I rarely ever post to online forums. On the Airbnb Community Forum, I've posted maybe twice. This last time, I had an unpleasant experience, where a member bullied me. Under the guise of providing an answer to the question I could not answered from googling and contacting Airbnb many times, she sideswipped me, subtly putting me down.
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But today, just to identify a person's nationality, religion, race, etc. is enough to allow some people to jump to a conclusion (and jump on the person, too) if the situation described is one where the speaker is having difficulties. That was my case. What is deemed racist is an opinion, not a fact. Some one has to make a judgment, based on his or her past experiences and ability to reason. Emotional reasoning these days substitutes itself for the latter.
The answers I received to the specific points I was trying to get across remain unanswered. Everyone just chimed in, more or less, what they needed to say about the topic, which made their contributions almost tangential.
I believe that talking about racism and what it means to a person is relevant and NOT off-topic when a charge of racism or discrimination has been formally lodged by one of the participants, surreptiously, against another.
Particularly, when Airbnb, at least ostensibly, is so concerned about standing up against discrimination.
It was unlike anything I have experienced before. I didn't realize this until she had invoked Airbnb's anti-discrimination policy and reported me. As a person who grew up during the Civil Rights movement and has been daily a victim of discrimination far worse than that experienced by African-Americans, despite popular belief, I now am upset.
She was not respectful to me, although she did not overtly say anything negative. But her negativity toward me eventually sunk. I'd have to be in self-denial if it hadn't by now. I think she gets away with it, frequently enough so that no one so far has called her on it. There doesn't seem to be a way to reach anyone at anyone at Airbnb to communicate my concerns about this person and her behavior. I don't think it takes a course in Psychology 101 to discern a discrepancy between her moral stance and what she really is up to. It's almost predatory. Critcizing, judging others for things she herself does is red meat to her.
Unfortunately, the thread has been closed so I cannot really respond. I did not defend myself in the way I would have wanted to. People have different notions of what discrimination means or the level of its severity. I was threatened with being banned from Airbnb if someone else made a complaint.
I was given no warning. Only one Final Warning. I have never received any warnngs of any kind in the past.
I am in a state of disbelief and shock. I have no idea what the credentials the Airbnb staff member who threatened me with being banned. She may have directly experienced racial discrimination or not.
But she obviously sided with the member, an Airbnb supporter (whatever that means).
What I said was either misconstrued or distorted to suit the needs or to fit the closed minds of both the British woman (is it discrimination to say this, associating her a negative generalization of Brits with past imperialism) who complained about me and the Airbnb person who behaved so obdurately and crudely towards me?).
It's one thing to have an anti-discrimination policy. It's quite another to be open to having people discuss what that exactly means, as people DO have different perceptions of what discrimination looks like, despite having the trope/image of a person treating well a White person one way and "dishing it out" to a Black person. There are lots of grays between black and white.
Now that the thread has been closed, I am at a loss at how to obtain justice. In other words, I want to speak up for myself but it's too late. Well, at least, I got this far. Most Asian-Americans, in my experience, don't even get to that point.
Needless to say, I am avoiding this forum now and in the future. It seems to a breeding ground or almost a club where certain individuals get to "enhance their sense of themselves" by subtly criticizing and putting other members down. This, I find, is the unspoken game that is played here. Their intentions, appearances notwitstanding, are far from as pure and benign as they would like themselves to believe.
Everyone needs to take a hard look in the mirror before they start kicking others (or giving them little pin-pricks, as the case may be).
**[Content removed inline with the Community Center Guidelines- Please be respectful in your discussions with other members]
