Airbnb is finding out that fixing discrimination is a really long and difficult road.
The home-sharing company has come under fire in the last few weeks over the racism and discrimination against some
of its customers while they used the service. Even a hashtag—#AirbnbWhileBlack—emerged on social media amid the flood of conversations about the topic.
Of course, Airbnb quickly denounced racism in public statements and apologies. During its annual engineering conference
in San Francisco, co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky declared that the company had started a 90-day review of its entire service and that, “We have zero tolerance for any discrimination.” But
Kimberly Bryant, founder of Black Girls Code, an non-profit that organizes a variety of programs to teach coding to girls
of color, thinks there’s more it can do. “I wonder, do you not recognize that some of the issues in the design of the
product, as is, is being driven by the fact that it’s not inclusive design,” she told the executives during a question and answer period after the panel. “Perhaps [it’s] because there’s only 2% black people that work at Airbnb, there’s only 3% of Hispanics
that are part of the Airbnb community and if we go down further into the tech ranks it’s like 1%.
So while I appreciate the redesign efforts, I really would challenge you to look at what are the employee makeups at your
companies and how can you do more to hire engineers, to hire designers that would be able to look at your product from this lens.”…

Chesky also said, “As a founder, I think we were late to this issue. We were so focused
on an issue of trust and keeping people safe, responding to other people’s issues on trust and safety, that we took our eye off the ball.
When we designed the platform, three white guys, there were a lot of things we didn’t think about.”..

A company policy against discrimination didn’t keep an Airbnb host from canceling a gay customer’s reservation, claiming LGBT people are “against humanity” — in a city with a progressive reputation, at that. Buddy Fisher of Houston was using Airbnb to find a place to stay in Austin during the Texas capital’s Pride observance in late August, Houston TV station KHOU reports. He booked a room Wednesday that had an ideal location and great views of the city, and in response to a query about the purpose of his trip, he said he was going to Austin for the Pride festivities. About an hour later, he got a notice that his reservation was canceled, plus this message from his prospective host: “No LGBT people, please. I do not support people who are against humanity. Sorry.”…

“DRIVING while black” is a phrase frequently used in the United States to describe the imagined crime African-American drivers commit when they are pulled over by the police, as happens disproportionately often. Last week a derivative phrase-turned-hashtag took off on Twitter: #AirbnbWhileBlack.

When Ronnia Cherry, 30, and Stefan Grant, 27, rented a house in Atlanta through Airbnb last year, they were caught off guard by police officers at their door, with guns drawn, responding to a neighbor’s report that they were thieves.

After years of watching the supply of affordable housing plummet, evictions and demolitions surge and landlords score quick profits with short-term rentals, Los Angeles officials are striking back.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus on Thursday demanded answers from the home-sharing website Airbnb over allegations that African-American guests face discrimination when trying to rent a room or house through the site.

Rohan Gilkes, Ronnia Cherry and Stefan Grant all experienced discrimination while using Airbnb, so they decided to do something about it. Now two home-share services catering to black travelers, Noirbnb and Noirebnb, are hitting the market.

Airbnb has been hit with yet another accusation of hosts discriminating against guests on its site. In this case, TV writer and producer Shadi Petosky says she was denied housing by a potential host in Minneapolis after she disclosed to the host that she is transgender.

Last year, Shadi Petosky was denied a room listed on Airbnb because she was transgender. After Petosky told the host she was transgender in a message, the host replied to say she would not be able to rent the space because she had a son.