- Erica W. posted the video of the southern Airbnb last week.
- She displayed cotton bouquets, cotton branches and cotton wreaths.
An Airbnb listing has apparently been removed after a guest revealed the “really crazy” decor inside.
Erica posted a video of the Southern home she was staying at last week, showing decorations including cotton bouquets, cotton branches, and cotton wreaths hanging on a wall with stuffed monkeys hanging from it.
She wrote that it was “the southern core of Airbnb” in the video which has since been viewed more than 2.2 million times and garnered more than 5,000 comments as viewers expressed exasperation at the racist decor.
“This is not a sequel to Get Out,” one user commented.
An Airbnb guest shared some of the seemingly racist decor in the house she was staying in
The decor is reminiscent of the era of slavery, when millions of enslaved black people were forced to pick cotton on southern plantations.
According to the National Park ServiceIn 1850, about 1.8 million of the country’s 3.2 million slaves grew and picked cotton.
Ten years later, slave labor was producing more than 2 billion pounds of cotton each year.
In Virginia (where Airbnb was apparently located, according to a map depicted inside), 550,000 enslaved black people made up one-third of the state’s population in 1860. according to the Virginia Museum of History and Culture.
Most of the inhabitants of some eastern Virginia counties were even held in slavery, and the state later joined the Confederate States of America in the Civil War.
Erica W., who is on TikTok as @tasteofmelanin, said Airbnb told her the listing had been removed.
Around the same time, many Americans believed in the idea of polygenesis: the separate origin of races, which they believed made whites superior. The Conversation reports.
In their 1854 work Types of Mankind, leading scientists of the day Josiah C. Nott and George R. Gliddon documented what they considered objective racial hierarchies with illustrations comparing blacks to chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans.
Images of monkeys hanging from cotton branches can also be considered racist, as black people have long been compared to apes.
Decorations included stuffed monkeys hanging from cotton branches.
The images date back to the days of slavery, when slaves were forced to pick cotton.
Many TikTok users couldn’t believe Airbnb’s setup.
‘MONKEYS IN COTTON ARE DIABOLICAL,’ one user commented on her video.
Some viewers also urged Erica to report the listing to Airbnb.
“Show up on Airbnb IMMEDIATELY,” one person wrote, while another said she should take pictures and called the decor “really crazy.”
“Cotton decorating is so normalized in the South that it gives me anxiety every time,” one person said.
“Hey! This is crazy,” wrote another.
“This is wicked,” said a third.
In response, Erica said she had reported the ad.
Erica later commented on the video: ‘Update: Airbnb has reached out and removed the listing.’
DailyMail.com has contacted Airbnb for comment.
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