HotelChatter

Like the professor, we were sitting quietly by ourselves, reading a newspaper. Like the professor, we were minorities - I am a black man and my wife is Asian. Like the professor, the employee who confronted us assumed we were loitering and not guests of the property. And like the professor, we were asked to leave even though we had repeatedly told him we were guests waiting to check into the hotel and that he could verify this with the front desk. This employee was a HOTEL SECURITY GUARD, who never identified himself, who screamed profanities at myself and my wife, and who threatened physical harm to the both of us if we didn't get out immediately. Not once did any of the other hotel employees come to our aide. Finally, after about 10 minutes of the verbal assault, a complete stranger helped us out and called for the hotel GM because he feared the security guard was going to get physical and no one from the hotel was doing a single thing about it.

We've included a copy of the hotel's incident report on this site (here) so your readers can see first-hand the alarming similarity between what happened to us and what happened to Professor Thiong'o. However, it's important to note that the hotel refused to take an official statement from us, and during our initial interview with the head of security, he didn't write down a single word of our account. We kept inquiring as to when our statement would be taken, but JDV just keep putting us off, saying it wasn't "company policy" and that they had all the information they needed. HUH?

Most alarming has been CEO Chip Conley's EXACT response to our incident, offering the same disingenuous sorrow, regret, and apologies he did back in November, when he pledged this would never happen again and would conduct "race & sensitivity training classes" at the hotel to ensure this (as of this writing, his executive assistant said she had no knowledge of these classes even taking place at Cathedral Hill, much less Hotel Vitale). Conley even went so far as to mention that his life partner is "African-American", so he can understand our pain and humiliation. This was probably the greatest slap in the face.

If anyone else has experienced this same treatment, or knows of someone who has, please feel free to contact us. You can reach us via e-mail at stopracialprofiling@yahoo.com.

Thanks so much for your time & consideration. Solomon & Karen.

Related Stories:
· Second JDV Hotel Accused of Racial Profiling [HotelChatter]
· General Manager's Incident Report from Cathedral Hill Hotel [HotelChatter]
· JDV's Official Response to Racial Profiling at Cathedral Hill Hotel [HotelChatter]