“One word says it all. Asian”: AirBnB Racism
Early in the year, Airbnb made headlines due to a racist house owner cancelling on a renter last minute because she’s Asian. A group of college students travelled to Big Bear, California for a vacation. When they near reached the rental, Dyne Suh (renter) received a message from the host cancelling their reservation. The host mentioned her race as a problem, the host later referenced U.S. President Trump.
The situation became viral after Suh posted her exchange with the host on to her Facebook page. Airbnb later banned the host from their site (CNN.com, 2017). It’s an unfortunate event but why would such thing exists?
I think the issue that Airbnb faces is common within many sharing economies. Sharing economies do not have strict rules between the seller/host/worker. Companies need both customer and the seller/host/worker. If they were strict with the user, they would have less users making it hard to operate as a sharing economy. Therefore, due to the lack of rules against who can operate on these sites, racism, sexism, homophobia, religious bigotry become difficult to avoid.
After the 2016 U.S. presidential election, people of color around the country face more racism than ever before. While using sharing economy is a great way to gain new experiences, it can’t guarantee you to meet great people. However, there are a few things that users can do to help make sharing economies better. Reporting to the platform when we see racism toward people of color is a great start. The companies should also make effort to eliminate discriminatory people from their sites and services.
In the case of Airbnb, they have taken measures to prevent racism on their platform by collaborating with the NAACP.
We need more companies to step up to the plate and put in the effort to eliminate discrimination of people on their platforms.
