Drum Group Kicked Out of Motel 6 in Rapid City; Accusation of Racism in Letter to Editor Prompts Action by Hotel's Corporate Headquarters

Summary

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The singers were all visiting outside when two men approached them and told them to go to their rooms. [Gerald Zephier] said, "My parents went to their room. We were standing outside by my truck, six of us, talking. Two guys came up and told us we had to get in the rooms. So, we listened to them, but they had some kind of attitude. I turned to head toward the room, and kinda giggled. The guy said, "It better not be too funny, 'cause I'm serious." I said, "Alright," my brother said, "Alright."

"I got mad and said, 'Okay if you're going to kick my kids out, I just might as well go, too.' So, I was getting up and ready to go. Then, the guy says, "Oh, you don't have to go 'cause you were asleep. One of my boys said, 'Mom, Dad, you guys better stay because you need your rest.' We're in our late 60's, you know. So we decided to stay because we didn't know where we was going to go anyway. The rest of them left and they had to get another room. They found one down the street at the Foothills Motel."

Motel 6 hotels are owned by the Accor Hotel Corporation, an international company with over 4,000 hotels ranging from the budget to the upscale property. According to their Director of Public Relations, Janis Maragakis, Accor Hotels has strict guidelines for "providing consistent customer service across the board, to all of our customers." She also said that Accor offers "Diversity training" on location to all of its hotel chains. "We've got a lot of properties and we have a system in place to deal with these things," and "We are always very conscious about the experience that the guest had..."We're really big on solving the problems. We want all of our guests treated right."

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Extract

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Drum Group Kicked Out of Motel 6 in Rapid City; Accusation of Racism in Letter to Editor Prompts Action by Hotel's Corporate Headquarters

Questionable behavior by Rapid City businesses toward Indian people is not a new issue for the Black Hills. Complaints about racism are so prevalent in the Rapid City area that the United States Commission on Civil Rights has held hearings here, and the Mayor has created an "Undoing Racism Task Force" to address the White-Indian relations issues.

The good news is that these official government efforts to fix a problem are finally acknowledging that there is a problem. Part of the dynamic of racism that has marginalized people of color i...

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