
Airbnb host must pay $5,000 for canceling reservation based on race - Geekette
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-airbnb-discrimination-20170713-story.html
======
savvyraccoon
Stupid of the host to act like that and inexcusable, got what she deserved
etc, but....

This is one sided reporting. First of all Barker accepted the booking knowing
who the guest would be, from her name, profile etc.

Then there were frequent polite comms where the booking was changed,
renegotiated. Two extra guests were added. Then the guest asked to bring a
small dog, and the host said no because they have a pitbull in the house.
Guest persisted and eventually the hosts agreed to remove their own dog from
the house to accommodate the dog.

Messages on the day of arrival have been withheld by the guest, but
relationship broke down and became hostile, with the guest delaying arrival
until 2AM-3AM. The host lost patience.

So I think the reason they cancelled is because the guest really did mess them
about, but still really stupid to use those words in doing so. Tami Barker had
the opportunity to refuse the booking long before, and didn't, then went out
of her way to accommodate the guests. Of course, nobody is interested in that.

~~~
mikestew
All well and good, none of which is relevant to the story. What _is_ relevant
is that the host documented that she doesn’t want to rent to Asians. That’s
why the host ended up paying $5K, not because the guest was a pain in the ass.

Yes, if she’d just said, “you’re a pain in the ass, I’m not renting to you”,
all would be well. But some people just can’t help themselves, I guess (I’m
picturing the host as some letters-to-the-editor crackpot).

~~~
xxSparkleSxx
Does making racist comments you don't believe make you a racist? Does giving
compliments you don't believe make you a nice person?

I seriously don't know. I want to say yes, but maybe not?

I was thinking about this in another context today. When people piss you off,
many people (including myself) want to say things to them that will illicit a
negative reaction. Often, offensive words seem like a good choice to
accomplish that goal. If telling someone "you're a responsible human being who
loves his mother" caused someone to be offended, lots of people would say that
when they are angry.

I'm totally on the judges sides in this case, once those words come out of
your mouth there is no going back and you should be responsible for them.

I guess I just wonder if there is a relatively easy and sure-fire way to piss
people off without being offensive? What's a better way for people to express
their anger in a childish way ?

~~~
mikestew
_I guess I just wonder if there is a relatively easy and sure-fire way to piss
people off without being offensive?_

I'll assume we've gone beyond the topic at hand, as I wonder who would wonder
how to piss people off as an AirBnB host? :-)

Frankly, I find racial insults to be cheap and unimaginative. Oh, so I'm a
$RACIAL_EPITAPH? Well, can't help how I was born. Nice try, though. No points
for effort, though. "Maybe you wouldn't have that problem if you'd grow up,
learn to accept responsibility, and quit blaming your problems on the actions
of others. That failed business? That's wasn't a market problem, an employee
problem, that was a _you_ problem."? Oooh, well, that kind of hits close to
home.

Never go for the easy insult. Take a few extra moments, find that weak spot,
and give that knife a good twist if you're genuinely intending to communicate
insult.

~~~
jdmichal
Reminds me of the listing "When Insults had Class":

[http://allowe.com/laughs/book/When%20Insults%20Had%20Class.h...](http://allowe.com/laughs/book/When%20Insults%20Had%20Class.htm)

Some of those are pretty targeted and cut rather close...

------
skizm
What's crazy is the person could have gotten away with it if they had just not
specified why they were cancelling. Not only are they racist, but they want
people to know it, _aaaand_ they're stupid enough to message the reason via a
channel that is easily linked to the offending situation.

Also:

> The woman, Dyne Suh, a UCLA law student...

That's like picking a fight with someone and they turn out to be an amateur
MMA fighter.

\-----

Side-note, does this ruling say anything about AirBnB's legal situation by
declaring an AirBnB as a "place of public accommodation"?

------
whatok
I do not see what forcing a class on someone like this (especially at their
age) will accomplish. Does anyone really think a semester long course is going
to make her go "well, gee whiz, guess I shouldn't discriminate against those
Asians anymore"?

~~~
eric_h
Honestly I think it's better than nothing. Discrimination like this is usually
based on complete ignorance/lack of exposure to different cultures. A course
on Asian cultures may actually have some effect of humanizing the asian people
for this particular bigot.

~~~
jasode
_> Honestly I think it's better than nothing._

Actually, I think the forced class makes the situation worse. My life
experiences tells me classes and other attempts at "re-education" only
_hardens the attitudes for hatred and discrimination_.

For a person to change their racism/homophobia, it requires interaction with
another human that triggers an emotional component. For example, a person who
despises gays has a child grow up to be gay which changes their mind. Or a
somebody who hates blacks later ends up stuck in the front line of a war with
other blacks watching each others' backs and it eliminates (or lessens) the
prejudice.

