Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/12/28/doubletree-portland-apologizes.html
…
3 Likes
Ah, I see.
“Earl” felt Mr Massey was being ‘uppity’ by not immediately bowing, scraping & kowtowing to his obviously superior authority, and that’s what prompted him to call the police. This isn’t a clear-cut civil rights violation, or anything.
56 Likes
Part of the reason this is so weird and frustrating to me is that there are many good reasons to be in a hotel lobby even if you AREN’T a guest. Reasons I have hung out in hotel lobbies include:
- I was going to a conference at the hotel (but not staying there).
- I was attending a wedding at the hotel.
- I was waiting for a friend who was staying at the hotel.
- I was visiting a restaurant or coffee shop attached to the hotel.
- I was inquiring about hourly conference room rentals and was waiting for the person in charge of that to come out and speak with me.
These are all activities which are not just tolerated by hotels but actively encouraged. Hotels generally have no problems whatsoever with non-guests being in their lobbies. Which, of course, leads back to the obvious conclusion that this was all about what Mr Massey looked like and had nothing to do with whether or not he was a guest.
57 Likes
Has this employee never met a security guard…ever?
35 Likes
none of the statements or explanations actually fix the damn problem now do they?
57 Likes
Nice quote, exactly on point. Somehow I hadn’t ever heard that one.
5 Likes
what I am really curious about is why a security guard, at any level, has the ability to throw out guests without specific approval from the management in the first place? how is that even possible?
he said in the other article the other day that the manager came over to find out what was wrong, why doesn’t management have the exclusive decision in the process?
11 Likes
I’m sure they do, but systemic racism and the all-American deference to authority figures means the manager probably just rubber-stamped the security guard’s initial (racist) read of the situation.
12 Likes
well I am glad he “lawyer’d up” and I am really curious to see if anyone else steps forward with a similar story about the guard - there is just no way this is the first and only time the security guard has done this, even the reaction by employee asked to call 911 seems to imply this has happened before
the question is if management really is naive and didn’t think to question the guard and just went along with it or they’d done this before too
I mean why would you even need someone else to investigate what happened, why would you risk the liability of throwing out a guest without being 100% sure about what happened
8 Likes
The videos of the encounter end with a Portland Police Bureau officer telling Mr. Massey that the security guard is “in control of the property.”
Holy fucksocks! Just let that sink in, how much privilege and capitalist-backed racism puts the reins in the hands of the incompetent.
25 Likes
I am double happy that the photo of Mr. Massey is of him smiling in a suit. Deliberate, no doubt. I am happy.
10 Likes
Mr. Massey also hired one of the more powerful law firms in Portland. I don’t expect this will be the end of it. (Especially since this story has been picked up by news outlets across the planet.)
22 Likes
Good; I hope they go full-on ‘Gloria Allred’ on the Doubletree/Hilton.
24 Likes
The PORTLAND POLICE who came and did not try to listen to the black man…and made him leave his room, and did nothing but act like the gestapo for the hotel–instead of a safeguard to a citizen of the community also needs to be held to account!!!
24 Likes
I know what hotel chain I will never stay at again.
2 Likes
That’s nice that they were finally forced to issue an apology…but did he get a refund?
23 Likes
Thanks for joining to fan the flames but, uh, it won’t get very far.
The hotel is private property, they asked somebody to leave, end of story. Oregon has public accommodation laws.
The cops are not always the bad guys (again) and this is one of those times.
Earl, on the other hand, flame away on that asshole! (And his fine upstanding coworkers.)
(Edited to reflect police responsibility in OR.)
2 Likes
Yeah, there were a bunch of hotel employees at fault here - if they try to scapegoat the security guard, they’re absolving everyone else when they don’t deserve to be.
Ultimately Earl wasn’t the one making the decision - there was the employee who opined that the guard “wouldn’t ask me to call 911 without any cause” and the manager who must have signed off on this, even if the cops did handle it properly (and that’s not established) by simply pointing out they had no say in who got ejected from the hotel.
If you kick someone out of their hotel room at 11pm at night, a refund doesn’t even begin to cover the problems caused…
19 Likes
The hotel is private property, they asked somebody to leave, end of story.
Perhaps. As an establishment offering lodging to the public, I thought they had to comply with the Civil Rights act of 1964. That would mean they’re not able to discriminate on race, among other factors. There are surely things they COULD eject someone for, but I don’t much evidence of it here. I read elsewhere that they’re claiming some kind of “public nuisance” angle here, even while implying nothing got heated until after the guard provoked the situation.
14 Likes
Federal and Oregon state law prohibits discrimination based on race, religion, ethnicity, etc. in providing lodging at publicly available establishments. The hotel had no legal right to kick him out. It was the responsibility of the police to determine that prior to enforcing a tenuous “trespassing” claim.
17 Likes
