Keenan "HIGz" Higgins, Black America Web

Airbnb has grown exponentially since first launching back in the late-2000s as a literal air mattress in the founders’ living room, now operating as a global entity that’s become preferred over hotel stays and the traditional bed and breakfast. Well, for the most part anyway.

The popular lodging service has come under major scrutiny recently after a handful of listings proudly boasted about being built on the grounds of former slave cabins.

“This is not okay,” exclaimed civil rights attorney Wynton Yates, who posted the original video on TikTok (seen above) that shed light on the listings in the first place. He called out a rental advertised as “The Panther Burn Cabin at Belmont Plantation” in Greenville, Mississippi, which aside from on the outside actually looking like an outhouse where slaves were once forced to live in also blatantly stated it in the description. Yates went on to also call out those who left reviews after staying a few nights — most, if not all, white people — and used words like “memorable,” “elegant” and “delightful” to describe the lodging. As Yates put it, “How is this okay in somebody’s mind to rent this out, a place where human beings were kept as slaves?”