Hilton Harry might get a swift response in Jermaine’s favour.
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Unsurprisingly, this is the top result if you Google “DoubleTree” right now. If you look carefully, buried in the middle of reports on this incident, there’s a Guardian story dated December 25 about DoubleTree providing some rooms to homeless people in the UK. After that story ran, the DoubleTree PR department were probably patting themselves on the back and settling in for a nice relaxing holiday…
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Massey said he was forced to gather his items from his hotel room and leave the property or be arrested by the officers for trespassing. He said he was not issued a refund.
They had him arrested for trespassing even though—by that point—they knew he was a paying guest and was, therefore, not trespassing? How do they imagine his things got in their hotel room?
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Needs a little translating.
“Safety and security of our guests and associates is our top priority at the Doubletree by Hilton Portland”
“Do we have to bother to issue a statement? We do? Okay. You’re stupid and we hold you in contempt. We think if we half-heartedly assure you that we care you’ll believe us unquestioningly. Okay, now throw the full legal name in there to emphasize the soulless corporatehood of our establishment.”
“This unfortunate incident is likely the result of a misunderstanding between our hotel and guest."
“We didn’t do anything wrong. Don’t ask us to elaborate in any way because that would expose our obvious lie. This didn’t happen. This didn’t happen.”
“We are sorry that this matter ended the way it did.”
“But not sorry enough to admit any wrongdoing, punish those responsible, or issue a refund. We’re sorry we got caught.”
"We are place of public accommodation and do not discriminate against any individuals or groups.”
“The thing that happened didn’t happen because we say so. You’re stupid enough to believe whatever we say. When it happens again, it will also not have happened and we will never have to face any consequences. Fuck off.”
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In a follow-up story, several lawyers died from trampling in the rush to take his case.
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Obviously security guard Earl didn’t sleep at a Holiday Inn Express the previous night.
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Meanwhile, on the east coast…
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Such a nasty job of bolting that to the front of the sentence!
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The police may well have been making it up. But anger would have been an entirely normal and natural reaction.
You’re on the phone to your mum, when some jobsworth interrupts to demand your room number. You show him your key card, and indicate you’ll deal with his questions when you’ve finished your phone call. Instead he calls the cops, who tell you that if you don’t vacate the hotel where you’ve paid for a room, they’ll arrest you. Absolute fucking fury would be well within the range of expected and justified responses.
But he’s a POC, so “OMG!! angry black dude!”
ETA: I’ve not read anywhere that he denies losing his temper, but if he does, I believe him over the police.
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Exactly. I don’t necessarily believe the police that he was angry, but he had a goddamn right to be angry.
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Waiting for Earl to get fired, so someone can ask him, “do you still work at DoubleTree?” and he has to answer, “not anymore.”
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The “misunderstanding” was that the guest believed the hotel to be a professional, non-discriminatory business with non-racist management and security personnel.
The bigger misunderstanding is DoubleTree’s obliviousness to the internet shitstorm that’s about to hit them.
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Doubletree refused to boot the (white) guest who sexually assaulted me at their bar because assault is a “police matter,” and they “didn’t want to interfere”.
They protect a white guest who literally commits an act of sexual violence another guest, but boot a black guest for sitting down.
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At the point when the police were called, the only way to de-escalate would have been for the manager to have said, “whoops, we fucked up, I am so sorry!”, and um, Portland OR is a white city that really is not interested in confronting its own racist tendencies, so obviously, it must have been the black man who was the center of the problem.
Unless you’ve been on the receiving end of this sort of reflexive mobbing behavior, it truly is hard to wrap ones mind around it, how can this be possible? Its far easier to rationalize that the victim must have done something wrong to have triggered such an over the top reaction. And thats how most white people live with it now. “Its not a problem for me personally, so its not really a problem”
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Welcome to my “hometown”.
Trust me, there are both bigoted and non-bigoted people there, but this is strangely both outlying and unsurprising. The extremes there have their own streak of idiocy.
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Apparently, CNN picking up the story has finally gotten them to make a second go at an actual apology on Twitter:
(Now to go after them for the crime of not understanding how to thread tweets properly…)
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Doubletree’s PR department is starting to feel the wrath of Saint Babs, methinks.
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I think the police need to be trained to ask 2-3 questions in this sort of situation, and maybe read from a little card something like : “Business owner, it is against statute xyz to discriminate on the basis of race in providing public accommodation. Is this person a paying guest? Why are you asking them to leave? Will you sign this statement affirming that you are not violating this citizen civil rights?” As it is, the police are valuing property rights over civil rights. That needs to change.
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