A Black woman claims that she was racially profiled by an employee at a hotel in Austin, Texas.
The confrontation was posted in a video by @krackkokanekhronicles on TikTok late last month garnering over a million views. In the video, the Avid Hotel employee approached the woman in the breakfast area and asked if she was a guest. According to its website, Avid offers free breakfast to all of its guests.
“Do I not look like a guest?” the woman asked in the video.
“No, you don’t,” the employee, who appears to be white, responded. “I haven’t seen you.”
The woman, whose name is Martavia, is wearing a black hoodie and sunglasses, asked the employee if she makes the same assumption about other guests staying at the hotel.
“Sometimes,” the employee said.
Before being confronted by the employee, Martavia, was recording herself taking a stroll outside of the hotel before rain started to fall prompting her to go inside. She decided to indulge in some cold breakfast items while the hot breakfast was still being prepared.
Martavia noted in the video that she had booked the room with InterContinental Hotels Group points. According to the woman’s GoFundMe account she had been displaced from her home due to domestic violence issues.
“Well I’m going to sit down and I’m going to see if you’re going to ask everybody if they’re a guest,” the woman responded to the employee
The employee asked the woman her name, but she wouldn’t give it to her. Seconds later, she called the police, telling the dispatcher that Martavia was “causing a scene” and may suffer from mental health issues.
While waiting for officers to arrive, Martavia starting eating a bowl of cereal while the employee continued making phone calls. The employee proceeded to ask the woman over and over if she was guest, but Martavia fended off the question and instead said she would wait for the police to arrive.
“As of right now, I feel racially profiled due to the fact because there were two other gentlemen that were lighter than I and she did not question them at all about their reasoning for being in this area,” Martavia said. “This was discrimination. It’s fine we’re going to wait until the police get here.”
An officer, who was not shown on camera, arrived on the scene and appeared to gather information from the employee. The video cuts to another clip of the woman speaking to the manager named Jose. He told her that the hotel would not extend her stay longer but didn’t give a specific reason.
Martavia filed a complaint with IHG, the hotel company, and was instructed to speak to Jose again. She claimed the manager said the employee questioned her presence because she didn’t recognize her, pointing out that Martavia was wearing a hoodie. Atlanta Black Star reached out to IHG for comment.
“This is the type of atmosphere where you’re going to run into different people, different cultures, different backgrounds so you never know what you’re going to encounter,” she told Jose. “How you judged me coming in does not define who I am as an individual.”
Martavia added: “You can’t walk up to everybody and ask everybody if they have a room here based on what they look like, based [on] someone having a hoodie. I didn’t know I had to dress a certain way or had to look a certain way to come down to breakfast.”
