Airbnb Unveils Changes To Address Racial Discrimination (npr.org)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Acknowledging that his company has "been slow on this issue," Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky is rolling out changes aimed at addressing discrimination complaints against the home rental service. Among the changes: de-emphasizing the role of user photos in arranging stays. Here are some of the other changes Airbnb announced Thursday: Providing assistance to people who feel they've experienced discrimination; Anti-bias training for all staff; Setting public diversity goals for staff; Partnering with historically black colleges and universities to strengthen their recruitment pipeline. The move comes after longstanding complaints from African-American Airbnb customers who said their booking requests were turned down at a high rate. Black Airbnb users vented their frustration with the phenomenon of being rejected for a booking date -- only to see the same place get listed once again -- spawning the hashtag #AirbnbWhileBlack on Twitter. And those frustrations were borne out in a study that sent 6,400 requests to AirBnb hosts in five large U.S. cities; the requests were identical except for the customer's name. As the Hidden Brain podcast reported, "requests with African-American sounding names were roughly 16 percent less likely to be accepted than their white-sounding counterparts."

Comments

they also found...

[turkeydance]

....that black hosts were also less likely to accept requests from guests with African American-sounding names than with white-sounding ones.

Re: they also found...

[Anonymous Coward]

Weird. Almost as though it isn't racism causing this behavior, but knowledge and experience with a culture that is a higher risk to invite in your home. ... Nah! Let's just blame a boogeyman and commit corporate suicide as a sacrifice to white guilt.

Re:they also found...

[quantaman]

....that black hosts were also less likely to accept requests from guests with African American-sounding names than with white-sounding ones.

And black police officers also show bias against black people while policing.

Being a member of an ethnicity doesn't mean you can't have inaccurate stereotypes about it.

Re: they also found...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh no. Humans live, learn, grow, and develop based on personal experience. Your incredible arrogance in dismissing the experience of others is disgusting. Black cops do not fear other Blacks more because of inaccurate stereotypes.

They fear them because of the very real and demonstrably accurate statistical fact of black violence. Blacks kill other Blacks at astronomically high levels. Cops would be suicidal to pretend otherwise.

Re:they also found...

[markdavis]

>"...that black hosts were also less likely to accept requests from guests with African American-sounding names than with white-sounding ones."

[European-American sounding ones, but yep, probably so.] It is also likely that there is discrimination against Muslim sounding names, and many other types of names, it is certainly not just one category. And if people had access to know what kind of money a prospect has, what type of employment, their credit score, their age, sexual orientation, how they speak, what clothes they typically wear, how fat they are, if they drink, if they smoke, political leanings, legal history, how much schooling was completed, if married, what music they listen to, how many kids, the renters will likely discriminate based on all that, too (and much more).

Welcome to basic human nature. It might suck, but ALL people judge each other all the time, automatically, and most of the time without even knowing. And the scary part is that companies are constantly collecting, aggregating, selling, and using all that kind of information I listed above (and much, much more).... they think they know you.

Re:they also found...

[ShanghaiBill]

Being a member of an ethnicity doesn't mean you can't have inaccurate stereotypes about it.

Nonsense. Discrimination is wrong whether the stereotypes are accurate or not. Blacks are far more likely to be criminals than whites. That is a fact. But it is still wrong to presume that an individual black person is a criminal. Everyone should be treated and respected as an individual.

Re:they also found...

[Vinegar Joe]

Being a member of an ethnicity doesn't mean you can't have inaccurate stereotypes about it.

You're a special kind of stupid, aren't you?

Re:they also found...

[quantaman]

Being a member of an ethnicity doesn't mean you can't have inaccurate stereotypes about it.

Nonsense. Discrimination is wrong whether the stereotypes are accurate or not. Blacks are far more likely to be criminals than whites. That is a fact. But it is still wrong to presume that an individual black person is a criminal. Everyone should be treated and respected as an individual.

That is true, but the point I was making is that at least in the specific case of policing, the bias actually exceeds any truth to the stereotype.

To put it plainly, if the police increased their scrutiny of whites, and decreased their scrutiny of blacks, they'd find more criminals.

Re:they also found...

[Anonymous Coward]

It might suck, but ALL people judge each other all the time, automatically, and most of the time without even knowing.

Tell me about it. Every morning, I have to look someone who's fat, looks tired all the time and should really go to the gym instead of playing Starcraft II late at night.

I guess the easiest solution would be to remove all the mirrors in my place, though.

Re: they also found...

[Anonymous Coward]

Love your work AC. You point out the obvious truth, and it explodes some idiot SJW's head.

If all cultures are the same, maybe he would like to take a trip to Mecca ?

Re: they also found...

[AthanasiusKircher]

Black cops do not fear other Blacks more because of inaccurate stereotypes.

It depends on what you mean by "accurate." Are blacks more likely to be offenders than whites? That's what the stats say. But that doesn't exactly equate to a logical argument for "We should be suspicious of every black person we see."

They fear them because of the very real and demonstrably accurate statistical fact of black violence. Blacks kill other Blacks at astronomically high levels. Cops would be suicidal to pretend otherwise.

Hmm... "astronomically high levels"?? Yes, the black-on-black murder rate is much higher than the white-on-white murder rate. But, that doesn't imply that MOST black people are murderers, or even a significant number.

Roughly speaking, black murderers constitute around 0.03% of the black population. Meanwhile, white murderers constitute around 0.005% of the white population.

Here's the thing -- for ALL races, >99.9% of people are NOT murderers. Walking around acting like EVERY black person could potentially be a murderer is nonsensical. Making the assumption that every encounter with a black person will likely escalate to violence is unwarranted, based on your "demonstrably accurate statistical facts."

>95% of priests are NOT child molesters. >99% of Muslims are NOT terrorists. >99.9% of blacks are NOT murderers.

What you're talking about is irrational fear based on stereotypes. Just because the percentage of X crime is higher among population A than B doesn't mean it's reasonable to walk around assuming all of population A are likely criminals.

Re: they also found...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Roughly speaking, black murderers constitute around 0.03% of the black population."

There are 500 deaths in Chicago currently this year. However, the shootings in Chicago average at 12 per day.

So yes, while the murder rate is still very high, the crime rate is much, much higher than normal. You'll likely live to tell the tale of your experiences in a black neighborhood, but you might not come back with your stuff, or in the same physical shape.

In fact, you should just move to the ghetto. It's really cheap living, and according to you, 99.9% of the people there are going to be really swell. Go for it!

Re:they also found...

[ShanghaiBill]

How do you reconcile this statement with renting to people you don't know?

The way I do it is to look at their reviews from previous hosts. If their reviews are good, then race is irrelevant.

Re: they also found...

[AthanasiusKircher]

In fact, you should just move to the ghetto. It's really cheap living, and according to you, 99.9% of the people there are going to be really swell. Go for it!

Now you're just trolling. Either that, or you're completely ignorant of statistics.

At no point did I say or even imply that 99.9% of the people in "the ghetto" are "going to be really swell." What I'm noting -- since you obviously completely missed the point -- is that police officers (and everyone else for that matter) need to take into account a LOT of context to conclude that someone likely is a threat. If you're in a violent neighborhood, obviously you're more likely to run into criminals. Duh.

The problem is that none of this is an adequate explanation or justification for profiling PRIMARILY on race without any of those other circumstances. Is the guy suspicious because he's in a bad neighborhood AND he's acting weird AND there's a bunch of other factors? Or is the guy primarily suspicious just because he happens to be black?

And the history of police action and racial profiling shows that plenty of upstanding black citizens NOT in a bad neighborhood and NOT doing anything suspicious seem disproportionately likely to draw police attention.

That is a problem. THAT is stereotyping based on inaccurate assumptions, given the data. The counter to your discussion about "the ghetto" is to ask why police still seem disproportionately interested in worrying about black people in nicer neighborhoods. As you point out, violence is concentrated in some areas, so those black people in the better neighborhoods are perhaps 99.999% likely NOT to be a murderer. Why do black people still get harassed there?

Re: they also found...

[AmiMoJo]

It's a classic case of correlation is not causation. Bring black isn't what pushes the percentages up, it's being poor that does. Poverty affects black people disproportionally, thus so does violence.

Re: they also found...

[dirk]

So by this theory, white cops should fear whites because whites kill whites at similar "astronomically high levels" as blacks kill blacks. But of course that doesn't happen, because that is not what the fear is based on.

Re:they also found...

[jopsen]

....that black hosts were also less likely to accept requests from guests with African American-sounding names than with white-sounding ones.

My company recently offered debiasing training for hiring... Being an arrogant white male chauvinist pig from a country with little diversity I'll admit I was slightly skeptical. But the training was rather academic and presented some interesting perspectives:
1) it's not racism, it's largely bias (it's predominately unintentional)
2) bias is an deviation error in our decision function (we're not making optimal decisions)
3) bias is a part of our culture (it doesn't matter whether you are part of the minority that there is a negative bias towards - everybody is biased - it's in our culture)

In many ways the good news is we're not all racists, but most of us are likely biased (unintentionally). Anyways, doing something to blind ourselves from our own bias is a positive thing, as it just corrects an error in our decision logic that currently causes us to make sub-optimal decisions. Note: and correcting the error in our decision function should ideally lead to more profit, in addition to the much more important human fairness aspects.

Re: they also found...

[Kjella]

They fear them because of the very real and demonstrably accurate statistical fact of black violence. Blacks kill other Blacks at astronomically high levels. Cops would be suicidal to pretend otherwise.

Roughly speaking, black murderers constitute around 0.03% of the black population. Meanwhile, white murderers constitute around 0.005% of the white population. (...) >99% of Muslims are NOT terrorists.

So say I'm a cop approaching a suspect's car, is a 0.03%/0.005% = 600% difference in risk of getting shot trivial or not? Or if I'm the security service, the ratio of Muslim to non-Muslim terrorists? Most rentals go well, but one horror story can easily wipe out the profit of a hundred ordinary rentals. It could happen with white people, it could happen with black people, it's unlikely to happen with white people and it's unlikely to happen with black people. But if the unlikely is still a lot more likely to happen with black people rather than white people, is that bigotry or risk management?

If I've been out partying and is walking home late at night and see a woman walking the same way I bet she's a lot more worried I'll jump her and rape her in the bushes than I am that she'll do the same to me. Because I'm male and she's female and most rapists are male and rape victims female. I'd say it's pretty daft to call that sexist, even though it's entirely based on our sex with no regards to the actual person and wouldn't happen if it were two men or two women. That 99%+ don't drag women into bushes to rape them doesn't mean that fear is false or misguided.

