Posted on 05/06/2016 2:29:40 AM PDT by reaganaut1
A trending social media hashtag has highlighted experiences of possible racial bias by users of the AirBnB rental app.
Quirtina Crittenden, a 23-year-old business consultant living in Chicago, who is African-American, started the hashtag #AirBnBWhileBlack after noting how often she was declined by hosts when seeking a place to rent – even when the apartments advertised appeared to be available.
“The hosts would always come up with excuses like, ‘oh, someone actually just booked it’ or ‘oh, some of my regulars are coming in town, and they’re going to stay there,’” Crittenden said in an NPR interview.
“But I got suspicious when I would check back days later and see that those dates were still available.”
AirBnB users have both a photograph and name as part of their profiles. After Crittenden created the hashtag, many other people of colour have described similar experiences.
As an experiment, Crittenden changed her photograph from a self-portrait to one of a generic cityscape, and shortened her first name from “Quirtina” to “Tina”. She found that her requests to rent were then accepted.
“Ever since I changed my name and my photo, I’ve never had any issues,” Crittenden said.
Earlier this year, Harvard Business School researchers ran an experiment (PDF) exploring racial discrimination in what has become known as the “sharing economy”.
The study found that, on the AirBnB platform, “requests from guests with distinctively African-American names are roughly 16% less likely to be accepted than identical guests with distinctively white names”.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Black parents could do their children a favor by not giving them especially black-sounding names.
Keep the narrative going.
Has anyone asked Rahm why this is happening in his Democrat-controlled city?
“Quirtina”??? That is not an African name either. Where in the world does one find the name Quirtina? I have seen it as a last name of Indian heritage, s maybe mom had heard it and thought it was cute.
For me, the first thing I thought of was a quirt used on horses, but then looked up the Urban dictionary meaning of quirt.
Did her mom name her after the sound she made during childbirth?????
Change your name Quirtina. NOW!!!
Maybe her real name is Merci BoCoupay.
Any chance the spurned renters could do an honest examination of why hosts are hesitent?
hesitant
Lol.
Seriously vague.
Quirtanya
Quirkaren
Quirmeashonda
The variations are endless.
I recall that many car rentals, vacation rentals and hotels do not rent to anyone under the age of 25, myself. The likelihood of property destruction is apparently much higher.
Remember the taxi “scandal” where black men couldn’t hail cabs at night? That story quietly died when it turned out many of the cabbies passing them by WERE BLACK...
That’s the price for belonging to a group with a bad reputation. The solution is not a name change, it’s to improve the behavior (and thereby the perception) of your group.
Maybe they are afraid they’ll be sued by people claiming they got sick during their short stay from (pick your re-distribution scheme): 1) lead paint, 2) mold, or 3) lead in the water...
Quirtina Crittenden, a 23-year-old business consultant living in Chicago, who is African-American. No guess work here
If you rent via AirBnB to any minority you risk legal problems if you so much as look at them crosswise.
Many have a huge “chip on their shoulder” and actively look for reasons to sue. The racial lawsuit business is flourishing in the U.S. today.
“Quirtina Crittenden, a 23-year-old business consultant...”
Now, who in their right mind would take the advice of a totally naive 23 year old business consultant? Who would be dumb enough to pay for it?
I’ve been a business owner for over 37 years and I guarantee they have absolutely no “real world” knowledge of how to operate a business.
I agree. Whatever happened to strong names like David, Sam, and Bob?
These names blacks give their children are completely fabricated.
Read between the lines; she chats with the owner of the local nail salon (where she is a customer) about prices - hence, she is a “business consultant”.
Usually the kids are just toys bred to get freebies; the impact on their future means nothing to those popping them out. The gibsmedats seem to regard it as some kind of rejection of all things “white”; for people led around by the nose by “ministers”, they certainly don’t use many biblical names...
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