“Which monkey is gonna stay on the couch?” said Asian-American former Airbnb host “Kate” to Kenneth Simpson and his four other Black friends.
Two videos have now gone viral showing Kate telling the men “Get your things and get the f— out of my house.”
Simpson and his companions started packing their things when Kate called them “criminals” and referred to the men as “monkeys.”
This is unacceptable behavior that I had to endure last night. I was kicked out and called racial slurs by my Airbnb host. I am extremely livid. @airbnb needs to fix this! We deserve better! “Which one of the monkeys are going to sleep on the couch?” pic.twitter.com/tJV6Ll4EDh
— M. Gatsby (@_MrMAC) June 1, 2019
The videos, posted to Twitter on Saturday, have combined more than 420,000 views as of early Monday.
“I felt very dehumanized,” Simpson told The Washington Post. “I thought, is this where we are today? We made a point that we’re educated, working professionals. And it doesn’t even matter if you’re an educated person because no one deserves to be called a monkey and be dehumanized for no reason.”
Simpson and his friends met traveling and make it a point to all get together in different places on a regular basis. But their friends trip to New York City turned into a nightmare after Kate kicked them out without provocation.
Her Airbnb listing on the Upper East Side showed signs of problems from the beginning, according to the Washington Post. The listing was advertised as an entire unit but it turned out to be a shared home with Kate and her boyfriend. It was initially okay for the men to bring a dog with a crate but then the hosts balked at the last minute.
Simpson and his friends left the apartment after calling the police and shooting the videos but were not able to find a hotel until around 5 am with an 11 am checkout time. Airbnb ended up connecting them with a listing that canceled at the last minute. Overall, Simpson was not satisfied with how Airbnb handled everything.
“I’m not going to say Airbnb is responsible for this entirely, but I do feel like they need to vet their hosts,” Simpson told The Post. “This isn’t the first racist situation that’s gone public and viral, so they need to figure out and make sure no one else gets treated like we did this weekend.”
Kate’s boyfriend then went to Reddit to defend his girlfriend’s blatant racism. The post has since been deleted, but according to The Post, he excused Kate completely by adding that the guests had called her names before she “unfortunately calls them monkeys.