Of course a selective bias may become a self-fulfilling prophecy, if everyone looks to the more likely suspect they might also be disproportionally often investigated and caught compared to non-likely suspects leading to excessive confirmation of the bias. That is to say if the real numbers are 60/40 and the chance of getting caught is also 60/40 the actual figures will look like 0.6*0.6 = 36% vs 0.4*0.4 = 16% leading to the false conclusion that one group is more than twice as likely to be the perp rather than 50%. But in a world of limited knowledge and resources we tend to apply what we have, even though it's unfair to those who belong to a group but go against the statistics of that group.

Re: they also found...

[Opportunist]

Maybe potential would be a start? I don't remember many black people in control of world powers before, say, Obama that even COULD start such events.

Re: they also found...

[KiloByte]

No, being poor is also only a correlation. It's mostly about a specific culture. Compare the behaviour of on-lookers during WTC vs hurricane Catrina: in the former ordinary people (not just firefighters) did a lot to help victims, in the latter you had mass looting often to the point of killing victims.

An anti-intellectual anti-work culture makes people poor. A culture that glorifies aggressive violence (rather than just violence to defend yourself or your neighbours) will also have a lot of crime. In this case, it is the same culture.

Compare gypsies with indic people -- they share the same race, their genetic makeup hasn't changed noticeably during several hundred years since they migrated. Yet the former have a vicious xenophobic culture that strongly forbids any cooperation with outsiders, encouraging crime rather than work; they have unemployment rates "only" around 90% only because statistics go by ethnicity rather than culture and thus include those who shed Romanipen and chose to conform to civilization. On the other hand, a regular indic person is kind and honest, and their superior genetical intelligence means that when exposed to the Western culture they tend to displace whites as top scientists/etc.

It's not persecution that's the cause, either. Let's take at another outsider group that lived in Europe and were even more persecuted than gypsies: the Jews. They have taken 22% of Nobel prizes despite being only 0.2% of world population. And other middle-eastern peoples, of almost identical genetic makeup? I see no stats on those, so let's take all of Islam; besides middle east this includes lots of indic peoples who are also genetically smarter than whites. And what we get? Only _four_ Nobel prizes (counting scientific fields only), out of a population of a couple billions. But wait, are even those four muslims? I've found data on two: one is lapsed, the other one belongs to a group that's declared non-muslim by the constitution of the country that guy comes from, for preferring peaceful means over murdering infidels.

Re: they also found...

[meta-monkey]

It is a classic case of correlation not being causation. Since poverty and crime are correlated, you're assuming poverty causes crime. In fact it's the other way around, that crime is a cause of poverty.

You need to solve the black crime problem, and the economic problems will take care of themselves.

Re: they also found...

[meta-monkey]

How do crime rates in expensive black neighborhoods compare to crime rates in poor white neighborhoods?

Re: they also found...

[AmiMoJo]

Interesting theory... How do you solve the "black crime problem"? And how exactly does crime cause poverty?

Re: they also found...

[AmiMoJo]

The differences in culture are not the cause of poverty, they are the result of it. A lifetime of poverty and discrimination tends not to create much empathy or respect for the rule of law, especially when things get desperate because the government doesn't seem to care and of course they couldn't afford any insurance.

You are confusing cause and effect. The common factor is poverty, and there are clear historical reasons for it that have nothing to do with culture, like being denied bank loans and good jobs and a good education. It was much worse back in the 50s, but the legacy lives on.

Re: they also found...

[AthanasiusKircher]

So say I'm a cop approaching a suspect's car, is a 0.03%/0.005% = 600% difference in risk of getting shot trivial or not? Or if I'm the security service, the ratio of Muslim to non-Muslim terrorists? Most rentals go well, but one horror story can easily wipe out the profit of a hundred ordinary rentals. It could happen with white people, it could happen with black people, it's unlikely to happen with white people and it's unlikely to happen with black people. But if the unlikely is still a lot more likely to happen with black people rather than white people, is that bigotry or risk management?

You should read the other reply I wrote to AC. Yes, estimates are that blacks murderers are 5-8 times more common than white murderers (depending on which stats you look at). Is that important to note? Perhaps. Though you may want to also look at other demographic correlates first -- murder correlates with poverty level, for example. More blacks live in poverty in the U.S. compared to whites -- in fact blacks are roughly 3 times more likely to live in poverty than whites (or 300% in your terms). If the murder rate difference is 6 times, how much can we account for by looking at poverty differences? Crime is also greater in poor neighborhoods, regardless of race.

And there are other factors to consider. The point is that when you put out a naked stat like "blacks are 6 times more likely to be murderers," you give cops a rationale to start looking at all black people a little more suspiciously. But if you instead had a stat that said "crime disproportionately happens in poor communities, and blacks are only TWICE as likely as whites there to be murderers," then it looks a little less dire, no? And take into account some other demographic figures, and the murder rate difference might seem even less.

Statistics can easily be manipulated or misunderstood without context. Similarly, suspects can be misinterpreted without context by the police... and that's really the main point here. Yes, if you see a man doing suspicious stuff AND it's in a bad neighborhood AND he happens to be black, then maybe race MIGHT be a factor to look at (though, as I mentioned in analysis above, it's probably a much smaller factor that we might think).

The problem comes in when you start taking people (and stats) out of context. If you're ONLY looking at race, or PRIMARILY basing your suspicion on race alone, it's really misleading... not only because >99% of people are probably unlikely to murder you, but also because a lot of the danger tends to come from particular circumstances that clue you in AROUND the suspect.

If I've been out partying and is walking home late at night and see a woman walking the same way I bet she's a lot more worried I'll jump her and rape her in the bushes than I am that she'll do the same to me. Because I'm male and she's female and most rapists are male and rape victims female. I'd say it's pretty daft to call that sexist, even though it's entirely based on our sex with no regards to the actual person and wouldn't happen if it were two men or two women. That 99%+ don't drag women into bushes to rape them doesn't mean that fear is false or misguided.

Once again, note the CONTEXT. Someone's been out "partying" (does that mean drinking too? perhaps less able to think clearly or flee coherently? looking more like a target), and it's "late at night" (darkness is inherently more fearful, and criminals like darkness because of the cover it provides). Is the woman alone? Is the man alone? Is the man doing other things suspiciously?

I'd say it's "pretty daft" (to use your term) to apply that logic to ALL circumstances, though. If a woman is walking down a busy sidewalk in broad daylight, should she be fearful of every man she sees -- he could pull her aside and rape her in the bushes!!

The problem with stereotyping crime by race is that is tends to lead cops to be more suspicious of certain races

Re:they also found...

[SirSlud]

Blacks are far more likely to be criminals because they are discriminated against even before they get into the judicial system. If a teacher decides she doesn't like black kids, and puts them in detention more, would you say it is correct to state, "Black kids are far more likely to misbehave?" While you may think you've just stated a fact, unless you place it within the context of the unequal treatment to begin with, you're simply perpetuating a stereotype that is untrue (blacks are far more likely to be bad people than whites.)

Re: they also found...

[Wargames]

Must see musical: Chi-Raq
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Comments by director Spike Lee:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Re:they also found...

[ShanghaiBill]

Blacks are far more likely to be criminals because they are discriminated against

If this were true, then blacks that live in predominantly white areas would do worst, since there are plenty of whites around to discriminate against them. They would do best in predominantly black areas, such as East St Louis (98% black), where there are no whites around to push them down.

This, of course, is the EXACT OPPOSITE of reality.

Re: they also found...

[meta-monkey]

How do you solve the "black crime problem"? And how exactly does crime cause poverty?

No one wants to establish businesses that bring jobs to areas that have high amounts of crime. Few want to work hard and amass wealth when it is likely to get stolen. When the blacks rioted in Milwaukee a couple of months back they looted the hair weave store. All that effort to establish a store to serve their community down the toilet.

Law and order comes first. Then comes the ability to create wealth. Not the other way around.

For every racial/ethnic/religious group that has achieved success in America, which came first: stable and predictable communities, or wealth?

As for fixing the problems that's got to come from the black community. White liberals do them no favors by making excuses for poor behavior. There are black voices trying to whip their communities into shape, but white liberals saying "no, no, you're victims, it's somebody else's fault!" is a far more appealing, but ultimately fruitless message. Counterproductive. I think it makes them feel good, though.

Prime example here. Blacks commit more crime, AirBnB renters notice and the solution isn't to weed out criminal blacks, or to offer support to efforts to end black crime, but to admonish the renters for noticing the crime. This doesn't do anything to solve the underlying problems. Black crime will continue, black poverty will continue, race relations will continue to deteriorate.

Re: they also found...

[ebyrob]

Crime is a waste, it produces no goods or resources.

Re: they also found...

[HornWumpus]

90% of white murder victims are killed by whites.

90% of black murder victims are killed by blacks.

That DOES NOT mean they have similar murder rates.

Please read 'How to Lie With Statistics'. It will help you see through the derp.

Re: they also found...

[HornWumpus]

That argument pretty much ends any discussion of gun control. So they can't have that.

Re:they also found...

[HornWumpus]

That argument works for pot. But not for murder.

There are very few murders that just aren't counted. The rate of 'solving' murders is higher for whites. Most murders are within a racial group.

If anything black violent crime is undercounted.

Re: they also found...

[Coren22]

Same kind of things happened here in Baltimore during the riots. They looted the local CVS, where their friends worked, and which provided services for the local community.

http://www.pharmacytimes.com/n...

They also looted a check cashing place, that helped people without the ability to get bank accounts get their paychecks cashed...a real horrible place that totally deserved it.

When people talk about the terrible things that happened to the African people in the US, I think they forget that the Chinese immigrants and Irish went through much the same things. Yet you don't have issues with the Irish (those evil red heads?) or Chinese doing these things, despite all the racism and slavery they dealt with.

Re: they also found...

[meta-monkey]

Maybe that makes you feel good, but it's also counter-productive. It shows evasiveness on your part.

More that it's not my fucking job to fix the black community and since my advice wouldn't reduce to "it's not their fault blame whitey more taxes for more welfare and more edukashun" I'd just get called a racist and vilified. There is no point in a white man pontificating on how to fix black problems.

Re: they also found...

[Cederic]

most rapists are male and rape victims female

Only because of the legal definitions of rape. Include serious sexual assaults (and in the US, include the prison system) and the victim gender balance dramatically shifts.

Re: they also found...

[meta-monkey]

Okay. The problem with the black community is that white people are evil and racist, and cops love shooting innocent black people for no reason. Absolutely none of the problems in the black community are in any way of the fault of any black person, ever. If white people will either kill themselves, or be taxed to give 50% (or more!) of their shit to black people including direct payments and programs at churches and schools, while groveling for forgiveness for their white privilege to every black person they see, this will solve all problems in the black community, and blacks will all become doctors and engineers and business owners. The End.

