not only write and publish about but in a prestigious medium in which she has been given even greater power and legitimacy.
Or in other words, I doubt that if I were to have written the same article I would have been published as discerned by the Editors of the NYT based on my credentials or lack thereof. There is also the very real chance that as a prospective Guest with no reviews she might have done a better job of introducing herself to the Host. So did I not get published because I was discriminated against due to lack of reviews? Probably, would I be crying over the injustice of it all? Hardly, I have bigger fish to fry. I hope she takes rejections in life better next time, and I doubt if I would have accepted her reservation at my humble home as I imagine she would not have been pleased no matter how far I went out of my way to accommodate her.
in her accounting of her experience from over two years ago she states that she was able to make a reservation with an airbnb Host on the 4th attempt, not an uncommon experience but no statistics stating the average airbnb experience. Her claim that her experience was a "sour one" goes unexplained, so what constitutes "sour" to her; is where we get to the slippery slope part as she then quite readily drags out the Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits racial discrimination in public accommodations like hotels and restaurants. But because there is an exemption in the law which excludes small owner occupied rooming houses and most airbnb Hosts she would then like to propose that what if we view airbnb as one giant hotel? This is pure speculation on my part but if what if the actual story here is that she might have been a very distasteful Guest, did not get the treatment she thought she deserved, filed a complaint and two years later lost her claim and wants to change a law that is already in place that protects people in their own homes because airbnb IS NOT A HOTEL? The over arching point here for me is she is just like so many other human beings regardless of race to expect that the rules and the laws are not to be applied to them. That is not racism, it is human nature.
Just a few thoughts to share with you. Thanks for all the insightful help. I thoroughly enjoy all of your posts.
Eloise at Happy Trails

I've found that my instant book guests have been pretty good. I don't "vet" people.. if they send messages indicating they've not read the listing then I don't want them here.. otherwise, I don't really care and things usually work out ok.
I rarely have guests for more than a week, so even if someone's annoying, unless it's something major, I just deal with it as a cost of doing business (people seem to think that the cutting board (right above the dishwasher) is a drying rack... I fail to understand why this seems logical to people and I just move their stuff to the dishwasher and dry off the board. If I see them, I tell them to just put stuff in the dishwasher and not waste water washing dishes that are going to be washed by the machine anyway.

In any case, I disagree with this article wholeheartedly but I'm not sure the rules proposed would have a marked impact on my hosting. I usually approve people before I see their pic (well, I might see their thumbnail on the notification). If they say nothing other than "looks like a great place, can I stay" or something similar, then they're approved, if they say something then it depends on if that something shows they haven't read the listing--if they feel their time is more important than mine and ask questions that I've already answered in the listing then they will be nothing but trouble while they're here.
If they ask questions that can be easily answered by google maps "Are you close to this neighborhood" (which is clearly within the blue area on the map) they're going to be trouble. if it's a "I need to be at a job interview at 9am on x street., how long will it take to get there from your place" then I'll usually answer it and pre-approve them.
If they ask for an entire tourism dossier prior to booking (I have many detailed recommendations in my guidebook I send AFTER the transaction) then they need to consult a travel agent to arrange their vacation.

These are all lessons learned from experience and the new hosts tend to be over eager to be helpful when all it does is invite the guest to use you as their personal private concierge and travel guide. While this can be part of the "hosting" job, there's a difference between offering help and having it expected of you.

I don't believe as much in "making them fit the mould" as I do in, helping them self select them out of a place they don't comfortably fit. It's better for them and better for me.

I had a guest that started the discussions with a negotiation on price.. I told her no and if the price doesn't work for them, I'm sure they'll find many other options that would. She said, ok, and they'll think about it. The next day she asked a few questions about the space (they wanted a child and was wondering if the room had extra space for an air bed --the photos don't really help measure so I felt this was an ok question--I said it was just barely too small for a queen airbed and I dont have any other bedding but many people find sleeping on the double carpeted floor with a blanket to be comfortable. She said, fine.... and since we're staying for more than a week can we pay you X. I immediately withdrew the pre-approval and declined the request.
She said "why did you say no, we were ready to pay what you were asking, I don't understand." so I sent her a long message describing all the ways she went about this all wrong and if she wanted to have good experiences staying in other people's homes she needs to go about this completely differently. Normally I wouldn't have bothered, but I felt if I didn't say something then whomever their next victim/host is would suffer and thought I'll just tell them. Plus they offended me and I wanted them to know what they did wrong.

She responded, "I'm sorry, can we please stay." which I translated to "yeah, I'm dumb and I fucked up but I'm desperate--help me out and then I'll screw you in review time.

I didn't respond.