TikToker Shames Airbnb After Former Slave Cabin Listed For Rent
One man has gone to TikTok to shame an Airbnb listing that was used as slave quarters in the 1830s. Wynton Yates, an entertainment and civil rights attorney, was livid when he called out the listing in Greenville, Mississippi.
“How is this OK in somebody’s mind to rent this out? A place where human beings were kept as slaves,” Yates said in the TikTok video, which has received more than 2 million views.
According to Mic, the now-deleted listing was advertised as “The Panther Burn Cottage @ Belmont Plantation.” The listing shamelessly stated that the cottage served as slave quarters before it was used as a sharecropper cabin and later a medical office.
Airbnb also gave the listing’s owner Superhost status, a designation given to “someone who goes above and beyond in their hosting duties and is a shining example of how a Host should be.”
“What really kills me is the reviews,” Yates said, reading some of the comments people left.
The guests apparently raved about the cabin, calling it “memorable” and saying they enjoyed everything about it.
“We stayed in the cabin and it was historic, but elegant,” one guest wrote.
“What a delightful place to step into history,” another person said. “Southern hospitality to stay for a night or two.”
Yates couldn’t fathom how people have the ability to ignore the atrocious history of the cabin and simply bask in their luxurious shelter, complete with running water, elegant tiles and all the amenities they need.
“The history of slavery in this country is constantly denied and now it’s being mocked by being turned into a luxurious vacation spot,” the lawyer said.
Speaking to Mic, Yates said the people who booked the cabin “don’t care about the true history of that space.”
“They care about the plantation in its visual beauty. … They have the privilege of mentally removing themselves from that history because they are not affected by it in the present day,” he told Mic. “If you were to put any Black American in that space, the emotional reaction would be night and day.”
An Airbnb spokesperson responded to the backlash in an email to Mic.
“We are taking this report seriously and have deactivated all listings associated with this property as we investigate,” the spokesperson said.
The Mississippi listing, however, is one of several problematic U.S. listings advertised on Airbnb. According to Mic, there are also Airbnb listings for what’s termed a “tiny home” on a plantation, a mansion with “guest rooms to the back of the house [that] once served as slave quarters,” a “haunted” former slave cottage, a “suite” where enslaved people lived, and “historically renovated slave quarters” that feature “exposed brick walls.”