Re:they also found...

[scamper_22]

That every well might be true, but the issue is more complex.

I think the issue is made worse by our use of the word racist; a highly charged word.

People do that a lot, when in reality different words should be used.

If some one dies, it could natural, murder, second degree murder, man slaughter, negligence, an accident...

The accusation of racism is thrown out and it is taken as though the accused is morally repugnant.

It is kind of like abortion activists says abortion is murder.
It is kind of like anti-rape activists who say druken sex is rape.

You can play with the technicalities, but everyone knows the difference between these cases.

If you're a woman who is walking at night and is clubbed in the back of her head and dragged behind a bush and sexually assaulted... you know that is a vastly different thing than getting a bit tipsy and not giving your full informed consent to sexual intercourse.

And so we have this case. The connotation here is just so strong with racism. That there is a severe moral failing with AirBnB's landlords. They're like the KKK or running apartheid.

So of course people get up in arms. In reality, most are just decent people who are trying to maximize their gains and minimize their losses. They detect certain patterns in life and apply it.

I was born in South Africa. I've probably faced more 'racism' than anything African Americans today have faced. I literally was not allowed into white washrooms. We literally did have to apply and wait for housing approval. We literally were not allowed to own certain businesses. We were literally taught genetic inferiority. For the record, I'm not black or white.

That was racist policies. That and slavery and segregation are the mental images people have when you bring up racism and it is why we have such a revulsion to it.

But as we have solved many of these issues and get into less explosive issues, I think the moral failure angle has to stop.

I wouldn't call the AirBnB landlord racist; as in he think blacks people are inferior or genetically criminals.

They're just people in life making calculated choices. Same as I would avoiding a certain neighborhood or whatever the case.

THAT ALL SAID. Just because it is not RACISM, does not mean it is all 'good' and nothing should be done.

I applaud AirBnB for trying to find solution to these; whether it is hiding photos of people or education programs. This does expose a systemic issues of racism; not much different from a black guys trying to get a cab.

The average black person is harmed by the general stereotypes. That does hurt and should be addressed.

What's sad, is most often the solutions involve 'discrimination' in other ways that is equally fought.
I hate it. For example, we grew up poor and in a bad neighborhood when we moved to Canada. Yet, we were hella responsible. Good credit, no criminal record...

Now how could we show someone at AirBnb, that we are responsible. By making a point of no criminal record and good credit; even though we were from a bad neighborhood.

Yet, the anti-discrimination folks have almost pushed too far. In Ontario, Canada for example, they banned the use of credit card scores in determining auto-insurance rates.

They could still use your location. So if you're in a bad neighborhood, you will get screwed. And there's less ways to prove you're a 'good' person in a bad neighborhood.

Re: they also found...

[Kjella]

You should read the other reply I wrote to AC. Yes, estimates are that blacks murderers are 5-8 times more common than white murderers (depending on which stats you look at). Is that important to note? Perhaps. Though you may want to also look at other demographic correlates first -- murder correlates with poverty level, for example.

If you took my post to mean that there was any causal link between skin color and murder, that was unintended. I really doubt genetics plays any significant role compared to culture and the circumstances of your upbringing and your peers. The question is if it has predictive value, if being black makes you more likely to be poor and thus more likely to be a murderer than the rest, absent any information on all the hidden risk factors I know nothing about.

Once again, note the CONTEXT. Someone's been out "partying" (does that mean drinking too? perhaps less able to think clearly or flee coherently? looking more like a target), and it's "late at night" (darkness is inherently more fearful, and criminals like darkness because of the cover it provides).

Well I was trying to conjure up a situation where the risk would seem plausible, but that was not the point. The point was that the risk is notably different depending on the sexes involved. You can't take it out of the equation and say any two people who run into each other drunk in a dark alley run an equal risk of being raped. You're obviously less likely to get raped on a busy sidewalk in broad daylight, but that applies under any circumstances.

Re: they also found...

[AmiMoJo]

First, just to be clear, in not excusing rioting.

The best way to encourage good behaviour is to give people real opportunities. If they have no chance in life, they have little to lose and a lot to gain from breaking the law. Lack of good homes and upbringing and education doesn't help build character either, and poverty drives those things.

In the past, every group has come up by first dragging itself out of poverty via genuine opportunity and quality education.

I think we kinda agree, just not on the exact solution.

Re: they also found...

[meta-monkey]

In the past, every group has come up by first dragging itself out of poverty via genuine opportunity and quality education.

But nobody gave it to them, and they first established a stable culture. I don't remember the Irish looting each other, or the Jews or the Chinese murdering each other. You have to have predictability and a common culture that wants to join the American system. And you're likely to find an awful lot of blacks who hate the American system. I don't recall the Chinese of the Jews or the Irish burning the American flag and drinking white tears on Ye Olde Twatter.

It's black behavior that needs to change. Individuals can certainly be saved. I work with a program where I tutor math and science for young men who have been involved with the criminal justice system and are now trying to go to college. Most of them seem to get it. But the culture at large? There's simply too much money to be made and too many votes to be had blaming "the system." Nobody wants to hear "it's your fault and you guys need to fix your culture." There's no money and no votes in that.

Re: they also found...

[AmiMoJo]

You may recall that they were once from another continent, with a completely different culture and language. Then they were enslaved. Even after the end of slavery they were literally less than a white person, and even after that they were second class citizens... It's a little bit of a stretch to say that they are solely responsible for the situation.

Also, the Irish have been murdering each other for decades (the so-called "troubles"), running inflammatory marches just to piss the other side off and generally stirring up trouble. It was only after the discrimination was vastly reduced (no more "no dogs, no blacks, no Irish" signs) and they joined the EU and started to see prosperity did things get better.

They Chinese committed genocide against their own people, especially minority groups. My girlfriend is from there, there is a lot of lawlessness, local officials abusing their power and the like. Oh, but Chinese communities in the US, where they are more prosperous...

It's not a chicken and egg thing, the two go hand in hand to an extent but there has to be genuine opportunity.

Re: they also found...

[meta-monkey]

You're changing the subject from how a community joins the American system, in the US, to their native culture and behavior in their native lands. I don't care about what the Irish did in Ireland or the Chinese did in China.

Slavery has been over for 150 years. We've had 50 years since the civil rights act, and affirmative action.

Blacks have to fix their own problems. White meddling doesn't help. Conservatives in the US have figured this out and stopped trying to reach out to the black community 20 years ago. (Trump just started again and we'll see how that goes). Assuming he fails, it'll go right back to the way it was. The blacks vote liberal, their towns are run by liberals (which means it's liberals in charge of their police forces and justice systems), their schools are run by liberals, the media hypes every black grievance real or imagined, the liberal entertainment media hypes black achievement (real or imagined), and we are where we are. They'll either wake up or they'll keep doing what they're doing.

But when 90% of the black voters and the entirety of the media and educational establishment are united in agreement on the problems and solutions, the chances of anything changing are very, very slim. Things are going to get much worse, and I don't know if they'll ever get better.

Re: they also found...

[HornWumpus]

You'd have to believe that they were more likely to not investigate white murder victims vs blacks to believe white crime is undercounted.

In fact clearance (% solved) rates are higher for white victims. The police will tell you it's because the black community doesn't cooperate, BLM will tell you it's because black victims don't matter. They are both right (black victims apparently don't matter to the black community).

I'm also going to guess that the whole 'under-investigating rapes' is agenda driven statistical lies anyhow.

It's not rocket science..

[Anonymous Coward]

18% of the population commits 40% of the crime. Of course no one wants that in their home and they're not to blame. It's not racism it's fact.

Re:It's not rocket science..

[AmiMoJo]

Skin colour doesn't correlate with crime, poverty does. If you treat people like second class citizens you help ensure they remain poor by denying then opportunities.

There is a system in place to handle bad customers and you should have insurance on your place if you are renting it out. That's the deal society offers, if you want to operate commercially then you have to be non discriminatory.

Re:It's not rocket science..

[quenda]

Skin colour doesn't correlate with crime, poverty does.

That's a bit like "Being female does not correlate with having breasts, hormone-levels does. ".
Lack of delayed-gratification, low IQ and poor impulse-control lead to both poverty and crime.

But is this really about fear of crime? If it was, we'd expect to see black women treated similarly to white men.
Gender is a huge factor in crime statistics. Age too. What does AirBnB say about that?

Its a shame they have chosen to address this issue by taking hiding information, instead of providing more information.
Once you know enough about someone, their race matters little. But if all you know is race, then of course its smart to choose the non-black option.

Re:It's not rocket science..

[lucm]

Skin colour doesn't correlate with crime, poverty does.

This is wrong. Skin color does correlate with crime in the USA, a lot more than poverty.

The correlation with a composite of total violent crime was higher with skin color (r=.55), a more biologically influenced variable than with GDP (r=.17), a more culturally influenced variable. These results corroborate and extend those found at the international level using INTERPOL crime statistics and at the county, provincial, and state levels within countries using local statistics.

http://philipperushton.net/wp-...

Of course that was in 2011, I'm sure all those diversity programs in Silicon Valley companies changed everything.

Re:It's not rocket science..

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't use racially biased arrest statistics to prove that the racial bias is justified...

Re:It's not rocket science..

[AmiMoJo]

That paper and many others like it have been debunked extensively. Apart from the correlation being weak, they don't account for historical disadvantages like poverty, broken homes and oppression. They also use flawed measurement methods like the IQ test, which favours certain cultures and those with educational resources.

http://thealternativehypothesi...

It's just white supremacy dressed up as science.

Re:It's not rocket science..

[lucm]

That paper and many others like it have been debunked extensively. Apart from the correlation being weak, they don't account for historical disadvantages like poverty, broken homes and oppression.

You confuse "correlation" and "cause"; that was obvious in your first reply but even more now that you say that a study does not "take into account" various factors like poverty and oppression when they identify a correlation between skin color and crime. Oppression, really?

Because you confuse those two things, you let your emotions take over and lose objectivity, and you jump to conclusion. As an example, you say that this study from a Canadian university is racist and has been debunked extensively, which is clearly total bullshit. And the only link you provide to support your self-righteous diatribe is the part 2 of some random blog post series on a broken wordpress site which has nothing to do with nothing except it has the words "debunking" and "race" in the title.

So please take a deep breath and think about this objectively. If you maintain that the study I linked has been "debunked" or is racist, please post relevant links to support your point because as it stands it just looks like you googled "debunking racist study" or somehing like that and posted one of the results, which has no relation whatsoever with the study.

Re:It's not rocket science..