It doesn't mean that positive human interactions will always "cure" everyone
but it seems to be more effective than classes.

Classes are more useful for cultural/etiquette topics (e.g. how to hold
business cards with 2 hands in Japan).

~~~
eric_h
There's a very good chance you're correct, of course. I suppose my comment was
just my general hopeful optimism coming out.

Really, though, how does one actually "deprogram" someone with opinions like
this? Can it actually be done?

Casual racists are a toxic population whose opinions and behaviors in favor of
said racism bring no value to society. How on earth do we eliminate it?

I used to think that the steamroller of progress and information would
gradually eliminate racism and sexism and denial of science and logic as older
generations died out, but the rise of the next generation of racists and MRAs
and flat earthers seems to be a fairly strong counterpoint to that.

I fear for the future of humanity.

------
bluetidepro
The host deserves a larger fine for her stupidity alone. She told the women
who reserved straight up that she "wouldn't rent to an Asian." Why not just
deny the request, and keep your bigotry comments to yourself about the "why."
It's one thing that the host was racist, but if she would have just kept that
to herself, it probably wouldn't have got her a fine. So not only is the host
a racist, but she is clearly an idiot too. *smh

~~~
mabbo
> Why not just deny the request, and keep your bigotry comments to yourself

I don't want you to think that I'm saying this is as simple as "blame Trump".
It's not that simple. But it seems related to me.

It used to be that you could be a bigot like this and so long as you didn't
make it public, loud, obvious, no one really cared that much. No one liked it,
but no one cared. Now we're in a time when America has elected a President who
is pretty openly bigoted in a number of ways.

There's a good question there about cause vs effect. Did people being more
openly bigoted lead to Trump being elected, or did the President being pretty
bigoted lead to people feeling more comfortable with their closed-minded
beliefs? Or maybe there's a mutual cause to both things. But it sure does seem
related.

~~~
mikeash
The host outright said it was related to Trump. I see no reason not to believe
her.

------
justboxing
> In the video, Suh shows screen shots of the exchange, including a message
> from Barker saying, “It’s is why we have Trump” and, “I will not allow this
> country to be told what to do by foreigners.”

Conservatively considering 45% to 48% of the registered Voters voted for
Trump, what %age of those voters think like this? => “I will not allow this
country to be told what to do by foreigners.”

Alarming.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Percentage of voting age population that even voted at all was lower than
that, and percentage of registered voters was not much higher.

Be wary of thinking "48% of America" => "I will not allow this country to be
told what to do by foreigners". It's not that different than thinking any
Democrat will go off on you for assuming their gender. What I find more
alarming is the percentage of people who really feel like they're reasonable
and half of the country is their enemy on both sides.

~~~
sqeaky
But when you have president that is a rallying point for racism and actively
says a major existential threat to humanity is "a chinese hoax", it is hard
not to view that person as a threat and enemy.

He has demonstrated a stunning immunity to logic and willingness to harm
American interests. He ignores open dialog. He and his who can't be talked to
(which are most I have talked to) are the enemy. They represent and embrace
ignorance and want a kind of backwards thinking and social order that only
makes sense in the myopic view. They are anti-science while using tools made
by and for science to communicate and often see no hypocrisy in any of this.
They are the reason we have terms like "post-truth".

They often can't be reasoned with. They often seem will to deploy violence.
They are doing real harm. How are they not the enemy?

~~~
TallGuyShort
>> They often can't be reasoned with. They often seem will to deploy violence.
They are doing real harm.

You... _do_ understand that many conservatives think _exactly_ that of
liberals and that's what I think is more dangerous than either one alone,
right?

------
tantalor
As disgusting as the host's behavior is, her reasoning is correct: the
political atmosphere has approved bigotry, racism, homophobia, and misogyny at
the highest levels. Given that, how do we hold the public accountable for
those offenses for which we forgive the state?

~~~
theGimp
State laws and regulations still apply, no matter who's president. Also, the
federal government has faced resistance from citizens and states and lost
legal battles. The current political climate is extraordinary, but to say that
standards are not being held is a stretch.

------
mcbobbington
Interestingly racism against asian people is usually not on people's radar,
but they do face some significant racism. In particular, they face
discrimination in getting into college. Because as a group they tend to make
higher grades, they have to get the highest grades/SAT to get into colleges
they want. [https://priceonomics.com/post/48794283011/do-elite-
colleges-...](https://priceonomics.com/post/48794283011/do-elite-colleges-
discriminate-against-asians)

------
TallGuyShort
I had someone in Palo Alto decline my request because of my gender. Would that
be viewed differently in the law?

~~~
btilly
You'll find a good summary of the relevant rules at
[https://www.craigslist.org/about/FHA](https://www.craigslist.org/about/FHA).

If it was a roommate request, then it is viewed differently. If the property
was at most 3 units and the landlord lives there, then the landlord cannot
advertise that they will discriminate on gender but the landlord is allowed
to. (Who said that the laws had to make sense?)

