It's because I'm black
Friday, January 1, 2010
Happy New Year! It's finally 2010 . . . a whole new decade starts today. Weird, huh? I'm only 21 but I feel old already. I remember when me and my sister were bringing in 2000, afraid of Y2K. Yeah, we're still living, computers (and the world) are still running. It's funny that people were afraid of all of that chaos that never happened.
I don't mean to start the New Year off by complaining, but do you mind? No? Okay, I didn't think so. Well, Josh and I thought it would be fun to go to Chicago and stay the night there for New Year's eve. I had Josh pick a hotel on Travelocity (reduced price, of course!) and just surprise me. He found a hotel he liked, so we headed down to Chicago. When we walked up to the desk to check in, the people behind the counter were carrying on their own conversations, acting like we weren't there. Well, Josh is patient, so we waited . . . waited . . .. Finally one young guy helped us with his nose turned up the whole time. When we finally got checked in, he didn't even give us the room we reserved via Travelocity, so Josh asked them, "Excuse me, this wasn't the room I reserved. Do you have any rooms available like the one I reserved?" The guy behind the desk replied, "No, sorry. When you use sites like Travelocity, you aren't guaranteed to get what you pay for. And by the way, we are going to charge an additional $70 to the card which will be refunded upon check-out." Not a big deal, I was familiar with that policy. Whatever. When we found our elevator (different ones take you to different floors), everyone in that elevator was with someone that was black. We got up to the room (on the 11th floor out of 47 floors) and Josh got so upset. He was upset for several reasons: 1) we were on the 11th floor (wanted higher level), 2) our view was the beautiful roof of the bottom part of the hotel (couldn't see anything), 3) the room was so small, 4) we probably had the whole floor to ourselves (or so we thought).
Fast forward to about 2a.m.. We hear people coming in from partying being sooo loud so Josh looked through the peephole just being nose-y. Who was out there? Young, college-aged people, mostly black. Okay, I know what you're thinking, "You're just pulling that 'race card.'" No. We aren't. The stunt the guy at the desk pulled was so obvious. Later, after leaving the hotel, Josh checked his debit card transactions. The hotel charged the rate that the room would have been (prior to discounts) on top of what Travelocity charged. I didn't want to mention any prices, but (to make this story even more dramatic, I will) the hotel charged $297 to Josh's card, so he called to see what happened. The lady on the phone said, "I don't know why you were charged that. It should have only been $70." Josh said she was being very polite and sincere. So much for only charging $70. Jerk guy. We came up with only one conclusion: the guy at the front desk that checked us in probably wanted to see if that transaction would have gone through because it probably won't. His card will get declined. This hotel's too expensive for a young, black boy. Well, it went through, jerk. What? We can't afford to pay for a "classy" hotel stay? We must have broken our piggy banks to enjoy a night out on the town?
I cannot state 100% that the guy's intention was to test Josh's card limit, but the way he looked at us, treated us, and gave us a crappy room on a crappy floor with people "like Josh" kind of confirms that. Please don't get me wrong, Josh never uses the excuse, "It's because I'm black." So, when he does say that, I trust that he sees something I didn't. I don't know what it is about people having prejudices or stereotypes about other races, but it is very ignorant. You would not believe how many people turn their noses up at us when we are holding hands, when Josh opens the car door for me (and people say things out loud about how unexpected that was), how people openly discriminate against us, think we can't afford a nice dinner, hotel stay. It drives me crazy. It's interesting though, because before being with Josh, I never knew that side of things. Now, my view of things has been completely remolded because it has been majorly affected by Josh's experiences. The past 4 years has forced me to see (and experience) how minorities are treated. I know what it means for Josh to have frustrations toward different situations or atmospheres. To be quite honest, I don't blame him, or any other minority for that matter, for feeling targeted and discriminated against all the time.
Anyway, we enjoyed our New Year's eve/day regardless of rude people. :-] We are excited (and I'm sure you are, too) to see what's in store for this year. Hopefully this year doesn't go by as slow as 2009 did! Cheers to a New Year! :-]
Posted byAshley C. at 11:55 PM
I seriously want to write a letter to that stupid place.