Quick Thoughts on the Racists Over at Zadig & Voltaire

 

French brand Zadig & Voltaire is opening a hotel in Paris. This is what owner Thierry Gillier had to say about it:

“It will be a slightly private hotel, not open to everybody, with 40 rooms. We are going to select guests. It won't be open to Chinese tourists, for example. There is a lot of demand in Paris — many people are looking for quiet with a certain privacy.”

Perfect. 

This comes a few months after my father and I were denied entry into a lush hotel in Karlovy Vary, a city a few hours outside of Prague. Not swept up in a bus full of people, but just my father and I- stopped outside of the hotel’s entrance by one of the staff, and told to leave.

It was a baffling and surreal moment. I am not one inexperienced in the backlash of racism, but being turned away from an establishment was something I never had, and never thought I would, experience.

Here’s the thing.

It is racist, dehumanizing and backwards to deny access to a certain space because of one’s race. It is offensive and racist to frame and generalize a race of people as being one way or another. It is certainly racist to deny access to a space based off of those sweeping generalizations.

Thierry Gillier is a peg in the grand narrative of those creating the Chinese to be of a certain nature, and casting the Chinese in a specific light. And people (doesn't matter who you are!) do NOT have the authority to shape how another person, much rather an entire race or country, is allowed to be seen or understood.

I am fed up with the casual racism towards the Chinese. It is disgusting how people feel it is okay to say and write off racist sentiments as fact or as some fleeting afterthought.

So much of this stuff happens on a daily basis and it is so ugly and awful and backwards and people need to just stop being so ignorant.