[Opportunist]

The link does not provide anything that would support your statement.

Re:It's not rocket science..

[Attila Dimedici]

Skin colour doesn't correlate with crime, poverty does.

Your are correct that skin colour does not correlate with crime. However, it is not poverty that correlates with crime, it is being from a single parent household which correlates with crime. The incidence of single parent households are MUCH higher among blacks than among whites.

Re:It's not rocket science..

[wired_parrot]

Oh for God's sake. You're citing Philippe Rushton, a textbook definition of a racist, past president of the Pioneer Fund and frequent contributor to American Renaissance, both organizations classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups, and you want us to give equal weight to his arguments that blacks have smaller brains and unrestrained libido? He's been thoroughly debunked by many, but Joseph Grave's debunking of Rushton is one of the most thorough.

It's a sad day for slashdot when works by a noted racist thinker gets modded +5 and conspiracy theories on a presidential candidate's health make the front page.

Re:It's not rocket science..

[edtice1559]

I so wish I had mod points. You should be modded up and the OP way down.

Sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

Decide you wanna protect your own property and suddenly you're racist

Re: Sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's anonymize individuals so the racial tension can exist once the renter and rentee meet and payment has been made instead of merely denying them and avoiding an awkward, potentially confrontational issue all together.

As a bi male, when traveling with my boyfriend (I don't bother if I'm dating a girl), I make it pretty clear there's gonna be two guys sleeping together in their home indirectly. I like to filter hosts that have issue with that before I arrive. I've been discriminated against traveling with a by before but I'm quite happy it happens before I arrive and I can instead move on, find a host that has no issue, and have an enjoyable stay.

Re:Sigh

[stealth_finger]

Decide you wanna protect your own property and suddenly you're racist

If you want to protect your property don't be offering it to strangers, at all.

Come on

[somenickname]

Come on, can't we get some happy, nerdy news on Slashdot anymore? I don't give one single fuck about this article. Or almost any other article on Slashdot today. And yesterday was basically an Apple circle-jerk. Please, for the love of gOD, give me some ultra-nerdy stuff that makes me doubt my ability to do the math. This site can genuinely challenge you but, not when you constantly post bullshit.

Re:Come on

[thegarbz]

Come on, can't we get some happy, nerdy news on Slashdot anymore?

Immediately under this article is a story about the launch of a spacecraft to intercept NASA. I know people's attention span is getting shorter but seriously man, that's a new low as far as complaints go.

Re:Come on

[somenickname]

Well, I'll admit it: I've been trying to get a +5 Troll post for a long time now. I can feel it coming but, maybe I haven't completely mastered that art yet.

Will the renters be COMPELLED to rent?

[mi]

Whatever policies the company staff are subjected to, unless the renters are somehow compelled to rent to people against their will — however misguided, hateful, or bigoted that will might be — the complaints will not go away.

The government may compel a business-owner by threatening fines and withdrawal of license. Fortunately, AirBnB does not have the government's power and monopoly. Whatever they do is doomed to failure.

They know this and are going through the motions only to deflect criticism (and the government's wrath) against themselves.

Re:Will the renters be COMPELLED to rent?

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't have to go that far. They can rank the discriminatory hosts last so that most potential renters won't see them.

Re:Will the renters be COMPELLED to rent?

[mi]

They can rank the discriminatory hosts last so that most potential renters won't see them.

That will mean violating the customer's trust — if I am sorting by rankings, the site will be lying to me if they let (alleged) bigotry weight somebody down beyond the low rating the alleging party has left.

Maybe, they can add a separate criteria for "political correctness" or "adherence to Social Justice principles" — and see, how many will choose their next room based on that...

Perhaps more importantly, if the discrimination really is as widespread as is being alleged, your method simply will not help...

Re: Will the renters be COMPELLED to rent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, until the people forced to accommodate destructive guests stop using the service, and the people forced to the bottom of the list stop using the service.

Problem solved!

I mean the problem of Airbnb having to worry about public perception, because they're out of business. They haven't done shit about racism, and neither will the company who steals their clients.

Re:Will the renters be COMPELLED to rent?

[quantaman]

Whatever policies the company staff are subjected to, unless the renters are somehow compelled to rent to people against their will — however misguided, hateful, or bigoted that will might be — the complaints will not go away.

The government may compel a business-owner by threatening fines and withdrawal of license. Fortunately, AirBnB does not have the government's power and monopoly. Whatever they do is doomed to failure.

They know this and are going through the motions only to deflect criticism (and the government's wrath) against themselves.

If companies didn't have the ability to influence the actions of their customers then marketing as a discipline would not exist.

Re:Will the renters be COMPELLED to rent?

[mi]

If companies didn't have the ability to influence the actions of their customers then marketing as a discipline would not exist.

The owners of the real estate being rented aren't "customers". In the traditional scheme of things, they are more like "suppliers".

They aren't as feeble-minded as regular consumers and thus not as easily manipulated by marketing. Not to say, they can not be persuaded at all — indeed, persuasion is the only legitimate way of fighting real racism — but it will not be as easy as making you want a new phone...

Re:Will the renters be COMPELLED to rent?

[AmiMoJo]

They are going to make it so that if they refuse to rent on certain dates they can't then rent them out to someone else later. So racism will cost them days that they could have made profit from.

I can see it being somewhat effective because profit is a great motivator to overcome bigotry.

Re:Will the renters be COMPELLED to rent?

[mi]

They are going to make it so that if they refuse to rent on certain dates they can't then rent them out to someone else later

Is one a racist only on certain dates?!.. I never knew about such a phenomenon — could you elaborate?

profit is a great motivator to overcome bigotry

It probably is. But there are two things to note:

• The alleged racists are already turning down profit by rejecting certain customers — either profit is not such a great motivator after all, or the allegations aren't true.
• AirBNB will be losing its share of profits too by doing this and profit may prove just as motivating to them in leaving the owners be.

Re:Will the renters be COMPELLED to rent?

[Jeremi]

Fortunately, AirBnB does not have the government's power and monopoly. Whatever they do is doomed to failure.

What AirBnB could do (in principle, at least; dunno if this would be practical) is partially anonymize their customers so that it was difficult or impossible to determine an applicant's race from his application. Then property owners would be unable to make decisions based on prejudice, since the data necessary to do so would not be available to them.

Re:Will the renters be COMPELLED to rent?

[speedplane]

They don't even need to change rankings. Simply sending a polite reminder email to hosts with a discriminatory track record will probably have a significant effect. Most of this type of discrimination is likely implicit.

Re:Will the renters be COMPELLED to rent?

[mi]

is partially anonymize their customers so that it was difficult or impossible to determine an applicant's race from his application

Anonymity will not help — there are very few obviously Black names. They need to disable photos — which were denounced as a major instrument of racism for almost a century already. But that would mean removal of an important feature of the system by making it impersonal...

My personal opinion is that while racism is regrettable, its impact is overrated and far less damaging than any heavy-handed (and freedom-trampling) efforts to fight it. Jews, for example, were targets of racism in Europe for centuries. And I mean real racism — the pogroms were far more tangible, than anything Blacks suffer from in the US today. Similarly to Blacks, Asians were victims of racism in the US since building the railroads (I just watched the Bruce Lee movie).

Yet, neither the Jews nor the Asians today need to explain their under-performance in our "White society" by the racism — because they perform better than the supposed tormentors. So much better, Asian college-applicants are advised to not answer the "Race" question on their applications — to avoid the penalty college boards impose on Asians in the name of "equality". Being presumed White instead of Asian is estimated to be an equivalent to extra 50 SAT-points...

50 years ago we surrendered certain freedoms to the promise of racial harmony. The harmony remains as elusive as ever, but the freedoms continue withering away...

Re:Will the renters be COMPELLED to rent?

[stephanruby]

That will mean violating the customer's trust — if I am sorting by rankings, the site will be lying to me if they let (alleged) bigotry weight somebody down beyond the low rating the alleging party has left.

Uber already does that to a degree. If you ignore three requests in a row for pickups, the driver is kicked offline for 30 minutes (in some areas).

The same thing could be done with AirBnB. It doesn't matter if the AirBnB owner is racist, or just unavailable. And it's too difficult to tell anyway. It's just that if the owner of an AirBnB is too unresponsive to some of his/her potential customers, AirBnB should just place that specific AirBnB at the back of the queue for a couple of days.

Re:Will the renters be COMPELLED to rent?

[AmiMoJo]

The main difference between black people and east Asian people in the US is that black people are much more likely to still be suffering from the legacy of historic disadvantage.

The stereotypes have flipped round in some cases. The Japanese were seen as lazy and stupid around 1900, but are now regarded had hard working to the point of killing themselves with stress.

With black people it's largely still the same bullshit as 200+ years ago.

Re:Will the renters be COMPELLED to rent?

[Anonymous Coward]

s/suffering from/revelling in/

The perception of the Japanese wasn't changed by media campaigns and affirmative action. The perception of the Japanese was changed by the Japanese unequivocally proving those perceptions wrong.
When the perception of blacks is that they're violent and dangerous, you don't get that perception changed by rioting and smashing up communities.

Re:Will the renters be COMPELLED to rent?

[dywolf]

again with the racism

Re:Come on your face

[ArtemaOne]

Hey, it wasn't all Apple, there was also some anti-Samsung articles.

Re:In other words. . .

[Wycliffe]

the company is telling its employees what policies to implement, instructing their employees on how to behave, and overall exercising control over its employees. Just like a hotel does.

Except that training staff and setting diversity goals for recruitment is not going to do anything when it is the *hosts* that are discriminating. In most cases, if the host also lives there, it is not even illegal to discriminate. Most places have rules that let you discriminate on gender and other random requirements when dealing with roommates or in some cases even sharing a close dwelling like a duplex.

Risk management

[sinij]

I am willing to bet most won't rent to a group of teenagers, and it isn't because of ageism.

I don't think they will have any luck with cajoling people into abandoning basic risk management when it comes to renting their property.

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazing that a population associated with 2500% more murders per capita has a 16% less acceptance rate.

"African-American sounding names"

[Anonymous Coward]

aka "ghetto" names that are associated with bad parenting and bad upbringing.

Re:"African-American sounding names"

[Opportunist]

That's got nothing to do with "African American", you can have the same effect in Europe, with the implication that white trash parents and especially teen moms choosing the name of their heartthrob film star as the name for their child. That phenomenon got the name "Kevinism" in Germany (and neighboring countries "suffering" from the same phenomenon), i.e., as the article linked says, the implication is "Your name's Kevin? You're probably white trash".

The female version being "Chantallism", by the way.

Names do affect your children's ability to get ahead later in life. Take a moment to find a name that isn't going to hurt their chances.