~~~
TallGuyShort
Yeah if I'm going to get declined after going to the trouble of applying, or
if I'm going to enter into a housing agreement with someone who hates me, I'd
rather their advertisement be smothered in discriminatory epithets. Seriously.

~~~
btilly
But if you're just browsing past the ad, do you need reminding of how many
discriminatory slimeballs there are out there?

I don't like the mentality that leads to this kind of confused legal
situation. But if I squint sideways and pretend that I don't have a brain, I
can kinda see how someone could have thought this a good idea.

------
abhi3
I know most commenters are well meaning, but the problem here is not that the
owner was stupid enough to be overtly racist.

Top comments on this thread:

> Stupid of the host to act like that

> The host deserves a larger fine for her stupidity alone. She told the women
> who reserved straight up that she "wouldn't rent to an Asian."

> I think people should be able to discriminate for anything they want when
> letting others into their home whether it's a business related visit or not.

> I wonder if this whole thing really happened or was completely made up.

------
IanDrake
This is crazy. I think it also explains why my rental properties have so many
minority renters as my wife's picture is our profile picture(she's Asian).

I think people see her picture and know instantly that they would never have
to deal with this kind of shit. Whereas a picture of my shaved head might not
be very reassuring.

Personally, 5K seems too light a settlement considering the circumstances.

~~~
porlune
I agree. 5K seems very light for violating this woman's civil rights. I would
say at the very least some community service needs to be tacked on.

~~~
Liuser
The host is also required to take a course in Asian American studies.

~~~
porlune
I don't think that qualifies as community service.

------
fav_collector
I think people should be able to discriminate for anything they want when
letting others into their home whether it's a business related visit or not.

However I think that people should be punished for explicitly commenting on
protected classes in a hateful or angry manner in business related situations.

~~~
mikeash
I'm fine with discrimination when it's non-business guests. But once you
invite people into your home for business purposes, why shouldn't the same
protections apply as they would for any other business? If you feel a need to
discriminate in your home, don't use your home for business.

------
throwaway993829
Anyone know why this does not fall under the exemptions in the Fair Housing
Act? Does CA have a stricter law on the books?

edit: Though the article doesn't mention it, I suppose the land lord could
also own more properties than what the exemptions allow for.

------
thrownblown
The lady canceled because she tried to show up with 4 extra friends and 2
dogs.

edit: 2 extra friends.

~~~
rhcom2
The lady approved of the extra people and dogs ahead of time for an added fee.

~~~
usaphp
Where did you get it from? The comment on the video they have in the article
says:

> "if you think 4 people and 2 dogs are getting a room for $50 a night on big
> bear mountain during the busiest weekend of the year...you are insanely
> high".

~~~
rhcom2
> "When Suh later asked if it was OK to bring two friends and two dogs along,
> Barker said it was fine but the group would need to pay an additional $50 a
> night, according to screenshots of their text messages."
> [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/13/airbnb-
> ca...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/13/airbnb-california-
> racist-comment-penalty-asian-american)

They didn't put all the text messages in the video.

~~~
usaphp
I wonder why they did not put the most important part of the conversation in
the video? Instead they put the part where the host is not approving the
request?

------
fandango666
I wonder if this whole thing really happened or was completely made up.

If you check out her FB profile, you can see that she is supporting many
violent terrorist/anarchist movements such as anti-capitalism, BLM etc.

Not saying it could not have happened, but what a funny coincidence...

~~~
krapp
> I wonder if this whole thing really happened or was completely made up.

Well, reading TFA, given that there seems to be evidence and a legal ruling
involved, chances are likely that this incident wasn't "completely made up."
But obviously you didn't create a green account simply to cast aspersions on
Dyn Suh's character, and you must have read the article first, so clearly you
_know_ that "the whole thing really happened." Unless you're accusing the LA
Times, the California government, Tami Barker and her attorney of all
collaborating to manufacture this story, but that would be absurd.

I also don't see evidence of support for "many violent terrorist/anarchist
movements" on her FB account, although she does have a BLM sticker on her
mortarboard in her banner. Of course, that alone isn't evidence of support for
violence or terrorism, so I have to assume you know her personally and have
supporting evidence of Mrs. Suh's radical sympathies, and have chosen to post
anonymously out of fear for your personal safety, which is brave of you.

However, I don't understand what "coincidence" you could be referring to, or
why you find it "funny." Perhaps you could elaborate?

