Black hotel employee’s response to woman who calls him the N-word goes viral: 'There's a Best Western next door'

Hope Schreiber
·Writer
Updated
A black hotel workers filmed himself denying a customer service after she called him a racial slur. (Photo: Twitter)
A black hotel workers filmed himself denying a customer service after she called him a racial slur. (Photo: Twitter)

A black hotel employee filmed himself discussing with a woman why he’s denying her service after the woman called him a "f***ing” N-word on the phone.

Craig Brooks, a 26-year-old guest service employee at a Holiday Inn Express in Austin, Texas, spoke with INSIDER about the incident.

After taking the unnamed woman's credit card information to book a room, she said she would be there within 10 minutes. Brooks responded he would see her then, but didn't hang up the phone right away.

According to Brooks, the woman said "that f***ing [n-word]" while still on the line.

When the woman showed up at the hotel, he calmly explained to her — in a now-viral video, which he filmed on Snapchat and uploaded to Twitter — that she would not be permitted to stay at the hotel.

Hotel employee responds to racism
Hotel employee Craig Brooks responds to racial slur from woman. (Photo: Twitter/Craig Brooks)

"I need to stay here. My mother died," the woman says in the video.

"I understand that, but you called me a f***ing [n-word]," Brooks responded.

The woman said she was sorry several times, to which the employee explained, "You weren't sorry when you said it to me on the phone... It's above me now."

Brooks had already phoned the hotel's management and informed them of the woman's racist remark. He was told that the hotel has a zero-tolerance policy of racism towards employees.

The rest of the woman's family had already booked and checked into rooms at the hotel, but with his employer's permission, he directed the woman to another nearby inn.

"There's a Best Western next door," he explained.

The video, initially shared on Sunday, resulted in both "Best Western" and "It's above me" to trend on Twitter on Monday. Naturally, social media users pulled through with some epic jokes regarding the two phrases.

"This is the first time I can remember I've been called a racial slur," Brooks told INSIDER. "I'm in Austin, and Austin is very liberal so you don't have to deal with stuff like that... it amazes me that people still think like that and it's 2019."

Brooks did not immediately respond to Yahoo Lifestyle’s requests for comment.

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