Re: "African-American sounding names"

[bestweasel]

About 10 years ago our French teacher told us that Kevin was a very chic name in France, where they pronounced it Kevang. We all laughed. Except for Kevin.

Triggering on the wrong bias point

[Snotnose]

First off, I would never rent my house for a week or two. I just don't trust people that much.

Second, if I was going to rent my house out for a week or two I would look at age first. That 50 year old black couple is going to beat the 20 year old single white dude. Every. Single. Time.

Re:Triggering on the wrong bias point

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL, there are no 50 yr old black couples.

Re:Triggering on the wrong bias point

[Solandri]

The vast majority of Airbnb (and VRBO) listings are not owner-occupied homes. They're second, third, etc. homes owned by someone who rents them out full-time as a business.

It's kinda like how most eBay listings used to be people getting rid of unused crap in their homes, but now it's mostly people running businesses with eBay as a storefront. Or Uber and Lyft, which started out as "these people want to go to the same place you are, why not give them a ride and make a few bucks?" But now the drivers are all doing it as a full-time business.

Re:Triggering on the wrong bias point

[stephanruby]

First off, I would never rent my house for a week or two. I just don't trust people that much.

Renting your own house is one thing. All your stuff is in there. But if you had a duplex for instance or a second apartment, that might be a different story. In my area, the riskier tenants are the ones that stay for more than 30 days, because then rent control and renters rights go into effect, and it becomes almost impossible to evict them (even if they decide to stop paying rent).

Second, if I was going to rent my house out for a week or two I would look at age first. That 50-year-old black couple is going to beat the 20-year-old single white dude. Every. Single. Time.

Does Airbnb give you their age? And what about the parent who gets an Airbnb for his/her 20 years old son? Are you allowed to refuse someone because their parents booked the room for them? I am sure you wouldn't know, but I assume that someone else reading this may know the answer.

Re:Triggering on the wrong bias point

[bigdavex]

That 50 year old black couple is going to beat the 20 year old single white dude. Every. Single. Time.

That sounds like a pretty strong reason for single white dudes not to rent to 50 year old black couples. ;-)

Did they collect risk and damage data?

[trout007]

Young men are charged more for car insurance because they are a higher risk. When there was a free market in healthcare women were charged more because they use it more. Smokers were charged more as well.

If they really wanted to show that discrimination was unfounded they would post the data proving that African American Airbnb users are no more likely to commit crime or cause damage than other renters.

Re:Did they collect risk and damage data?

[HBI]

That's not what the numbers would show, so we'll never see that data.

The truth is something today's authoritarians can't handle.

Re:Did they collect risk and damage data?

[trout007]

You don't know that. Maybe for the black population as a whole it would be high but Airbnb is a particular subset.

Re:Did they collect risk and damage data?

[HBI]

I'll accept the testimony of the crickets.

Re: Did they collect risk and damage data?

[ljw1004]

Or they could show that individual variance is much larger than difference in race-based population averages. Implying that judging risk based on race is a poor predictor.

Re:Did they collect risk and damage data?

[dirk]

Why should they have to do the research to disprove people's prejudices? If you want to claim blacks cause than whites, shouldn't you be the one to have some information to back up your claim before you start discriminating based on it?

Re:Did they collect risk and damage data?

[AmiMoJo]

Probably not. Crime is correlated with poverty, not skin colour. Being able to afford an Airbnb is self selecting. It bet there is no statistical difference.

Re:Did they collect risk and damage data?

[HBI]

You just keep believing that poverty == crime. It's bullshit, but the leftist thought process requires a high tolerance for BS.

Lots of poor people around this world who find it in themselves to act civilized and live within the constraints of law. Mainly because it benefits them and their families. Lots of black people in the urban areas of the US who reject lawlessness also, but they have an uncontrollable element within their community created by bad social policies, destroying nuclear families in some misguided quest to "help". A bumper crop of fatherless "men" with a chip on their shoulder and no decent role models, taught by the peer society around them that their duty is to be a thug and seek incarceration.

Moynihan knew what he was talking about. They called him a racist for pointing out the obvious - we created this element with shitty policy. Lucky for him, he didn't live to see its full fruition today.

Re:Did they collect risk and damage data?

[dbIII]

You just keep believing that poverty == crime. It's bullshit

Of course it is but that's not what the poster above wrote.
How about being a good little boy and look up the word "correlated" instead of shifting goalposts by putting words in other people's mouths.

Re:Did they collect risk and damage data?

[trout007]

Because they are the only ones that would have that data. If you use national or state crime statistics it is logical to discriminate against groups that have significantly higher crime rates. But who knows what it is for the AirBnB subset?

Re:Did they collect risk and damage data?

[meta-monkey]

But AniMoJo was wrong (shocking, I know). Crime is correlated both with poverty and with race. And more so with race than with poverty. It seems the cause of black poverty is black crime.

AirBnB renters are noticing the provable relationship between blacks and crime and acting accordingly. Why is the solution to shame the AirBnB renters into accepting crime, rather than telling the blacks to knock off the criminal behavior? What exactly is our goal here?

Re:Did they collect risk and damage data?

[meta-monkey]

Ok, start showing us your studies.

http://philipperushton.net/wp-...

Really, you are now thinking that correlation=causation, is that it? Well, that's not so. You didn't even bother to check the correlation of poverty with race, or the issues of law enforcement itself.

Yeah, I did. Black people commit more crime. That's just the reality in which we live.

Well, for some people, the goal is perpetuating their racism which they justify as protecting themselves from "crime" while for others, it is not falling into that obvious trap.

I just don't get it. Why is "perpetuating racism" a goal? What does someone get out of that?

It seems to me that you've got a fact that blacks are more likely to commit crimes and so people who are wary of being the victim of crimes (which is rational) choose not to associate with blacks. But you're saying they don't really care about crime, but just hate blacks irrationally, and only pretend to care about crime to justify their irrational hatred? Why would anyone do that? Do you think they're just evil? If so, what made them evil?

New business opportunity!

[GameboyRMH]

This will spur demand for a racist-friendly rental site, they could call it Aryanbnb. This would also help nonwhite renters avoid discrimination by simply avoiding the site!

But seriously, this shit's not gonna stop as long as loopholes exist for short-term online rentals that don't for traditional rentals. See also: Illegal interview questions vs. employer facebook stalking.

Re:New business opportunity!

[AmiMoJo]

It would be like that white only dating site. An opportunity to label yourself as a racist, become a social outcast and lose your job.

Someone should do it, just to see how many people sign up.

Re:New business opportunity!

[Opportunist]

Umm... could I first see your business plan? I kinda have a hard time seeing the cash flow with most of your projects. Unless you're planning to do them in "The Projects"...

Re:New business opportunity!

[Opportunist]

It's called having a sexual preference, for fuck's sake! Do I have to date 60 year olds now so I can dodge being accused of being ageist?

Where the FUCK does political correctness end? What's next, any straight person who doesn't want to engage in homosexual activity is homophobic? Would you force me to fuck a woman? I can tell you that much: Nu-uh, not gonna work!

And no, I don't want to fuck a black guy. Why? 'cause I am into white guys. Why? For the same damn reason others are into black guys, black women, women with black hair, guys with muscles, FFS, I know someone who gets turned on by armpit hair.

Not renting to people based on prejudice, I'm with you. Despicable. But dating is by the very definition of how sexual preferences work based on prejudice. Some like this, some like that, and fortunately there is no set standard (no matter what certain magazines want to tell you) that applies. Actually I know someone who is into morbidly obese partners. Want to force him to fuck a skinny guy so he can be seen as "not prejudiced".

Yes, I'm prejudiced when it comes to who gets to bed with me. At least when fucking is supposed to be involved, I don't care too much who sleeps next to me. As long as they don't reek, and I HOPE this is understandable and not some sort of prejudice against... what's the hate for people who smell like a skunk called?

Re:New business opportunity!

[AmiMoJo]

Do you honestly not see the difference between a whites only dating site and only selecting white guys to have sex with on Grinder? Both are kinda bad, but one is far worse and actually illegal in most developed countries.

Re:New business opportunity!

[K. S. Kyosuke]

No, it's called similarity attraction.

Re:New business opportunity!

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Unlike Asian dating sites? Seeing that I see ads for those quite a lot. Also, "find your Russian bride" ads.

Re:New business opportunity!

[Opportunist]

It is bad that I have a sexual preference? Excuse me?

Oh I hope I have the right one and needn't be "corrected".

Re:New business opportunity!

[AmiMoJo]

I have not seen Asian only dating sites, but yeah they sound kinda racist too, if their attitude is "no whites allowed".

Russian brides, maybe not so much since they are basically matching westerners with Russian women who want to get out of Russia badly enough, i.e. it's not really about race. Unless they exclude black Russians or something.

Sexual preference has little to do with a whites only dating site though. If you don't find yourself attracted to black people, we need not get into the reasons why at this stage, you can just skip those profiles. The point at which a commercial site starts saying "no black people at all" it becomes a problem though. Businesses are not supposed to discriminate when offering services. It seems unreasonably to need a site just for white people when the only issue to making "filtering" a little easier.

Anyway, would you even want a whites only site? Seems like most of the people on there would be over racists and white supremacists. Otherwise why would you limit your options like that? Why not at least look at black people, because you know, they have all different body types, shades of skin colour, mixed race etc. and the chances that you will only find pale while skinned people attractive is pretty slim.

Re:In other words. . .

[ShanghaiBill]

If the renter can supply a good credit rating it should be safe.

Nobody runs a credit check for a one or two night AirBNB stay. Even if they did, that is not a fix to discrimination, since blacks, on average, have worse credit scores.

Because blacks tend to have worse credit scores, in 2007 the state of Washington banned the use of credit reports in hiring. This of course, made discrimination worse. This is an example of a market for lemons. Since employers could no longer tell "good" black candidates from "bad" black candidates, they played it safe by just hiring fewer blacks overall. Yet another perverse unintended consequence of a regulation.

Re:They're gonna rename it

[Anonymous Coward]

I happened upon a video on the worldstar site yesterday. Holy shit, the comments... I thought the ones on youtube were retarded.

For reference it was this video (hidden camera UFO encounter prank): http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshh6zuubpZ86re82H8t

Re:Flip Side

[ShanghaiBill]

Lets see the stats on homes being trashed, by race.

I host on Airbnb, and the biggest problem is not being "trashed", but getting unjustified bad reviews the destroy your reputation and diminish future bookings. I have rented to black people, and they tend to be easy going and tolerant of minor problems that may crop up. I have never had a bad review from any of them. The worse renters are French people. They whine about everything.

