-
That's interesting and sad. My step daughter and her friend have contacted all the properties and asked them why they denied his booking request and accepted hers, and will then report to Airbnb. They obviously didn't book any of them. I don't have the details I'm afraid.
I can see my photo when I view my profile, but don't know whether hosts can. As with you, the friend has an African first name so that would be enough to identify him as black. Not being able to see profile photos might explain why my partner, who is mixed race but has an "English" name, has no problems booking properties. Or maybe the majority of hosts are actually OK?
Markyboy-
In the not-too-distant future, there will be African names will become fashionable with everyone, blurring this distinction. (Yoruba naming culture, for instance, is amazing and will catch on.) This always happens when a country has a significant immigrant population. It just takes some time, usually a couple of generations.
For the time being, it's a crock of shit that this happens, of course, and it's no consolation that at some point it won't be possible to draw conclusions about someone's background from first names, because by that point it'll probably be a different and newer immigrant culture that gets discriminated against in this way.
Oliver Schick
@Markyboy Don't think it's an isolated incident, you got me thinking why I've never been able to secure an airbnb booking apparently the hosts can only see your first name and not profile picture or last name now since this. I've got an African first name so would also speculate that is a factor in not once being able to secure a booking, looking at my profile been on there since 2016. Maybe you can name and shame the property...
Edit: looks like this everyday rasicm as detailed above triggered conversations with airbnb about racial bias search Google for #airbnbwhilstblack sad to see its still as prevalent as ever.
@Lw. A friend sent me a lecture on rasicm within the TV industry by David Olusoga you can watch here
sorry if a repost but it is a interesting listen with some shocking experiences.