Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nazism isn't a protected class. But Jewish business owners routinely do business with them anyways.
What determines if something is a protected class?
Federal law.
Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts
211–220 of 403 posts
Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts
#212As an host, I'll never discriminate on the basis of religion, sex orientation, color of skin, national origin or gender identity. When it comes to disability, I might refuse someone whose disability would cause risk in using the apartment and might have an accident because the apartment is not safe for someone who's disabled (the building is 300 years old, there's no elevator, the stair in the duplex apartment doesn'…
> a host who was nice to me when I met him and then wasn't as nice 5 minutes later once my wife arrived I don't doubt the presence of racism in our society, but this seems like an overly subjective and crude way to label someone a racist. Off the top of my head they could be threatened by the other's attractiveness (surprisingly common), they find the person awkward to speak with or annoying/ out of touch, they are s…
Well, when the guy says "Make sure to clean up, it's not like in your country where everything's dirty", it's pretty obvious :-)
It's also in Europe in a smaller city and the guy was middle aged... I find that in smaller cities in Europe people tend to be more racist than in bigger cosmopolitan cities.
Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nazism isn't a protected class. But Jewish business owners routinely do business with them anyways.
What determines if something is a protected class?
Being denoted as such in federal law. The original Civil Rights Act, in 1964, specified race, color, sex, religion, and national origin; since then a few classes (pregnancy/marital status, age, citizenship, etc.) have been added over time.
Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
"If you have personal preferences about whom you let live in your home that don't align with mine, you shouldn't be allowed to have anyone in your home at all!"
Yes, that is generally the principle involved with business transactions like these. We tried it the other way, and all the black people ended up cordoned into North Lawndale. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case... As a society, we decided to amend the social contract to remedy this. You can choose who to have in your house based on any criteria you like. You cannot choose who to rent to on t…
>we decided to amend the social contract to remedy this
Where in the social contract is this clause? I can't find it.
"It's in the social contract" is the ultimate weasel appeal. You're citing the authority of an imaginary document that, miraculously, contains whatever arbitrary moral edicts the person who invokes it happens to agree with.
Transactions should be voluntary. People should not be forced to do business against their will. Whoever "we" is in your post, I'm not part of it, because I have a moral objection to slavery (I.e. Involuntary labor).
Not that what AirBNB is doing constitutes involuntary labor; they're a private business and can set whatever terms they want for using their platform, in accordance with the principles I've outlined. I'm just saying that forcing homeowners to take in people they don't want to is sub-optimal and alienating for homeowners.
Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
That was my thought here as well. It's one thing to have very public businesses with anti-discrimination rules, but something like Air BnB where people have to decide in most cases who they are going to let into their homes is a much more complicated problem. We're seeing a wide trend in the US where people want rules to prevent people from making choices that they don't agree with, which was basically the opposite o…
Being a white supremacist is not a protected class in the US and it's illegal to discriminate on the basis of race in housing. The law seems perfectly clear to me. As made applicable by section 803 of this title and except as exempted by sections 803(b) and 807 of this title, it shall be unlawful-- (a) To refuse to sell or rent after the making of a bona fide offer, or to refuse to negotiate for the sale or rental of…
Being a white supremacist is not a protected class in the US
The majority of recent uses of the term "white supremacist" make me cringe. It's mostly propaganda: A deliberate emotional attack often based on a false equivalence. In any case, the impression I have as a frequent AirBnB user is that most AirBnB owners aren't interested in renting on the basis of "race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin." Rather, they are most interested in education level, socioeconomic status, and manners as a proxy for risk. They just want to determine how likely the potential guests are to cause an out-sized expense in time, treasure, and emotional energy.
Not letting people exercise such judgement is effectively creating a privileged group on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin. (EDIT: However, I would only reserve such leeway for people renting out a part of their own residence. People who own or have leases on a large number of rooms/properties renting on AirBnB should have to abide by such laws, as they are basically in the hotel business, and are covered by the applicable laws. Also, their increased transaction volume makes such laws enforceable, whereas a genuine single family on AirBnB would often not have such volume. Equating these different classes of AirBnB user would be a False Equivalence.)
Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you have personal preferences about whom you conduct business with , you shouldn't be allowed to conduct business with anyone. This isn't about your home; this is about your use of your home as a capital asset. You can allow into your home anyone you choose to and bar anyone you choose to. But as a society we have agreed that we--through our government--most certainly have a stake in making sure that you treat oth…
[If you have personal preferences about whom you conduct business with, you shouldn't be allowed to conduct business with anyone.] Why? If someone chooses to discriminate, why not let them suffer the consequences of lost potential revenue naturally? It gives people who don't discriminate a chance to step in and gain market share. It reminds me of the story of the bakery who wouldn't make a wedding cake for a gay coup…
The argument that the market will fix discrimination and bigotry is refuted by history.
Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, that is generally the principle involved with business transactions like these. We tried it the other way, and all the black people ended up cordoned into North Lawndale. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case... As a society, we decided to amend the social contract to remedy this. You can choose who to have in your house based on any criteria you like. You cannot choose who to rent to on t…
>we decided to amend the social contract to remedy this Where in the social contract is this clause? I can't find it. "It's in the social contract" is the ultimate weasel appeal. You're citing the authority of an imaginary document that, miraculously, contains whatever arbitrary moral edicts the person who invokes it happens to agree with. Transactions should be voluntary. People should not be forced to do business a…
There's nothing imaginary about it. Discrimination in housing has been illegal since the 1970s.
Airbnb has found (accidentally) an unforeseen loophole in the law, where a practice that had only a marginal impact on the distribution of housing is on track to make a more significant impact. They know as well as anyone else that the law is going to catch up, unless they keep human nature from using Airbnb as a vector to re-segregate a big chunk of the housing market.
Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts
#218 In May, Gregory Selden, who is African-American, filed a class-action discrimination suit against the company, saying that he had been denied a place to stay because of his race.
AirBnB is a facilitator. They don't make decisions like that. Can they encourage anti-discrimination? Sure. Is it their responsibility? No.
Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
> a host who was nice to me when I met him and then wasn't as nice 5 minutes later once my wife arrived I don't doubt the presence of racism in our society, but this seems like an overly subjective and crude way to label someone a racist. Off the top of my head they could be threatened by the other's attractiveness (surprisingly common), they find the person awkward to speak with or annoying/ out of touch, they are s…
It's fine to analyze potential racism experienced by oneself in this fashion, but it really is out of bounds to analyze potential racism experienced by other people in this way. Perhaps that isn't fair to those of us who rarely experience potential racism, but so what?
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Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
That was my thought here as well. It's one thing to have very public businesses with anti-discrimination rules, but something like Air BnB where people have to decide in most cases who they are going to let into their homes is a much more complicated problem. We're seeing a wide trend in the US where people want rules to prevent people from making choices that they don't agree with, which was basically the opposite o…
> We're seeing a wide trend in the US where people want rules to prevent people from making choices that they don't agree with, which was basically the opposite of the point of the US. Arguably, the central point of the US was exactly to prevent people in positions of relative power from making certain decisions that others with less individual power disagreed with; perhaps the central debate between the modern left…
Are you making a point about AirBnB specifically or the U.S. generally? In case of the former, I can't tell which party (the renter or the tenant) is supposed to be in the position of relative power.