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, how, exactly, is telling subs to comply with federal and stat laws making them "employees"? Every contract I've let has required the contractor and subs to comply with a about 20 anti-discrimination laws.

A black man's take on Lyft driver vs SJW video

[Vinegar Joe]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Are non-whites not getting rental housing?

[swb]

My first question is whether there's an actual harm being experienced by non-white renters. Are they experiencing an inability to rent on AirBnB? Short term housing in general, such as hotels or resorts?

How picky are AirBnB renters allowed to be generally? AFAIK where I live if you own a duplex or some other owner-occupied property you're allowed to refuse rental to anyone.

My sense is that as long as it doesn't meaningfully prevent people from renting in an area, who cares? If someone doesn't like me because of my race or ethnicity or whatever, I'd guess I'd rather not stay in their house anyway, so those people who turn me down are doing us both a favor. It's only really a problem if it seriously limits the number of places I can stay.

How to ruin you child's chances at anything:

[Howitzer86]

...give them a black sounding name.

Just don't do it. Give them a chance to at least make it to the interview on their qualifications and merits. At least in person a better first impression can be made beyond "Oh, I see you're extremely black."

Come back next week for: "How to tell a parent doesn't give a damn." (spoiler- It's the same lesson), and "How to make yourself look un-black if you're black." and "Cars you really should avoid if you don't want to be pulled over (with any color)."

Sign up for my 5 week seminar and you'll could win a fake pair of glasses and my professionals guide on buying small Japanese cars.

Re:How to ruin you child's chances at anything:

[Hognoxious]

Hyphenated first name: redneck.
Hyphenated family name: pretentious shitcock.

Re:How to ruin you child's chances at anything:

[Opportunist]

Good summary.

Re:In other words. . .

[frovingslosh]

If you really want to have fun, err... I mean take this to the next logical level, then forbid owners from running criminal background checks on the renters. After all, not wanting to rent your expensive home to criminals is racist, since a black person if far more likely to have a criminal record than a white person. Airbnb should make renters agree to rent to any criminal that applies.

What agony...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh man, it just breaks me to see your country go down the same rabbit hole as South Africa. Have you seen what has become of this country? Learn from it! Bowing to the farse of the diversity ideology will be the end of you. Ignore this at your own peril.

Re:Flip Side

[glitch!]

The worse renters are French people. They whine about everything.

It's funny that you mention that. I just had a family from France, and they hit a deer on the way to my place. They were late, but okay. I took their car rental numbers and my wife called the company and got them set up to get a replacement car. The next morning, I gave them the information and helped them get on their way. This should be an "easy A", non? They thanked me in their review, but my score dropped anyway. I guess waiting late and dealing with rental companies on behalf of guests is expected for hosts.

Well, I am soured for guests from France, anyway. I still welcome guests from anywhere else.

Re: In other words. . .

[the_Bionic_lemming]

I'm good friends with Mike Brown, owner of Minnie Joe's in Richton Park IL. Look him up on facebook and you'll catch a couple of glimpses of me.

If I go on vacation I'd hand him the keys to my house and ask him to take care of my dog while I was gone.

If someone over the web asked to do the same and her name (and this is an actual name of a person working as a cashier at the local walmart) was Cashamonet I'd not think twice about rejecting her because any parent that did that to a child was most likely on the dole, illiterate, and just plain stupid. How much of a chance is there that she fell far enough from the tree to be trusted?

Blame the parent that set them up for failure.

Re:In other words. . .

[mjwx]

If the renter can supply a good credit rating it should be safe.

Nobody runs a credit check for a one or two night AirBNB stay. Even if they did, that is not a fix to discrimination, since blacks, on average, have worse credit scores.

Also consider that a lot of people using AirBNB will be foreigners to that nation, so no credit check will be possible as different nations use different systems (not to mention privacy laws).

Besides, with AirBNB the payment is taken before you arrive.

Re: In other words. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm fine with people not allowing blacks to stay in their house while offering a commercial short term house / room letting service.

But I don't think society should support their commercial venture if they're going to be racist about it.

The upshot is that you're welcome to be racially discriminatory in who you allow to stay in your property, or to run a commercial short-term letting service, but not both.

Re: In other words. . .

[Lord Kano]

I favor the libertarian model. Just to be clear, I'm not a Libertarian but I like many points of their philosophy.

Many people are surprised by this because as a black man, they don't expect that I'd argue in favor of someone's right to discriminate but yes. If you want to discriminate, it should be legal BUT you have to face the consequences of that decision.

I suspect that the vast majority of the people I know, of all racial backgrounds, would refuse to do business with someone who mistreated me just as I would refuse to do business with someone who had mistreated them.

Being that this is AirBNB, a private entity, I like it. If you're going to discriminate, they will not do business with you.

The power of the Free Market at works.

LK

nothing more illogical than race relations

[liquid_schwartz]

After all, if black people want to only rent to black people that'll be OK as long as we call it a safe space. I suspect that other protected classes could get away with this too. As long as it's not ever a white male because then it would be bad. Logic is definitely a weak point among the PC crowd. It's either wrong to discriminate or it isn't. Anything along the lines of you can do this but he can't are just a new flavor of discrimination.

Re:nothing more illogical than race relations

[liquid_schwartz]

Discrimination - the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex.

If you have a policy of providing perks to certain favored classes then by definition you are mistreating the groups that didn't get the perks. It really is that simple. The civil rights movement was ~50 years ago. What has happened since then is a systematic process of giving perks and benefits to protected classes solely on the basis of their race / gender. Obama's daughters will benefit from affirmative action even though they probably have more "privilege" than anyone else on /. If that system sounds wise, well thought out, or fair then just let me know and I'll drop this conversation.

I had to laugh when you said include more people. Much of life is a zero sum game, such as who gets the job or a admitted to a given college. You are excluding some people to include your favored groups. You most certainly are not including more people. Moreover the current thinking among the SJW crowd is how dare white people even speak unless it's to lament their privilege in a strange form of self flagellation. That doesn't sound like including more people either. Moreover it cheapens the results of those who do succeed since it's hard to know where their merit ended and the perks started. To use a sports analogy, would you subtract a few tenths of a second from a swimmer who was from an underrepresented group? If you did and based on the modification to their time they won, would the spectators accept that as a valid win or would it always have a footnote by it that said they won only due to a modification?

1963 - I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

The thinking today is the direct opposite of this.

Re:Understandable

[lucm]

First, you don't have a house. Second, if you had one, nobody would want to rent it anyways.

Re:In other words. . .

[man_ls]

That's effectively what "Ban the Box" legislation is doing. Since it's getting increasingly unacceptable to ask about and disqualify candidates who have criminal records up front, and since black Americans are statistically more likely to have a criminal record, employers have responded by hiring fewer blacks at all.

The next step is a quota system.

Re:In other words. . .

[ShanghaiBill]

Besides, with AirBNB the payment is taken before you arrive.

A credit check is a lot more meaningful than just whether people will pay their bills. Otherwise, prospective employers would never run them. A bad credit score often indicates that someone is disorganized, dysfunctional, and likely dishonest. I know people (mostly relatives) with dismal credit scores and I definitely would not like to work with any of them. Credit scores are strongly correlated with employee performance. You also want to look at other factors: The browser they used to submit their resume (avoid hiring MSIE users), bad grammar and spelling, whether they type in single case (all UPPERCASE is the worst, but people that use all lowercase also tend to be poor employees), etc.

Re:In other words. . .

[ShanghaiBill]

Since it's getting increasingly unacceptable to ask about and disqualify candidates who have criminal records ...

One reason is that having a criminal record is not correlated with poor performance for most jobs. It may be sensible to run a criminal background check if you are hiring a cashier, but not if you are hiring a carpenter or a programmer.

16%???

[Gussington]

16% are racist is another way of saying 84% aren't. Compare to attitudes 50 years I'd take that as a win.
To compare, 22% would've still voted for Bush even after starting 2 unwinnable wars that cost over a Trillion dollars and will take decades to resolve, and plunging most of the western world into economic meltdown. If even the most useless leader in history still has 22% support, then 16% is nothing.

Yes

[aepervius]

"Whatever they do is doomed to failure. " I disagree : an example of easiest policy is that after a number of strike of refusing a black sounding name or whatever person to imemdiately relist and offer , then you get delisted and black listed from air bnb. Then implement a certain percentage of probe. Results : racist are not compelled, but if they want to keep being listed they have to or risk being out. Now whether airbnb WANTS to implement such a plicy is different.

Re:In other words. . .

[Zontar The Mindless]

Indeed, I was coming here to say, Those who don't know the hotel business are doomed to reinvent it—poorly.

Re:Flip Side

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in France, I am not sure if it counts as whining. I think they just have a different attitude - I don't think they ever gush with praise.

Some guy I (an anonymous coward) met said their education system works as follows. All kids start the year with 20/20 full marks. But for each bit of work they do that is less than perfect they lose credit. And everyone always loses credit. In say the UK, it wouldn't be too hard to get around 90% for most things, but I think anything over 80% in France is really pretty exceptional. I took some courses with clever hard working people and the top score in the class might only be 15/20 or 16/20.

I saw some of a patisserie competition where people were making ridiculously beautiful delicious looking things that in the UK would only receive gushing praise and scores of 8.5/10 or more, but in France the praise was very much tempered with criticism and scores were closer to 6/10.

A friend of mine has a French wife and he thinks that the French in general have a very fatalistic attitude towards things, don't generally expecct things to go well etc.

In general I would give a 5 star review on airbnb and consider it being polite, unless there was a problem, similarly with amazon. But I think really a 3 star review means everything was fine right? 5 stars should be for exceptional? Or at least I think that is how the French might see it.

I don't know what the point I am trying to make is - definitely don't take it personally, it is probably a cultural difference which airbnb and any other future renters (frustratingly) won't really be able to take into account.

Re: In other words. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

It is correlated with being a criminal, however.

Re: In other words. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Not as closely as it should be....

The problem with this

[athmanb]

Only 1% of the population commits crimes. In statistics you have to pay special attention to cases where probabilities are close to 0 or 1.

Here, even though 18% of the population may commit 40% of the crimes, it still only means that one of those people has a 2.2% chance (0.4% divided by 0.18) of being a criminal. If you therefore deny him a service due to fear of him being a criminal, you are still 97.8% likely to have commited an error.

Re:The problem with this

[HornWumpus]

Wait a second: Because 18% of the population commit 40% of crime, 40% of the 18% are criminals (which would be 7.2 not 2.2)? How does that even follow?

In fact, that 40% of crime is committed by a group much smaller than 18%, young black males. A 50 year old black woman is less likely to be a criminal than a young white male.

Being on guard around groups of young men (of all races but particularly blacks) is just rational. Jesse Jackson admits he is, why should anybody else pretend?

Re:In other words. . .

[AmiMoJo]

The problem seems to be partially systemic in the way Airbnb works. Insufficient information to make an unbiased decision. Do they require insurance against damage done by renters?

Re:Flip Side

[serviscope_minor]

3* for everything good and expected sounds reasonable. Unfortunately the star ratings have become something like this:

5* Everything worked as expected. Clean, owner was there on time etc.
4* Kind of skeezy but whatever there were less than 3 rats visible at any one time.
3* The bed was on fire.
2* Turns out the apartment was floating above hell itself. Would not rent again.
1* WiFi was slow and unreliable.

Re:In other words. . .

[dbIII]

The problem seems to be partially systemic in the way Airbnb works

It's kind of obvious.
If you have an ad-hoc unprofessional arrangement things like this are going to happen.

It's one thing letting strangers into your workplace.
It's a very different thing letting strangers into your home, and unless you are very prepared for it like those of old who used to rent out rooms then an emotional shitstorm is likely to happen when somebody treats your place like a cheap motel.
The business model of it being like online motel bookings contributes to this.

Re:In other words. . .

[dbIII]

A bad credit score often indicates that someone is disorganized, dysfunctional, and likely dishonest

Or financially supporting someone like that. Have kids or pay attention to those who do have kids or take a look at people in relationships with someone other than the perfect prince/princess and you'll find a few people who have had to dig deep to get others out of holes.
Besides, these days having credit so bad that only Russian banks will lend to you is a sign of being good enough for the top job in the nation.

Re: In other words. . .

[Opportunist]

And this is why it's ok to be racist against white people but not ok to be racist against black people?

Re:In other words. . .

[Opportunist]

The next logical step is that I'm not allowed to reject applicants that don't have the necessary college degrees because there's fewer (insert minority group here) degree holders.

Re:In other words. . .

[Opportunist]

Hire someone with kids? You nuts? Every other day that rugrat is sick and your employer is late 'cause they have to drop it off with some daycare, they want to take days off 'cause it screeches in some school show. Not to mention that I cannot relocate them without a hassle. Or have them work late 'cause they got to be home for their dependents...

Re:Flip Side

[Opportunist]

You never had to deal with Germans or Austrians, I guess? :)

They tend to use the full spectrum of the evaluation system, with 3 actually meaning "ok". 4 stars would mean that the service was exceptional and for 5 stars you'd pretty much have to provide something that they didn't even imagine possible.

It's going to take a while to teach them that 5 stars is actually supposed to mean that there was no problem. Because ... how are you supposed to show that it was really awesome? Or is it not planned to be any better than "ok"?

Now isn't that perfect?

[Opportunist]

Let's force racist bastards to be the host to people of a different color than himself and make their stay miserable. Awesome idea, airbnb.

If I had any money in you, I'd bail now. Whatever other service exists will take over once people get pissed enough that their vacation has been ruined by not being able to filter out racist assholes and having to stay with one.

Re:Just like hookers, right?

[Opportunist]

Too big or why?

Re:Here's a crazy idea

[Opportunist]

And when policemen stop shooting black people they'll be liked a lot more. Not to mention the muslims, they should do something about those terrorists if they don't want us to get off the bus if one of them comes in with a coat.

Did it ever occur to you that you're judging a group of people based on a minority of them? Would you be ok if I called you a jingoistic dimwit with a poor education who couldn't find fucking CANADA on a map but thinks he's the most important asshole on the planet because of various "Dumb American" videos on YouTube?

Re:In other words. . .

[SirSlud]

A bad credit score can indicate that, if lenders are operating in good faith and not predatorily against certain groups of society.

That isn't the case, however.

Re: In other words. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

amazing how southern white lower class racists appear when someone wants to make a point about racism, but magically disappear when someone wants to make a point about class

Re: In other words. . .

[Opportunist]

"The white folks"? Is that like "the black folks" that rape and murder? The same "all of them" that is the friggin' racist bullshit this whole deal is about in the first place?

Re:In other words. . .

[jittles]

Since it's getting increasingly unacceptable to ask about and disqualify candidates who have criminal records ...

One reason is that having a criminal record is not correlated with poor performance for most jobs. It may be sensible to run a criminal background check if you are hiring a cashier, but not if you are hiring a carpenter or a programmer.

I would say that depends. I would not want to hire a carpenter that has a history of robbing the houses they are working on or a programmer who has a history of putting exploits into his code in order to later hack companies he's work for. But I probably wouldn't care if my programmer got busted for possession of marijuana or something like that.

Rushton is a known and discredited racist

[SuperBanana]

Rushton is a racist - this is both well known and extensively documented by comments he's made publicly and white supremacy publications he's contributed to. His science is beyond junk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The man has been repeatedly and thoroughly discredited scientifically as ignoring evidence that doesn't fit his prejudices, his testing methods as biased against black people, and using non-equivalent groups.

He was president of an institute classified as a hate group. He speaks routinely at eugenics conferences and has published articles in white supremacy magazines and online websites.

It is racist, and has been debunked

[SuperBanana]

> As an example, you say that this study from a Canadian university is racist and has been debunked extensively, which is clearly total bullshit.

The study was published in "Intelligence", which is a journal for the "International Society for Intelligence Research."

A quick google for "International Society for Intelligence Research racist" shows that recipients of it's "lifetime achievement award" and board members are widely criticized as promoting junk science, white supremacy, and furthering nazi concepts on race.

Let's take a look at some examples.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

According to sociocultural anthropologist Francisco Gil-White, in publishing studies financed by the Pioneer Fund, Linda Gottfredson is part of a concerted effort to legitimize racist ideology through pseudo-science, together with an assortment of other people with inadequate or completely missing scientific qualifications for studying human intelligence"

Rushton has been discredited for over thirty years and he's viewed as nothing more than pseudo-science fuel for white supremacists like you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

And his co-author on that paper? An idiot who thinks racists like him are "the next galileos." https://www.google.com/search?...

He's so desperate to spread his bullshit that he paid to have a booklet about his work mailed to professors around the country

Re:In other words. . .

[Triklyn]

the question isn't if you'd be unwilling to hire a programmer with a criminal history, it's if whether or not you'd hire that programmer with a criminal history over a programmer without one right?

question

[Hognoxious]

requests with African-American sounding names were roughly 16 percent less likely to be accepted than their white-sounding counterparts.

Did they do a breakdown of owners by whether their names sounded black or white?

Was it written in the stars?

[lucm]

How do you explain that this "debunking" document you provide has been published 10 years before the study I linked?

Oh I know: precog debunking.

Re: In other words. . .

[DocHoncho]

You don't understand, it's OK when they do it by defintion.

Racism is prejudice plus power. White people have power, therefore by the transitive property of racism all white people are racist. Q.E.D.

Re: In other words. . .

[Opportunist]

Racism is prejudice. Power only dictates what impact that prejudice has. And power is rarely universal and uniform. If you have a racist black boss as a white guy, you can be "privileged white" all you want, you still suffer from racism.

Your statement implies that "all white people have power". Implied is further that no black people have power. And neither statement is universally true.

Re:In other words. . .

[AuMatar]

No, it isn't. THe credit agency managed to convince employers that it made sense. But there's never been any solid evidence that it does. Of course the idea of running credit checks for employment came up around the same time as red lining. So its mainly a dog whistle way to exclude blacks.

Re:In other words. . .

[cayenne8]

Hire someone with kids? You nuts? Every other day that rugrat is sick and your employer is late 'cause they have to drop it off with some daycare, they want to take days off 'cause it screeches in some school show. Not to mention that I cannot relocate them without a hassle. Or have them work late 'cause they got to be home for their dependents...

Well, that's only if the employee is a chick....

If it is a guy, then you are expected to be at work 24/7, and make up for when the ladies have to be off to take care of the kids.

Ok...that may be a bit harsh, they do get off occasionally....

And God forbid if you are a SINGLE, unmarried no-child male. You're at the bottom of the barrel and don't get any of the time off perks the married/children folks do....you're expected to cover for each and every one of them when they have time off for "family" stuff.

Won't work in the South

[WillAffleckUW]

Just saying.

They'll be polite, they'll say it was a mistake, and they'll continue to be racist.

Re: In other words. . .

[yuriklastalov]

I should have been more clear. That's the "Official SJW" definition of Racism and why they feel as though minorities can get away with whatever racist or bigoted shit they want.

The left, in general, seems to think they can win the culture war by simply redefining their way through the English language until the definitions favor them exclusively. My favorite is "White Supremacy", which to most folks means Neo-Nazis, the KKK, or anyone else who advocates for white people being superior in various ways. Not so, the regressive left! A White Supremacist, in SJW parlance, is any member of the majority White population who isn't an SJW. That is, anyone who isn't helping "fix" the problem is a White Supremacist. The beauty comes from the fact that they've redefined a word with an almost exclusively negative connotation, made it somewhat neutral (i.e, being a white supremacist doesn't necessarily mean you want to kill all minorities, just that you're a bigoted racist who hates minorities), and then casually call anyone they disagree with "White Supremacist", knowing full well that they're using a fairly serious insult but also that they can fall back and hide behind their bullshit definition when called on it.

Re:Flip Side

[GuB-42]

Obligatory xkcd : https://xkcd.com/1098/

Re: In other words. . .

[Coren22]

I think, and I could be wrong here, that you might have missed a step in your assertion.

1. Racism is prejudice plus power.
2. White people have power,
3. -missing step of prejudice-

therefore by the transitive property of racism all white people are racist. Q.E.D.

You seem to have missed the fact that not everyone is prejudiced. Also, racism requires no power, which is why "No White Trash Racists" would not be able to be racist according to your formula, as by definition, white trash people have no power.

Re:In other words. . .

[Coren22]

because there's fewer (insert minority group here) degree holders

Unfortunately, in college degrees, it is white males who are the minority, so it is perfectly socially acceptable to disclude them from things.

Social gone too far.

[hackel]

I've never understood why they even have an option to upload profile photos. If you're going to list your property on AirBnB, you shouldn't have the right to deny a request. That should be a legal contract that you are committed to, and if you need to break it, have to pay a cancellation fee of some kind. Really, hosts shouldn't even be able to see the guest's name before it is confirmed. It's just too easy to discriminate for people who want to. At least this is a small move in the right direction.

Re: In other words. . .

[yuriklastalov]

As I said to the other responder, the definition in question isn't mine, nor do I subscribe to the ideology which begat it. The GP was, rightfully IMO, questioning how it could be that minorities who have racist views aren't called on it.

I think a lot of people are blinded by the laudable goals of the Neo-progressives (or alt-left, regressive left, whatever) and let their shitty rhetoric and tactics slide. I personally can't see how you're supposed to "end racism" with more racism. Honestly, I don't know how they think they're going to end racism in the first place, it's basic human nature. It's going to take loads of propaganda and an aggressive authoritarian state to even approximate an end to racism, and even then it'll still be there, lurking in the shadows.

To be completely clear: I'm not arguing that racism is good, only that it is and that it isn't going anywhere. A hard line "all men are sexist", "all whites are racist", "all straight people are homophobes" stance is only going to push away the very people you're trying to convince, and chance are, if they do comply with your demand it's because you threatened, publicly shamed, and intimidated them into doing it, not that you've changed their mind. At that point they probably just hate you and anyone like you, in addition to their taboo views about race/sex/orientation.

Re:In other words. . .

[ShanghaiBill]

it's if whether or not you'd hire that programmer with a criminal history over a programmer without one right?

No, because you are never going to have two identical candidates that only differ in that one aspect. There are always going to be a number of pluses and minuses for each candidate. The data indicates that having a criminal record makes very little difference in job performance, so it would make sense for most employers to avoid the time and hassle of running background checks and instead focus on other issues.

My company stopped running background checks years ago when we kept losing good candidates because of the delay in running the checks. By the time we were ready to make an offer, the candidate had already accepted a job elsewhere. The best candidates are always going to get multiple offers. With our new policy, if a candidate does well in their interview, we make a job offer before they leave the building. Many accept the offer on the spot. Our hiring rate, employee quality, and employee retention have all gone up.

Employees?

[bobmajdakjr]

i thought it was more like uber where normal people were just using their house instead of their car. it sucks that people are being such douchenozzles but its weird that anyone thinks they can tell people what they can do with their house. But i guess if they are considered legit employees something can be done.

Sorry, I was wrong

[glitch!]

I have to eat my words above. I just checked and it was not the guests from France that dinged me. Just to be clear, they were nice guests.

Re:In other words. . .

[Opportunist]

Unfortunately the degrees I'm looking for are in STEM fields.

And no, I refuse to hire someone inferior just 'cause he/she/it/pickafuckinggender happens to belong to some minority!

Re: In other words. . .

[Opportunist]

I don't care for the definition of anything by a cult. According to the Jesus freaks people die and respawn 3 days later.

Re:In other words. . .

[Opportunist]

In the meantime, men don't automatically get to shed this, we even have male maternity leave now. Yes, that's what it is called. Don't ask. It sounds as ridiculous in my language as it does in English.

So you can't rely on it anymore that men don't get to take time off for their kids. Hell, you can't even rely on single men staying single.

If I could, I'd hire gay people. The chance of them getting pregnant and/or having to care for kids to come is slim to nil. Sadly, it is not allowed to ask for the sexual preference of applicants here. Not even if you would use it for "positive prejudice". I wouldn't discriminate against gays. Actually, I would discriminate against hets. I thought that's ok, or did I miss another SJW memo?

Re: In other words. . .

[ArmoredDragon]

I'm fine with people not allowing blacks to stay in their house while offering a commercial short term house / room letting service.

But I don't think society should support their commercial venture if they're going to be racist about it.

The upshot is that you're welcome to be racially discriminatory in who you allow to stay in your property, or to run a commercial short-term letting service, but not both.

Well consider that with the situation of having a roommate live with you, that is essentially a commercial venture because they're helping you pay either your rent or your mortgage, so it's income in a sense, and that's even longer term than the airbnb situation. Now, the law doesn't permit you to post an ad saying "no blacks" or any other protected status (except for sex, of which you're only allowed to restrict it to the same sex as yourself, but in spite of that it's actually quite common that men AND women post ads saying no men in ads for roommates -- so if you're a male, even a white male, you're already at a disadvantage here.)

However in spite of the laws against posting a discriminatory ad, when it comes to accepting who you want to live with you, you are allowed to reject just anybody you want for any reason you want, up to and including the person's race or gender. This actually came down to a supreme court case once (I don't recall the name) where the decision was made that the government can't and shouldn't dictate who you have to i.e. share your kitchen and your bathroom with.

And personally, if I was in the situation where I needed a roommate, my rules would look like this:

Absolutely no males under 40. White females would be ok provided they don't have any hints of narcissism when I talk to them. No black females unless they have a professional career and they're already making >50k/year, or are over 40, or have a military background. No black males unless they are over 40 AND have one of the following: A military background, or a professional career making >50k/year.

Some people might call that racist, but consider this: I can be good friends with anybody described above, and am in many cases, but I just don't want to put up with the kind of party crap they might do during my quiet times.

if my programmer got busted for possession

[frovingslosh]

But I probably wouldn't care if my programmer got busted for possession of marijuana or something like that.

Maybe you've never had the pleasure of working with a bunch of stoners (or even one or two). I have. They are a burden on the other employees, a drain on the company, and in many situations (including programming) can be downright dangerous. I have hired programmers and I would certainly choose a non-stoner over a stoner if other talents were even close, no matter if the stoner had a criminal record or not.

Re: if my programmer got busted for possession

[jittles]

But I probably wouldn't care if my programmer got busted for possession of marijuana or something like that.

Maybe you've never had the pleasure of working with a bunch of stoners (or even one or two). I have. They are a burden on the other employees, a drain on the company, and in many situations (including programming) can be downright dangerous. I have hired programmers and I would certainly choose a non-stoner over a stoner if other talents were even close, no matter if the stoner had a criminal record or not.

The stoners I have worked with have all been pretty hard working and typically only indulge in some weed after hours, and usually only on the weekends.

Re:In other words. . .

[Wycliffe]

Better to give your money to someone else than someone who "dislikes your type of people".

But there is a vocal group of people going out of their way to MAKE people who dislike them take their money even when it's something personal like a wedding. Why would you want someone who hates gays to be your photographer, cake decorator, or officiant? But people are suing for just that. I understand if a core function like a grocery store or restaurant refuses service but I think certain smaller personal activities especially professional creative types should be allowed to choose their clients however they want.

Re: In other words. . .

[cyber-vandal]

Many gay couples have children now. You need to hire internet trolls. No danger of them ever breeding. They don't smell very nice though.

Re: In other words. . .

[Zontar The Mindless]

Don't see the fnord. If you don't see the fnord, it can't eat you, dumbass.

My house != commercial property

[KayakFun]

I had a room in my house listed on AirBnB, but took it off because my privacy is worth more than a few euro.

The first renters were a mother and her student son who were moving the student back home and needed one night sleep in between. They had a well-written profile with a few photos that gave me the idea I could trust them, also including a few good reviews. My house is not set up for commercial renting, it is stocked with food and alcohol that cannot be locked away.

The second renter who applied had an arabic name and no profile at all, also no reviews. While my initial thought was to turn him down, instead I mailed him for more information 'to see if my room would be the best for him'. Turned out he was an arabic man who worked in Europe for a few weeks sent on a business trip by his employer, and had wife and children and was very western-oriented. As I explained him he would not get any rooms without a full profile (and preferably some good reviews as profiles can be made up), so people could familiarize them with him. Trusting him into their house. In the end he did look further for a place closer to tourist attractions.

My point is that if AirBnB starts anonymizing renters to hide the information I need to trust someone into a private house, into my private space, I must conclude there might be something wrong with them. So I stopped renting my room. On my holidays I use AirBnB a lot, but more than 50% of the places are not AirBnB purists but hotels and guesthouses anyway.

Re: In other words. . .

[Opportunist]

Not in my country. Can't adopt, can't have in-vitro, they can marry, though. It's perfect for you as an employer.

Let's see if you can get the message this way

[dbIII]

Americans commit more crime. That's just the reality in which we live.
By statistics you are far more likely to commit a crime than I, while I suppose I'm far more likely to be eaten by a crocodile.

Getting the point yet about groupings often being completely irrelevant?
The way the poor are treated in the USA seems almost designed to encourage crime.
The race metric you are using only looks like it makes sense because of disproportionate poverty by race, and because it reinforces your belief about race.
While it gives you a nice warm fuzzy feeling that your race is the best it's got nothing to do with it.

Re:Let's see if you can get the message this way

[meta-monkey]

You're still making the same correlation vs causation mistake, that poverty causes crime rather than the other way around. We already treat blacks in the US better than any other racial demographic. They get preferential school admissions, preferential hiring, and our police treat them more leniently than other racial groups (a white criminal is more likely to be shot by police than a black criminal because no one riots when you shoot a white dirt bag).

Your fantasies that deep down everyone is the same and the only reason for different outcomes is evil white oppression are just fantasies to justify your leftist politics.

Since they are just fantasies, however, we will continue to get the poor results we do. We already treat blacks better than everyone else, and it's still wihtey's fault they're not succeeding. Next up on the liberal agenda we'll have every white person groveling to every black they see for forgiveness for their evil white privilege. Surely then blacks will stop committing crimes and doing drugs and become doctors and lawyers and engineers.

Re:Let's see if you can get the message this way

[dbIII]

You're still making the same correlation vs causation mistake, that poverty causes crime

Mistake?
You can see it everywhere, white trash or any other ethnic group living right next to much richer people with a lot to steal.
As for your massive strawman construction, how about sticking to the point instead of bringing in irrelevant shit where you have no fucking idea what I think one way or another?

We already treat blacks better than everyone else

And you accused me of having fantasies?


Why are you pushing so fucking hard in denial of reality? Are you working for a political party or something?

Re:Let's see if you can get the message this way

[meta-monkey]

You can see it everywhere, white trash or any other ethnic group living right next to much richer people with a lot to steal.

Gonna need some sources to back up your fantasies. Expensive black neighborhoods have higher crime rates than poor white neighborhoods.

Why are you pushing so fucking hard in denial of reality? Are you working for a political party or something?

Re:Let's see if you can get the message this way

[dbIII]

Gonna need some sources to back up your fantasies

You are the one projecting them on me with your strawman construction so you know far better than I do where they came from.


All I've pointing out is the utterly obvious thing you can see from any source you look at anywhere that poor people as a group commit more crime than groups of people who do not live in poverty. No fantasy there.

Re:Let's see if you can get the message this way

[meta-monkey]

All I've pointing out is the utterly obvious thing you can see from any source you look at anywhere that poor people as a group commit more crime than groups of people who do not live in poverty. No fantasy there.

I agree there's a correlation between crime and poverty. Now let's talk causation. Which causes which?

Re:Let's see if you can get the message this way

[dbIII]

Now we are finally getting away from 19th century white supremecist bullshit! Thank Christ for that.
Causation - lots of stuff and not just the 19th century ideas of things like other races having smaller brains.